Thank God! I’m a professional musician, and for years I have been unable to “hear” the difference with supposedly broken-in speakers. I have ATC SCM25As in my studio and Bowers & Wilkins 805D3s in my stereo rig, and neither pair ever sounded any different after “break-in.” It’s FABULOUS to hear Andrew Jones confirm this! Thanks, Steve!
Wow! Extraordinary and excellent video! Steve, these two videos are priceless for Audiophiles! Definitely settles the breaking argument. You’re the best!
I really like this video and I am happy you had such guru speaking up his mind on this subject. A while ago we had a youtuber trying to call BS on speaker break in and he had really rubbish arguments. Then when some people pushed back on it he turned the comments off claiming they where offensive. All this at the same time when Paul from PS audio was explaining that burn in does matter with Audio gear. I was really interested in part two of this pair of videos because I just experienced this warm up phenomena with a pair of vintage Magnat speakers I bought on EBAY. When I first connected them to the also vintage Luxman amplifier I bought at the same time from Ebay, the combination sounded horrible. But it took about 20 minutes or so playing at normal volumes and the sound really came together.
@@Gandalf721 Or you just run a double blind test which will show that people can't tell a difference between a speaker that's been used for 10 minutes and one used for 1,000 hours.
Always love Andrew Jones interviews. Sadly with time running out he wasnt able to finish the measurements vs perceptions part he was in the midst of talking about. pt3?
Great interview! But that background, wasn't there a badsheet with some pattern at least, like very interesting shirts Steve is wearing usually (even on that plan he dropped the ball a little bit this time:)!?
That's one of my main curiosities I'm still pondering. How does atmospheric environment affect sound, both instruments and playback systems. How does sound very from hot humid new Orleans, to "it's a dry heat" Phoenix, to blustery fridged"snow blowing in your face" Chicago". How does it affect the evolution of music? Can it have an affect on why Chicago Blues sounds the way it does and why Souther Blues has its charms? Can it have an effect on why Kansas City, Detroit, New York, and New Orleans have different takes on Jazz.
To be honest, I was able to blow up several Tannoy tweeters using my NAD 310 back in 1995. Once I got stronger and bigger amplifiers it never happened to me again...
Fabulous steve! Always a treat hearing from Andrew. He has a way of describing technical concepts that make sense, and not put you to sleep. And finds a way to mix in some humor! I know you have done nelson pass in the past and he always deserves more interviews...perhaps he has more info about his upcoming first watt F8 amplifer. And diy builders will finally get to diy build the f7😀 anyways, it would be interesting to maybe hear from Wayne from pass labs and folks from the growing diy audio site. Perhaps you could cover John timmerman that does all the wonderful build guides at diy audio. He is working on a diy guide that should be out shortly for the korg nutube b1 preamp kit. Just shooting out some potential ideas for wonderful content😀
All else being equal, a clipped signal will send more to the tweeters than getting a more powerful amplifier. The more powerful amplifier might send 3dB more to each driver, but the clipped amplifier (3dB over gain) might send an extra 2dB average to the woofer, 4 to the midrange and 6 to the tweeter. This may be within the range of the speaker or outside of it depending on the power handling capabilities of each component. But program content has the same effect - like hardstyle generally works the tweeter more than jazz, and house works the woofer more than piano.
Mr. Jones you should make ELAC horn speaker. I have a home cinema with TAD and fostex horns. Once you hear horn there is no way to go back to conventional speakers. The realism, dynamic, clarity of horn is unmatch. Thanks
I agree but many do not and you could argue that that's what Klipsch is for if that floats your boat. I have the feeling that horn speakers are not the design philosophy of ELAC.
Steve you should interview Sean Casey from Zu Audio. He believes in long burn-in. Also same background as Andrew Jones, studied physics and now designs speakers. His view in speaker burn-in may be interesting.
I saw a guitar speaker at a speaker repair shop that had the voice coil launched with enough force to punch a hole in the grill cloth and leave a cripsy spiral of voice coil wire trailing behind. I never did find out how that happened...
