I am not exactly sure what you sare saying here. Breaking in a speaker really isn't necessary though. The suspension will be a bit tight on a new speaker but a few minutes of play is enough to loosen it up. You won't hurt anything by not breaking in your speakers.

Thereason break in is recommended is so that you canlearn howyour speaker will behave when you start overpowering it. Speakers don't just blow out of nowhere. It takes lots of abuse to destroy a speaker and there are signs that this abuse is occuring. When reaching your mechanical limits there will be audible signs of stress. When reaching your thermal limits you will smell the voice coil glue melting.Different speakers use different suspensions and different gluesso they will sound differently when reaching their mechanical limits and smell different when reaching their thermal limits. Takingit easyin the beginning will let you learn how the speaker behaves under normal conditions so that once you start stressing it you will be more able to recognize the signs.

 

ok andrew, but yes distortion will destroy a speaker faster than over powering if the distorted signal pushes the speaker beyond its mechanical and thermal limits. so we are both right. As for the break in. As a speaker breaks in to a new inclosure it adjusts itself for proper functioning. Most want 10 hrs of not full power operation, some as high as 20+ that ive seen. Granted, if the speakers are not new, they will break in faster, but longer than a few minutes. Talk to any manufacturer of drivers, they want a break in period for best operation and longevity of the unit.

 

Where did you get that from?


Amp clipping CAUSES distortion which CAUSES heat.


Clipping - Audible distortion that occurs when continuous power-to-peak power capabilities (headroom) are exceeded.

Clipping produces more heat than overpowering ever will. Distortion is DC current coming out of an amp. DC current is BAD for subs.

Distortion cause by amp clipping = end of sub

The speaker cone and coil start to move in a non-linear fashion and since drivers are not designed to move in a non-linear motion, they transfer most of that energy into heat and not into motion. The heat can then burn the coil, cause a nasty impedance rise, andmelt glue.

I though you knew better than that. Do you hang out on termpro.com much?

 

lol sony subs take a pounding that's hilarious thos pos subs blew because you were feeding them 1200 watts from a decent mtx amp when those sony's could maybe handle 200 rms a piece. don't ever buy sony. worst audio equipment in the world.

 

Distortion is not the problem. Overpowering the speaker is. As I have already mentioned a fully clipped signal will be twice the power of its unclipped counterpart. You can run a completely triangle wave or a completely square wave or add as much harmonic distortion as you like to a signal and never hurt your speaker if you do not overpower it in the process. If you take a 500w speaker and feed it a clean 500w signal you are fine. If you take a 500w speaker and you feed it a clipped 500w signal you are effectively doubling the power to 1000w. The 1000w is what kills the speaker not the deformation of the signal.

Speakers do not break in to their enclosure and there is no 10hr of break in. Your information is false. I have talked to manufacturers. Many in fact. From people as small as salesmen and representative to as big as engineer and owner. You may get a rep or a salesman say to confirm what you say but you won't get an engineer to.

You say you have seen a speaker take 10hrs...20hrs to break in. What exactly did you see. What was the before and after. What was your testing equipment.

 

See my previous post. Clipping does not hurt a speaker. Overpowering the speaker by clipping an already powerful signal does. Clipping does not create more heat than overpowering the speaker ever will. Again, a fully clipped signal has the potential to double your power. Take a 500w amp and clip it fully and you get 1000w. Put 1100w of clean power on the speaker and you will create more heat.

Headroom is having more power on tap than your speaker can handle. This means you have the ability to run into overpowering the speaker before clipping the signal. This is desirable because the amplitude of music is dynamic and speakers can handle more than their rated power handling for short periods of time. That is desirable because the bulk of your music is nowhere near peak amplitude and this lets you set your gain higher to bring your average output closer to the 500w power handling of the speaker without clipping the signal when you send it more than 500w.

Distortion is not DC current coming out of an amplifier. Distortion is any deviation from your original signal in the output. Clipping is often referred to as a period of DC current but it really isn't. You are still outputting AC current but there are very short periods where the signal stays constant at the peaks of the amplitude. If you analyze just the peak of the frequency that period is direct current. Step back and look at the actual frequency and it is still alternating current.

If a speaker diaphragm were to start moving in a nonlinear motion it is caused by a failure in the suspension and not from distortion. Linear distortion and non linear distortion are not changes in the plane of the diaphragm. Nonlinear distortion is any change in the frequency response of the output. If a signal should be 50hz but has a harmonic of 100hz along with it its is nonlinear. If that 50hz ends up being played as 51hz that is nonlinear. If the signal should be smooth and it is square that is nonlinear distortion. Linear distortion occurs when you have a shift in phase or an artificial change in amplitude. Phase is pretty simple. If you have any cancellation going on or your stereo image is not perfect you have phase based linear distortion. Most nonaudiophiles with subwoofers have their low frequencies at a higher amplitude(louder) than the rest of the audible bandwidth. This is a form of linear distortion.


Distortion caused by clipping an amplifier != end of sub.

Too much power caused by clipping distortion = end of sub.

 

I dont need to spend money on test equipment to confirm what i hear. Over a 3 wk period to hit the 20 hours the manufacturer demands for proper break-in, you can hear the subs slowly go deeper and deeper as time progresses. As for the manufacterers, they arent gonna tell you, go all out, hit it right out of the box without proper break in. And yes, i have seen realife systems, run both ways. Full power out of the box, which ended in quick demise of the speakers. And the same system, with new woofers to replace the burned ones, broke in properly, still running, and (after break in) run the same as the first, still going strong. Im not going to convince you, being you feel your right and wont back down, thats fine. But i know that in my experience and all the systems ive installed and dealt with, the break in rule rings true. So believe what you want to believe, thats your choice, but my info is from hands on, not out of a book or what someone said to you over the phone. take care. m8

 

You are right you won't convince me. That is because I know the physics behind what is going on and I too have had plenty of experience. The only thing that occurs during break in is the new suspension becomes slightly more flexible. You won't hurt anything by running itwithin its limits and its limits don't change after break in.Xmag remains the same. Xsus remains the same. Thermal power handling remains the same. If anything you will have a slight increase in mechanical power handling on a brand new speaker because the tight suspension will slightly limit your excursion.Once the suspension has softened your thiele/small parameters will change a bit and there will be a slightly audible change in frequency response. That’s it though.

An honest and knowledgeable employee from amanufacturer will confirm this.

If you blew a newspeaker andreplaced it with a broken in speaker and the new speaker survivedsomething changed. Either the previous speaker had a defect, you made a mistake in installing it, or you did notplay the new speakerunder the same operating conditions as the first. It is physically impossible.