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HelloI'm thinking of buying Meadowlark ShearWater speakers.
These speakers have a 200-300 hour breakin period. Based on the 1.5 hour maximum I can normally play them per day I'm looking at 6 months to break them in (way to long for me). However if I could play them continuously they would be broken in after 13 days. But my listening room is used for other things during the day while I am at work and during most of the night playing speakers would probably disturb sleeping children so fast breakin is not an option in my listening room.
I have an idea to break these puppies in quickly, please tell me if this would produce any damage or a less than optimal broken in speaker. I would bring the speakers into a corner in the basement of my house. Then place them facing each other about 4 feet apart. I'd wire then up to an old solid state amp and CD player set to play random and continuously. Then I would put a 2x4 from the top of one speaker to the top of the other and drape old sleeping bags and carpet over the 2x4 to muffle the sound. I'd let them play like this continously for 13 days. I'd check them occasionaly and maybe change the CD title and amplifier volume now and then - whatcha think?
Follow Ups:
I usually do this with my new speakers. Place them on the floor facing each other about 2" apart. Wire one out of phase. Cover with blankets/sleeping bags, etc. Set volume and forget it for a couple of days.I usually use a tuner for the source 'cause I don't want to play my CD player for days continuously. You won't believe how much less volume you get when the signals cancel out.
I've been curious, would playing a mono source cancel out more of the volume since the signal in both speakers is exactly the same, except out of phase (exact opposite)?
Happy Listening,
TIC
Put them really close together, say 2" apart facing each other. Wire one speaker out of phase to keep the ambient SPL down. Use the sleeping bags and play at a moderately high input level. It works just fine.
Have a blast with your new speakers!Graham
"You never really know how fast you're going until you hit the ground"
I don't see why it wouldn't work. Mike D at ACI recommended to me to wire them up out of phase for this type of break in. The fact that they're out of phase with each other will partially cancel the output making them "appear" to put out less volume.
I think speakers should sound great right out of the box. If they don't, I don't think that there is much hope for them.
Cut-Throat
Speakers should sound great right out of the box...when everything is tight and in the same state.The problems usually comes after a few hours playing time, when some components start to relax and others don't.
Given that within speakers, there're moving parts that need time to get used to moving, it stands to reason that the break-in period for a tweeter will be different from that of a mid-range unit and a woofer.
Internal cables and x-overs also need time to burn in and will likewise contribute to an unbalanced sound, once things start to change.
In order to run in a pair of speakers quickly, choose a burn-in CD or CD with a range of different music, throw it in the CDP, set the volume slightly higher than your normal listening level and note the volume setting.
Now move the speakers to face one another about 2 inches apart and reverse the loudspeaker connections to one speaker. Throw a blanket over both speakers, set the CDP to repeat, set the amp to its predetermined volume and hit play.
The most significant changes should take place within the first 100 hours.
nt
nt
Cut-Throat
Greetings Folks,Speakers truly do require a break-in period to reach steady-state performance. This is probably more easily quantifiable than it is for other components in the audio chain.
Speakers break-in principally by the long-term changes induced in the transducers' suspensions caused by repeated mechanical stress. These changes rather loosely obey first-order differential equations, and so the magnitiude of change is roughly exponential with time, i.e, they can be characterized loosely by time constants. One of the reasons why I say "loosely" is that hysteretic artifacts usually play a significant role: a speaker never truly equilibrates to a single steady-state condition; rather, after initial break-in, it continuously changes slowly, although generally minutely, with time and usage.
The components most likely to create long-term changes in speakers are organically-based materials which move as the transducers radiate.
The time constant for equilibration can vary for these materials from a few minutes to several hours.Hope that helps a bit,
MAP
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