Breaking in a speaker cab.

[EtherealWidow]

Alright, honestly this thread has nothing to do with the Mark V. I just chose to put it here because it's a very popular forum and I figured that I would get an answer very quickly to my question. Admins, move this thread if you must. My question is: say that I didn't want to break in my speaker by having the amp on the clean channel, bass up, mids up, master up and playing chunky, open chords. Could I take the output typically used for studio speaker monitors on my sound card (Audio Kontrol 1) and hook it up to an 8 ohm guitar cab, turn the volume up and play some white noise through it maybe with some double bass in the background? I have heard that it is bad to have drum stuff playing through a guitar speaker. Any truth to it? P.S. the speaker I'm using is a Jensen C12K. Thanks for any help.

 

[Jim Ed Love]

Alright, honestly this thread has nothing to do with the Mark V. I just chose to put it here because it's a very popular forum and I figured that I would get an answer very quickly to my question. Admins, move this thread if you must. My question is: say that I didn't want to break in my speaker by having the amp on the clean channel, bass up, mids up, master up and playing chunky, open chords. Could I take the output typically used for studio speaker monitors on my sound card (Audio Kontrol 1) and hook it up to an 8 ohm guitar cab, turn the volume up and play some white noise through it maybe with some double bass in the background? I have heard that it is bad to have drum stuff playing through a guitar speaker. Any truth to it? P.S. the speaker I'm using is a Jensen C12K. Thanks for any help.

Sure you could run white noise or all frequency pink noise to break in your speakers. Just don't turn it too loud and risk damaging your speakers.

 

[phyrexia]

Guitar speakers generally don't like kick drum frequencies.

 

[EtherealWidow]

So I've been told. :/ Guess that means white noise is out of the question since it's all frequencies. Guess I'll have to go the old proven method. Thanks!

 

[Guitar GeeK]

The proper way to get a speaker broken in is playing through the amp, into the speaker you want broken in, and play for around 50 hours. That'll get you the best results.

 

[EtherealWidow]

The proper way to get a speaker broken in is playing through the amp, into the speaker you want broken in, and play for around 50 hours. That'll get you the best results.

But I hear one way to do it quick (and this is from Celestions site) is to have the master, bass, and mids dimed. Control the volume with the gain and play fat, percussive chords. Takes about 10-15 minutes.

 

[kiff]

saw this a while back on celestion's site:

http://professional.celestion.com/guitar/features/drdecibel/index.asp
(select "Breaking-in 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.

 

[EtherealWidow]

Yeah that's where I got the info on how to do it.

 

[Guitar GeeK]

The proper way to get a speaker broken in is playing through the amp, into the speaker you want broken in, and play for around 50 hours. That'll get you the best results.

But I hear one way to do it quick (and this is from Celestions site) is to have the master, bass, and mids dimed. Control the volume with the gain and play fat, percussive chords. Takes about 10-15 minutes.

I didnt know that.

 

[Mark Fore]

Since there is a way to do this fairly quickly, please post your findings and summary of tone changes since the before and after will be fresh in your mind. I would like to know if there is a noticable difference between the two stages.

 

[EtherealWidow]

You know I was actually thinking about doing that. Take a video of before with some tone settings w/ the brand new speaker and then after with the same tone settings. Soon as I get the cab and the head I'll do it.

 

[EtherealWidow]

The proper way to get a speaker broken in is playing through the amp, into the speaker you want broken in, and play for around 50 hours. That'll get you the best results.

But I hear one way to do it quick (and this is from Celestions site) is to have the master, bass, and mids dimed. Control the volume with the gain and play fat, percussive chords. Takes about 10-15 minutes.

I didnt know that.

The more you KNOOWWWWWWW!!!

 

[cho]

Here is a link, which discusses how to break in a speaker using a filament transformer.

http://www.unclespot.com/speakerbreakin.html

You basically run the speaker with an AC voltage at 6 - 12 V, 60Hz, for a period of time. You need a 12V filament transformer, and a Variac, or, if you don't have a variac, you can just use a 6V transformer. I heard a Vintage 30 broken in using this method, and it was the best sounding V30 I have ever heard (I usually don't like the V30's much...)

 

[ryjan]

And knowing is half the battle.