Speakers Age or you wouldn't still have Technicians who repair (replace) the cones (etc.) I've replaced many cones on speakers as a musician pushing them to hard for their age.
Thanks Steve, another excellent vid, appreciate Andrew coming onboard - - very cool to have science explained and applied to the subject -- as for panel speakers, in my own personal, very recent experience - fresh out of the box they sounded like I should return them to my dealer, and yes, I know panels, I still still own a pair of IIIa's that's how far back I go with "that" brand, anyway, they were terrible, even struggled with a solid center image no matter how I placed them, but after about 100 plus to maybe 200 hours the magic emerged - - definitely no placebo effect going on with that experience, talk about anxiety, thought I might have made a big mistake - In my opinion there's no doubt whatsoever that run, break-in or "work" time is beneficial and that most definitely applies to cables too - - - all fine by me, placebo or not, it's just part of the hobby.
It's not a myth, it's just part of the larger picture. Speaker break in is a real thing but so is aural accommodation. I've known more than a few guys who bought speakers that had been taken care but still well used and they swore after "break in" the speakers sounded better. Sorry, once a speaker gets a little time on it, I'll be very generous and say a few weeks at most, you'd be hard pressed to measure any differences much less hear them going forward. At least as it relates to the speakers actual response. What one perceives after that is accommodation at work. I don't know if you watched part one but Andrew reveals what folks who have been building their own speakers for years have know. Which is that the vast majority of any change in a drivers parameters due to use occurs in a very short period of time. A few minutes to a few hours at most. And, honestly, drivers from top companies like Peerless and SB Acoustics don't change much at all from their listed specs. The FS of a woofer seems to change the most but if you're going to be using any driver well over it's Fs then that change doesn't matter much anyway. Not trying to bust your chops here. Just know there is more to the story than the speaker itself breaking in.
The mechanical part yes.. Very quickly..I'd say 40 50 hours tops. To get the qts fs stable.. (we measured it before) I know many people including high end say it doesn't exist..or say take a few weeks tops.. Say it's excuse. Best way is do nothing the system and record using a mic every few weeks. Replay it. Compare.. Simple as that. Up till 6 months.. The focus and saturation is different. And setting up the speakers becomes easier. As it gets clearer it's the crossover parts that need time
But...but...he didn’t answer the question. 🧐 I want to hear that you need X hours of break in for our speakers. He alluded that the woofers take some time, but maybe the mid and tweeters don’t. From my own experience, it took between 10 to 20 hours for the woofers. The mids and highs didn’t seem to change. Of course, this would be speaker dependent. I don’t think there can be a general rule. Perhaps that’s why Andrew skirted the answer.
Loved your interviews of Andrew Jones, Steve. Remember when ferrofluid cooled tweeters were in vogue? Speaker manufacturers went to great lengths extolling the virtues of the magic of this technological advancement in their advertising copy. So, what ever happened to ferrofluid in speaker drivers?
Michael Schroeder I have early Uni-Q KEFs with ferrofluid cooled tweeters, and was going to ask if I can know by the sound when it’s time to “change” or replenish it.
I think the only way to determine if break in makes a difference is to measure the frequency response, transient response, and spectral decay of the individual drivers in a speaker when new and also after maybe a hundred hours of break in. Buy a pair of speakers and do those measurements then break in just one of them then do those measurements again. Compare the before-and-after break in measurements and also the sound of the speakers when sitting side-by-side to try to discern if there is an audible difference and correlate the difference to the measurements differences.
Will you be joining the HiFi Summit? Just a little over a month away. Quite a few companies have already signed up. Let me know if you're intrigued and I'll point the way.
Fantastic revelation that underpowered speakers are not in danger of failing. So what does this say for people pushing monster power amps with 400 watts of power into a 150 watt rated speaker? For years all I ever heard was you cant hurt a speaker with more power and speakers love more power. Thank you Steve and Andrew.
I think what it says is that people doing that shouldn't turn their amps up to max volume. You can't hurt a speaker with AVAILABLE power. You can hurt them with power through the coils. If you play the speakers at reasonable volumes for the intended use case it doesn't matter how much power the amp CAN deliver, only how much it IS delivering.
