Break In Your Speakers...... What CD and how long?

The Magic CD from Reynold is the only CD that I know of which is designed specifically for speaker break-in. The first track goes very low so you need to adjust the volume carefully while watching the woofers move in and out. This is the only CD I use for speaker break-in. I also own the Ayre, Purist, and another that I can't remember the name. Email me if you are unable to find the Reynold CD and I'll try to help you out.

I'm a firm believer that after a 100 hours or so you really need to crank them up for a few hours.

I had a WP8's for over a year then I had a party. I had the volume cranked to hearing damaging levels. (the party was out side and I left the back screen door open so we could hear out side.) So outside the music was clear.

I had SS equipment and work from home so I had the system on for 8+ hours a day.

The next day I sat down for some critical listening and the bass was much more present.

The out-of-phase/in mono/facing each other/closely situated trick works very well. Be certain the system is set to mono(or use track 6 of the following CD), or you're cancelling a smaller percentage of the sound. The Ayre CD, 'Irrational, But Efficacious!' has a "brown noise" track that works very well for break-in of speakers. Brown noise contains energy in the whole audio spectrum, but it's distributed more closely to that of actual music than pink or white noise. (http://www.musicdirect.com/product/73160) This CD also contains pink and white noise tracks. When I burn-in cables, caps, etc: I run all the noise tracks, programmed to repeat, for a few days.

Put on music that you enjoy. Sit in front of the speakers. Listen to the music as long as possible each day.

Enjoy the changes in your speakers as they unfold. It is like a child growing up. You don't love them less for their inability to do certain things when young. But overcoming those inabilities as they change allows you to revel in their later accomplishments.

"Instantaneous" (in our case days) break in robs you of the full emotional circle of owning audio gear.

Matt,

I think there are some break-in CDs available, but I've never used one. I typically just use an up-tempo rock cd.

You can greatly reduce the overall time of break-in if you can play the speakers around the clock for a few days at a time. For me, this typically means using "the ol' out-of-phase trick". Wire just one of the speakers backwards (+ to -, - to +) but leave the other speaker wired correctly. Now face the speakers directly at each other (tweeter to tweeter). Get them as close together as possible without touching. Now when you play music, any like signal sent to both of the speakers will cancel each other out and the overall volume you hear is greatly reduced.

A few extra hints: If you can play a mono signal to both speakers, the amount of cancellation will be much greater. You can cover the speaker pair with blankets, quilts or sleeping bags to further reduce the volume of sound in the room.

Before you do this, make sure you know at what volume position the sound is normally loud using the CD you are going to choose for the break-in. When you perform the break-in using out-o-phase, don't exceed the position on the volume knob that you knew was loud when the speakers were wired normally. This will prevent you from over driving the speakers.

Enjoy,

TIC

I have a cd from Granite Audio that has a full sweep of tones from 20 hz to 20khz. Not sure if it speeds up the burn-in process. I do find that after looping on the slow full range for about an hour my system does sound a little different. I also have the low end test cd too that I loop the slow 20 to 200 hz signal. That helps in blending in a sub if you have one and finding any vibrations in your home.

I found when I got my new Dynaudio C1's they took about 200 - 250 hrs to fully break in. I ran mine 24/7 for about 350 hrs but did not hear any changes after 250 hrs. They did sound great right out of the box but between 50 - 100 hrs all I could ask myself was why did I buy these for so much $$ (head slap). At 100 hrs they sounded very good again then at 200 hrs they were great again. Now at night I did turn the volume much lower and turned them up when I went to work. Now I wasn't happy with the cabinets of the first pair but at 200 hrs they sounded great. The second pair arrived 2 weeks later and that's when I used the Granite audio cd at night and when I wasn't home. The second pair of speakers took about 250 hrs. Dynaudio told me the break-in time was between 200 - 300 hrs. So I don't know what effect the burn-in cd had other than between 100 - 150 hrs they sounded horrible instead of 50 -100 hrs.

Some will say to set the speakers up normally to get to a reasonably loud level then put the speakers face to face as close as you can then reverse the wires on One speaker to put it out of phase. It will sound quieter because they are out of phase but do not put the volume any louder. I read about this after my speakers were broken in so I personally never did try that way.

My advice is to put on your favorite albums and let them play through all day at a reasonable volume. Take some time every now and then to sit down and do some critical listening, looking for a more "full" sound. Most speakers will sound "tight" and "hollow" right out of the box so feed them plenty of hours before judging whether they're worth keeping or sending back.

As far as I know, there's no quick-and-easy way of breaking in speakers. This is why many prefer to invest in used speakers.