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

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

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.

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.

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 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.