Simply listening one can hear significant compression onset. By definition this is the point whereby the driver begins down the path of destruction. So upon hearing that thickening, that dullness, back off. Myself, I prefer utilizing loudspeakers that don't encounter their limits before I do. The primary family rig; active 2kw three-way mains, supported by eight sub drivers, (4)18"s, and (4)15"s, I don't often encounter their limits either. As a retired pro-audio professional, audiophile enthusiast, when I want to bring the heat I do. Also it's bullet proof, our kids are college age now but bullet proof unbreakable has it's advantages.
@@FOH3663 the old PA speakers in the living room trick does get you plenty of volume you're right! I only have 2 12" subwoofers but it still gets pretty loud. On max my system is enough to blast a school hall.
I found that with some large woofers and some very old mid ranges, the surounds were pretty stiff. The music sounded tight and compressed. I occasionally take a Q Tip saturated with brake fluid and run it around the cloth surrounds. Sound opens up, relaxes and let's micro detail flow freely. I think it is 10 years of break in delivered in a few minutes.
Could you ask Andrew in future videos why has he never used a compression driver and a horn / waveguide? With today's technology they sound less and less colored. Thanks.
Andrew seems to be making an argument against direct radiator loudspeakers, 2 ways monitors etc since by design they are highly flawed devises easily damaged and near melting at listening volumes. This high temp causes thermal compression and listening fatigue. Also, some of my horn drivers are 60 years old and still close to spec while anything made by ELAC will be binned like an old toaster in a decade or so.
So what he's saying is that a woofer takes a couple of minutes to break in, but as far as midranges and especially tweeters goes burn in is simply a myth?
Andrew Jones has done some fantastic things with the speakers he has designed. I have the utmost respect for him But JBL engineers disagree with your opinion on amplifiers with too little power damaging speakers. JBLTechNoteDangerLowPower
I am sure that over driven solid-state amplifiers can burn out tweeters from the added harmonics of clipping. But in practice I don't think that happens very much in home audio because most amplifiers are plenty powerful these days to avoid the heavy clipping that would cause Tweeter burnout. That could be different in pro audio though because of the high levels used if they don't have enough power and the sound engineers are clueless.
Interesting the argument that clipping at low power does not cause tweeter damage according to Andrew Jones. I think I know where this theory comes from (And note I say theory and not hypothesis or myth) and reason is that I still have the original JBL warning leaflet that came with their tweeters (I bought new in the late 70's as teenage audio hobbyist). They start with: Warning, low power amplifiers. And then go on to tell you how a 20 W amp can blow up a much higher rated tweeter by clipping. This clipping has many harmonic frequencies that will pass the tweeter filter and will put more power on the tweeter then the amp is rated at on the tweeter. So it is JBL in the 70's versus Andrew Jones in 2020 I guess. The jury is out on that one in my opinion.
I would vote JBL 100% That and my personal experience of blowing up a shit load of tweeters on low-powered car amps. My dad also being a JBL pro sound dealer in the 70s that stuff was crazily advanced.
I was interested of buying ELAC B6.2. My rule is if budget is 10. speakers get 6, amp get 3 and accessories get 1.But in order to make the ELACs sing properly I had to spend 3 on the speakers, 6 on the amp and 1 in the accessories .That put me off and went another route.
Summarizing,1) do speakers change as they age? A little, mostly the woofer, and it ages very quickly (an hour or so) and doesn't really change after that. Do tweeters and midrange drivers age and change? Not really 2) can you blow out a tweeter by clipping an under-powered amplifier for the speaker? No, that's an audio myth.
