# breaking-in speakers from Dr. Decibel



## Newton (Sep 11, 2006)

Interesting! from Celestion sites in FAQ about how to breaking-in speakers. 

HOW DO I BREAK IN MY SPEAKERS?

Important Note! Before breaking it in it's advisable to "warm up" the speaker gently for a few minutes with low-level playing or background hum.
Break in a speaker with a fat, clean tone: turn up the power amp volume to full, and control the level with the preamp gain. Use a level that will be quite loud, but not painful in a normal size room.
Have the bass and mid up full, and the treble at least half. On your guitar, use the middle pick up position (if your guitar has more than one pick up) and play for 10-15 minutes using lots of open chords, and chunky percussive playing. This will get the cone moving, and should excite all the cone modes and get everything to settle in nicely. The speaker will continue to mature over the years, but this will get it 95% of the way to tonal perfection in the shortest time.


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## Southbay Ampworks (Jun 30, 2006)

Heh heh heh...notice that there isn't a time frame told to you? I got that advice 8 years ago from Dr. D in an email as well.

Be prepared to sit there a long time...schedule a vacation around it, perhaps.

I found that setting up 5 CD's in my stereo, bass/mids up, treble almost off, and going for DAYS at a time turned out to work better for me...and even then, the Celestion doping is thick enough that you'll have to do it for, in my tests, a few WEEKS to get them sounding their best.

Over on the TGP forum, a guy there just posted that he had to play his G12H30 Anniversaries for over a year before they started to lose the "ice pick" he claimed they had. Realistically he figured 40-50 hours at high volume, but he had alot of low volume playing going on as well during that time.

If you can get 20 watts going through them, without getting arrested, or your neighbors having you evicted, you can probably get it done sooner than two weeks @ 8 hours per day (about the same as 5 80 minute CD's). I figure your neighbors might be away during the day, but will want you to turn the stereo down at night or on weekends...at least mine do! 

Good luck! :rockon2:


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## superleadfixer (Oct 14, 2006)

+1..............


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## Newton (Sep 11, 2006)

After days of playin 5 CDs while you where out, how was your dog feeling at home?


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## Newton (Sep 11, 2006)

I guess it's another myth busted! None


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## pitchshifter (Feb 5, 2006)

The speaker break in myth is a tricky one for me. I find that a doped speaker can be blamed for the break in debate. Ive had Webers that were doped and undoped and the difference was noticeable and I think it could be perceived as lack of break-in.


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## Southbay Ampworks (Jun 30, 2006)

Newton said:


> After days of playin 5 CDs while you where out, how was your dog feeling at home?


My dog is a Rock 'n Roll animal! He lays in front of my 4x12's when I play at home, so I imagine he was rocking out the whole time.


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## Robboman (Oct 14, 2006)

Southbay Ampworks said:


> Over on the TGP forum, a guy there just posted that he had to play his G12H30 Anniversaries for over a year before they started to lose the "ice pick" he claimed they had. :rockon2:


Man, I wouldn't put up with ice-pick tone for over a year! But I can imagine it taking that long to break in a heavily doped speaker just by playing normally. I mean, when you stare at the cones while playing regular guitar, they hardly seem to move at all. The idea is to get the cones moving in and out for a period of time to loosen them up, right? I'm not guru, but this seems to require bass frequencies, with enough power to move the cone in and out to near it's full range of motion .

I didn't have a sine wave generator, so I used my old keyboard, dialed up a non-decaying organ patch and played the low keys until I could see the cone pumping in a way that looked about right. Then I placed something heavy on the keys so they would sustain forever and left it on for about 24 hrs. Seemed to do the trick.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

Geez I must be old, but I remember when you could just get your new cab, plug it in and play.


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## bolero (Oct 11, 2006)

hehe

:rockon2: :rockon2:


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## AdmiralB (Nov 30, 2006)

I put new speakers in a cab, turn it face-to-face with and flush against an identical cab, then wire them both up to a variac, with one cab wired in opposing polarity.

I turn the variac on to a voltage that represents about 50% of max power for the total load, then walk away for a few hours. Since they're facing each other and in opposing phase, the whole thing is almost inaudible. A few hours of 60Hz will break in anything!


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