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SPEAKERS BURN IN - Chello - 02-28-2025
SPEAKERS BURN IN
For me this is old knowledge, but it may not be so familiar to everyone.
I came across an article from Matrix-Hifi, where they had asked the question:
"What's the significance of run in time or burn in time on a loudspeaker unit ?"
The head R&D engineer for Scan-Speak says this:
"The drive units are not "burned in" when they leave our factory. However, the Thiele/Small parameters for Scan-Speak drivers are always given for units that are burned in - for the simple reason that it makes the designer's job easier, as all speakers will end up being burned in. Speaker units will automatically burn in when they are being used. If you buy a brand new speaker system (which normally is not burned in), complete burn-in will take about a month - depending on how often (and how loud) you listen to music. During burn-in the sound quality should improve.
There is a fast way to do it and the speaker designer should burn in the units (especially the woofers) before tuning the cabinet volume, damping material and port length (vented speaker) and trimming the cross-over network.
All you need is a sine wave generator and a power amplifier. Keep the drive unit in free air. Set the frequency to about 75% of the expected free air resonance frequency of the drive unit and turn up the voltage until the cone reaches full excursion without making mechanical noise. Let it run for 5 minutes and the job is done.
Notice that only Scan-Speak parameters are given for burned in drivers. You can expect the free air resonance frequency to drop about 10% (in some cases even up to 15% - the stiffer the spider, the bigger the change) during break-in. Naturally this affects the Q-values (they go down) and the equivalent volume (Vas goes up), as it is the suspension compliance that increases."
Matrix-Hifi's note:
In about 5 minutes, the cones are burnt in with a signal tone. Using music, in about a month (depending of the frequency and volume we listen music at). At a rate of 3 hours daily, 90 hours would be all what we need to have our speakers burnt in.