Paul Homchick Actually most tweeters have ferrofluid which dries out in as little as two years - especially with heavy use and heat! There are designs without ferrofluid but they are more expensive to build
I'm afraid you misunderstood him. And this is from a professional perspective. Poorly matched or used low power amps can still damage the tweeters fairly easy, depending on the crossover. Nothing new here. But can't damage the woofers in the same way. Sort of. Mechanical damage in itself is not really common. Not even with a lot of power. Thermal damage is, though. What does it mean? The coil gets cooled as the speaker is driven and has a clean signal to move. It will be OK even with more power, up to a limit obviously. With a lower power amp overdriven into a distorted signal, most of the time that coil will eventually overheat and get damaged, because you push power into it, but not a clean signal to move the coil accordingly and cool it. So, it's not the lower power itself, but a situation when the amp is pushed well beyond its limits and the speaker can't deal with the heat. Thing is, it's not always that obvious and damage happens over a period of time. But that's not really the main problem with low power. It's dynamics. There's no way going around dB and not enough power to sustain the peaks will make music seem loud, but sound crappy. That's why in the professional world it's pretty much always more power made available accordingly to the type of music played.
Funny ... circa '82, I distinctly remember a college prof detailing the "under powered" amp clipping tweeter destroyer phenomenon in an audio physics course. Of course it was the "amp clips, thus sending DC to the coil, coil deflected by DC not moving = not dissipating heat = coil leads open like a fuse...". I never cared for that explanation. Actually, I didn't care for the class. It had it's moments but largely I had already self taught and explored audio to a point well past most all of the course material. At that exact same time, college roomie Jim Panozzo (of the Styx Panozzo family) continued blowing tweeters in his dorm speakers. I remember talking about it with him.
@@wa2368 yes, but mostly not likely. You might be looking at this from a too simple perspective. Many things play a role here. Some amps hide things pretty well until gets too late. Damage happens even little by little over time. Most people can't really discern just how much the sound is affected and just consider it's the loudness they hear. The closer you are to nominal speaker power handling capabilities, the harder it gets to notice, up to a point where it is impossible. This was actually proven that has an almost 100% probability to damage the speakers. And it's because it's actually too little power (with measurements, graphics and so on). This means that for, let's say Debut 6.2, 120W amp in theory has a greater chance to damage the speakers with time, without even knowing, than 180W amp, if pushed. Is too much power a problem? From a certain point, definitely. But rarely is in real life. In fact in pretty much any speaker manual I have ever read for the last 30 years, it was written that too much power rarely will damage the speaker, but less most likely will. I guess the writing itself was misinterpreted. People like to take things only to extremes. Why is extra power recommended anyway? Peaks. Consider that for every 10 dB, you pretty much need 10x the power. And things go up really fast. In a typical room and listening position and placement and so on and so forth, for a typical 87 dB sensitivity loudspeaker, to have no problems with the dynamics at 106 dB peaks, without taking into account absolutely nothing else, you would need 200W. You would need just 20W for 96 dB, in theory (starts to be rather loud in such a room). Obviously, that's not exactly how it works in real life, but it's the theory and the best I can do for general assessment. It's why for some 200W rated speakers, the manufacturer would recommend 3-400W amplifier. 400W would be just 3 dB extra (from 200W in my example), but it's definitely more power and the amp most likely will be able to deliver even more for short term, while also the speakers would be able to withstand a lot more the same way (also remember how coil keeps cooler and some speakers can take about 4x the specified power rating as peak short term input and Elac for their TT180AS I remember saying it was capable of handling ridiculous amounts of extra power due to the way it would keep cool). So, while saying that too much power will damage the speakers is true, it really is a bit harder to reach for most normal people, while overdriven less/insufficient power is rather common. That's why is more common to have heat damage from less power that extra power.
@@wa2368 We might agree to disagree, but you could look at a couple of examples, some fairly old, some fairly new, that pop into my head right now. ADS in the '80s, 910 (maximum input 150W, maximum recommended amplifier 300W), 2030 (maximum input 300W, maximum recommended amplifier 1200W) or Focal 1007 Be (rated 90W, recommended 150W), 1027 Be (rated 200W, recommended 300W), for 1037 they recommended 400W, I don't remember the rated power (maybe 250W, not exactly sure) and so on. Why do you think that anyone would say 400 for 250?Also look at any decent professional equipment recommendations and you usually see them based on a variety of factors, that are at least 1.5 to 2.5x plus. Obviously is not infinite power. Is this the problem? Just how much is too much? Well, depends. I don't really know what's the exact rated power for something like Debut 6.2, I just took their numbers as maximum input is 120W (seems a bit high for this type of speaker, so maybe it's rated at around 70W, but again it's a guess and I don't have the actual specs beyond 120W), but I do know how other Elac drivers were made and some can take a really ridiculous amount of extra power and not get damaged, while they could get damaged the other way around. Why do you think that happens? We could also do the numbers for your gigs. What's the desired dB? The space, typical distance? The speakers and the amps? I might find something surprising for you. Also, cheap power is not necessarily good power, but that's a different subject. 20-25 years ago, I was looking at overheated woofers and fried tweeters and absolutely none had a lot of clean power into it. Not a single one. No one had too powerful amps or quality amps. Was quite a nightmare for warranty and service guys with JBL, Infinity and so on.
