I was running a Rockford subwoofer in a WLaurent enclosure and the woofer gave up after a year. I don't recall over-driving it but it just died one day. I have a new subwoofer, I remember hearing something about breaking drivers in. What is this procedure? Thanks.

 

Basically you can run a speaker at as high a volume as you want but the whole idea is that you want to let it cool down for a while before you shut it off

its very difficult to properly break-in a car speaker because we get in and out of them all the time.

With home speakers I simply let them run for 12 hours at low volume after running them a bit hard for the first half hour (high volume)

 

do you only have to do this the first couple of times, or everytime you use them? if you use a subwoofer hard for 30 minutes, how long should you keep it playing low?

also, if there are two subwoofers, would it be the same amount of "cooling time"?

 

Its just a general guideline. My dad used to own a few stereo shops (high end stuff too) back in the early 80's... so I'm going by what he used to believe in..

things could very well be different today.

 

As far as I know the only reason to break in a speaker is to allow it to "age" before taking measurements and designing a box specifically for the driver. New drivers have stiffer suspensions, and as they break in things soften up a little and the T/S parameters change slightly. This is why manufacturer's measure their drivers after a break-in period, so they don't get skewed results.

I see no other reason to do a break-in procedure.

As far as cooling down by running at low power, how can adding heat make it cool down faster? True, it's less heat than you were adding before turning the volume down, but I don't see lower volume making it cool faster.

It's not like a cool-down lap at the track where you have air flow over the brakes, or a cool-down period on a car where there is an active cooling system (radiator and fan) that continues to run after you shut off the engine.

 

Some subwoofers come with a note recommending break-in as playing the speaker at low to moderate volume for 6-8 hours.

I wouldn't say it's absolutely necessary, but it's not a bad idea.

 

Yeah I remember reading something like that from before. Anyway for anyone looking for a deal on an 8" subwoofer, I got a Phoenix Gold Tantrum 8 for $39.95 (close-out price) from sounddomain, and it sounds just fine. What I had in the box was a Rockford HE that failed.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by modifry
As far as I know the only reason to break in a speaker is to allow it to "age" before taking measurements and designing a box specifically for the driver.

 

When the subs are new, the suspension - surrounds and spider - are stiff. I have heard different reccomendations of playing the sub 2-20 hours at low to moderate volume, but I think 6-8 is more than adequate.

The danger is that, because the suspension is stiff to start, it takes alot more amp power to move the cone to produce a certain level of bass. That additional power means more heat, which can burn the voicecoils that move the speaker.

If you try and blast a sub right out of the box, you have a chance of burning the coil with excessive power (or clipping if not enough) trying to get high volume bass out of it. You dont hear much bass, but your amp is really cranking.

I got noticeably better efficiency- more bass at lower volume- after I had played my subs for their first few hours.