Breaking in a speaker? How?

[strathaze]

Hey all - I hear in various threads, particularly ones discussing new amps, that speakers need to be broken in. I would be interested to know if there is a particular way of doing this, or whether it happens naturally as you play the amp over a period of time, I even read somewhere a bloke played his girlfriends fitty cent cd through his new fender hot rod deluxe for 3 days and that did the job for him. Any thoughts?

 

[wkcchampion]

The Celestion website has the info you're looking for

Link: Celestion | Guitar Loudspeakers

Click on "Breaking in your speaker". An easy procedure
I did many times, painless and effective.

 

[Darrenw5094]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIRffx48KVc]YouTube - Celestion Speaker Break-In[/ame]

 

[big dooley]

how to break speakers?

simple...

put some wall voltage on it......
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7bR2GMLdCI]YouTube - How to blow a subwoofer 4[/ame]

 

[jackassrock]

Just play through it. It can only help the speaker and your chops won't suffer from the practice.

Also, the speaker is gonna work fine right out of the box, breaking it in will change the tonality a little (the original harshness of the high end will fade) but it's not like the speaker is useless until it's broken in. Just use it, you'll be fine.

 

[Darrenw5094]

Damn, i just did that to my new Greenback and didn't realise that was a joke.

Jeeeesssh!!

 

[big dooley]

Damn, i just did that to my new Greenback and didn't realise that was a joke.

Jeeeesssh!!

a joke? you did break them by doing that, right?

 

[Darrenw5094]

a joke? you did break them by doing that, right?

Lol. Funny enough i got a new Greenback in a small Vox cab for buttons and the speaker sounded fine on clean channel, but any overdrive was shocking. Finally yesterday it sounded useable though.

My youtube vid is ok though, isn't it? Bit of a lazy way though.

 

[Sir Don]

It's like running in a new engine, just play through it as normal.

 

[Jonathan Wilder]

Damn, i just did that to my new Greenback and didn't realise that was a joke.

Jeeeesssh!!

Actually, if you had 10 x 16 ohm 30 watters wired in series and assuming US mains voltage (double the series speaker count for 240 mains), plugging them into the wall would break them in at 1/3 power (120VAC / 10 speakers = 12 volts per speaker - 12VAC^2 / 16 ohms = 9 watts per speaker). That would be 10 speakers running at a total of 90 watts output power so I'm sure that would be ungodly loud. But it would be double the volume of just one speaker.

In all actuality, I always use a Variac to break mine in. For a 30 watter I set the Variac up for a 12VAC output and do them one at a time. If you wanted to load them up in the cab and do them all at once, wire them series/parallel and set the Variac for a 24VAC output. This breaks in 30 watters at 9 watts (close to 1/3 power).

 

[MM54]

10 speakers, 90 watts, 60Hz... Yeah, you could probably demolish a building.

 

[MajorNut1967]

YouTube - Celestion Speaker Break-In

this is actually a great way to break in a speaker.
But as a foot note you need to watch is the 6.3 output in watts. Since the speaker there is a G12-M its rated at 25 watt there for you shouldn't push more then about 3 amps through it to be safe, so monitor the current & the voltage and make sure you dint exceed the speakers rating.

Now if you are a math wiz you can do all the math you have all the parameters to calculate that, but its just easier and just as safe to watch the DMM. So be careful!

 

[strathaze]

thanks for all the info guys. I think I'll just play it. Loud. Its a Jensen P12R BTW

 

[mymarshallrocks]

To break-in or not to break-in a speaker, that is the question. What classic guitar recordings were made with new amps with new speakers and what ones were made with old worn-in amps and speakers?? A bit of both I suspect.

 

[strathaze]

To break-in or not to break-in a speaker, that is the question. What classic guitar recordings were made with new amps with new speakers and what ones were made with old worn-in amps and speakers?? A bit of both I suspect.

welcome fellow melbourne marshall person!