Disagree. An Underpowered amp that is clipping will heat up a tweeter and eventually damage it more quickly than a higher power amp with a clean signal! There is a lot more power in a square wave (clipped signal) than normal music (sine wave) - more power means more heat! Ferrofluid in most tweeters can dry out over time and with heavy use (heat) - so these devices definitely change over time. Heat generated while playing loud music causes compression - most consumer designs sound dull when driven hard because transducers that can handle higher power and dissipate better the heat are generally much more expensive (only used in pro applications)! Compression due to hot voice coils happens every time a speaker is played loudly - so most designs change every time they are played! It can take as little as a few seconds to a minute to half an hour to fully heat up a transducer. The steady state heat dissipation depends on mass and tight tolerances of design and voice coil surface area (large voice coils of 3 to 4 inches diameter have a massive advantage over the majority of 1 inch voice coils - they have a much greater surface area to remove heat) Heat build up causes distortion and a loss of efficiency - the tendency is to increase volume to adjust for the compression and this only causes more heat. Most DJ’s are very careful to monitor the clipping lights on their speakers - constant clipping usually leads to dull sound and rapid aging of components in power amplifiers
if a 25w amp kills a driver/s in a fairly benign 8 ohm 50w/continuous/ handling speaker ,, how did it die ? it cant be too loud as the speaker still has power handling margin . i would love for Andrew to elaborate on this a touch more if poss as i am of the belief that the damage occurs due to the amp running out of clean power and dumping nonlinear garbage into the voice coils which can be seen when a blown driver is dissected postmortem , in my experience the coil damage looks different on the under powered damage compared to a damaged coil that saw a purely over powered amp .
Under the right circumstances, a coil that can't move enough to cool itself, will overheat and get damaged if you push hard an amp unable to provide a clean signal. This is a form of thermal damage that can actually happen and happens more than the other way around. People rarely have huge amounts of power anyway.
Interesting thinking more about this. How can the "non-linear garbage" exceed in a meaningful way the output capability of the amplifier eased up into clipping during dubstep playback? The amplifier only possesses so much swing, ... backed by so much current, ... supplied by so much kva bolstered by so much caps.
Some amplifiers do weird things when they are over driven..... The output stages can start drifting and have a DC offset. This constant DC current flowing through the woofer coils heats them up, with no time between transients to cool down. Remember.... a 50w amp CAN PUT OUT MORE than 50 watts!!! It may be rated at 50w at 0.1% distortion, but keep turning it up, and it will put out more and more power, with more and more distortion, up to the current limits of the power supply. At some point, you'll either blow a fuse, thermally shutdown the amp, or fry your voice coils.
@@TheMirolab Interesting Not rated output, I'm referring to outright output capability. The DC offset affecting the LF driver I get that too... I was referring to tweeter damage from clipping nonlinearities. I don't repair amplifiers, but I've seen amplifier distortion curves, once they hit clipping, their x axis representing power, essentially ceases going horizontal, instead goes vertical (distortion). Unlike; "keep turning it up and it'll output more and more power until it reaches the current limits of the power supply" If they behave like that I wasn't aware. I thought voltage swing limitations prevented more current being needed. If the load remains the same, and voltage swing can't increase, then power supply current won't increase either, right? Thanks, trying to understand this behavior.
I thought speaker burn-in was BS until I recieved my KEF LS50Metas, hooked them up to my Cambridge Audio int. amp and turned it on. It sounded like a single decent quality bluetooth speaker, no exaggeration. But 20-30 hours later I started hearing the speakers as they are supposed to sound - great! It's for real.
What kinda debunks the break in BS for me is..... 99% of the time everyone says how much better audio gear is after it breaks in. Wheres all the gear that sounds worse? Its Its nearly impossible to have this much scientific bias. I do beleave a woofer can become more compliant over time because of excursion causing its mechanical Q to lower and changing its musical characteristics. But it shouldn't cause a dramatic change if everything was engineered well. Look into human hearing its more likely to
I have three questions: 1. What were you smoking just before turning the camera on? 2. Would you like a cheeseburger and a Snickers Bar? 3. Who irons (doesn't iron) your bedsheets?
Audiophil but terrible sound quality in your streams... glad you dont need to listen to yourself, right? :D My phone line in the 70s had better quality.
Thanks for a good interview. But - Ads that interrupt your videos are insulting. Must we endure content that seems to be aimed at people who think we should drink household cleaners to fight covid19?
Whoa, whoa, you cut him short just as he was touching on a very interesting topic of where subjectivity/objectivity meet (or not!)
So great to hear the experts dispel hi-if myths. Thank you so much Steve and Andrew!
Steve you have a very nice collection of videos and... shirts. Congratulations from Portugal.
I guess I will stop burning in my new Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2 speakers. They sounded good right out of the box anyways.
This is why I have thermometers attached to the front of my speakers.
Thank God! I’m a professional musician, and for years I have been unable to “hear” the difference with supposedly broken-in speakers. I have ATC SCM25As in my studio and Bowers & Wilkins 805D3s in my stereo rig, and neither pair ever sounded any different after “break-in.” It’s FABULOUS to hear Andrew Jones confirm this! Thanks, Steve!
Perhaps higher end pieces such as those outputted in small quantities are ran in prior to shipment.
Certainly think the ATC would be.
Tin ears!
Thumbs up from me Steve! I always used to think clipping damaged tweeters too, so I really learnt something here.
Wow! Extraordinary and excellent video! Steve, these two videos are priceless for Audiophiles! Definitely settles the breaking argument. You’re the best!
Also settles the lower powered amps argument. Lol
Love your work Steve! Love and respect from Lisbon-Portugal !
Thanks
I really like this video and I am happy you had such guru speaking up his mind on this subject. A while ago we had a youtuber trying to call BS on speaker break in and he had really rubbish arguments. Then when some people pushed back on it he turned the comments off claiming they where offensive. All this at the same time when Paul from PS audio was explaining that burn in does matter with Audio gear.
I was really interested in part two of this pair of videos because I just experienced this warm up phenomena with a pair of vintage Magnat speakers I bought on EBAY. When I first connected them to the also vintage Luxman amplifier I bought at the same time from Ebay, the combination sounded horrible. But it took about 20 minutes or so playing at normal volumes and the sound really came together.
Great interview. Thank-you Steve and Andrew. Learning news things everyday = 😲
Steve this is so awesome having Andrew Jones: maybe this video will settle the speaker breaking in disagreements
@@Gandalf721 Or you just run a double blind test which will show that people can't tell a difference between a speaker that's been used for 10 minutes and one used for 1,000 hours.
Wonderful bloke that Andrew would love to see him at a show down under one day, In fact it would be awesome for you to come down one year too Steve.
We shared both parts on the TRUTH in Audio Facebook group. Great stuff, Steve!
Thanks!
Jones is a great guy (so is Steve). Miss the days of going to Axpona and being able to bump into them...
Merlin!!
Very nice interview!
This educational content is great!
Keep it up!
Big in “ no big deal “ is relative:)
I never really believed in break in ... till my Focals came along and it was all in the bass
Always love Andrew Jones interviews. Sadly with time running out he wasnt able to finish the measurements vs perceptions part he was in the midst of talking about. pt3?
That could have been a deliberate change of subject.
The white sheet backdrop was a nice touch
such a pleasure to listen to Andrew
Great interview!
But that background, wasn't there a badsheet with some pattern at least, like very interesting shirts Steve is wearing usually (even on that plan he dropped the ball a little bit this time:)!?
That's one of my main curiosities I'm still pondering. How does atmospheric environment affect sound, both instruments and playback systems. How does sound very from hot humid new Orleans, to "it's a dry heat" Phoenix, to blustery fridged"snow blowing in your face" Chicago". How does it affect the evolution of music? Can it have an affect on why Chicago Blues sounds the way it does and why Souther Blues has its charms? Can it have an effect on why Kansas City, Detroit, New York, and New Orleans have different takes on Jazz.
To be honest, I was able to blow up several Tannoy tweeters using my NAD 310 back in 1995. Once I got stronger and bigger amplifiers it never happened to me again...
Fabulous steve! Always a treat hearing from Andrew. He has a way of describing technical concepts that make sense, and not put you to sleep. And finds a way to mix in some humor! I know you have done nelson pass in the past and he always deserves more interviews...perhaps he has more info about his upcoming first watt F8 amplifer. And diy builders will finally get to diy build the f7😀 anyways, it would be interesting to maybe hear from Wayne from pass labs and folks from the growing diy audio site. Perhaps you could cover John timmerman that does all the wonderful build guides at diy audio. He is working on a diy guide that should be out shortly for the korg nutube b1 preamp kit. Just shooting out some potential ideas for wonderful content😀
Love it, Get Earl Geddes on the show!
What I'm curious about is "burn in" as regards to crossover components.
What a neat guy 😊👍
Steve do you have more cd or shirts in your house and they are never dull.
All else being equal, a clipped signal will send more to the tweeters than getting a more powerful amplifier. The more powerful amplifier might send 3dB more to each driver, but the clipped amplifier (3dB over gain) might send an extra 2dB average to the woofer, 4 to the midrange and 6 to the tweeter. This may be within the range of the speaker or outside of it depending on the power handling capabilities of each component. But program content has the same effect - like hardstyle generally works the tweeter more than jazz, and house works the woofer more than piano.
Mr. Jones you should make ELAC horn speaker. I have a home cinema with TAD and fostex horns. Once you hear horn there is no way to go back to conventional speakers. The realism, dynamic, clarity of horn is unmatch. Thanks
I agree but many do not and you could argue that that's what Klipsch is for if that floats your boat. I have the feeling that horn speakers are not the design philosophy of ELAC.
Andrew talked mostly about temperature changes and burn out issues and didn't really answer the question.
....and than there is capacitor forming / break in , making huge difference once again.
Told ya.
Steve, you should get a ring light and a decent backdrop.
Steve get a few old shorts that were headed for Goodwill and make a psychedelic backdrop
Steve you should interview Sean Casey from Zu Audio. He believes in long burn-in. Also same background as Andrew Jones, studied physics and now designs speakers. His view in speaker burn-in may be interesting.
He has an interview with him in the archives
I believe Steve has interviewed Zu's Casey multiple times.
Was Sean Casey's GPA less than 2.0 and did he drop out?
I saw a guitar speaker at a speaker repair shop that had the voice coil launched with enough force to punch a hole in the grill cloth and leave a cripsy spiral of voice coil wire trailing behind. I never did find out how that happened...
Overdrive pedal into a Powersoft K20? That should give it the Back To The Future treatment.
Speakers Age or you wouldn't still have Technicians who repair (replace) the cones (etc.)
I've replaced many cones on speakers as a musician pushing them to hard for their age.
Trade shows will come back, they must especially for the audio industry! It’s not something that can easily be done virtually....
Thanks Steve, another excellent vid, appreciate Andrew coming onboard - - very cool to have science explained and applied to the subject -- as for panel speakers, in my own personal, very recent experience - fresh out of the box they sounded like I should return them to my dealer, and yes, I know panels, I still still own a pair of IIIa's that's how far back I go with "that" brand, anyway, they were terrible, even struggled with a solid center image no matter how I placed them, but after about 100 plus to maybe 200 hours the magic emerged - - definitely no placebo effect going on with that experience, talk about anxiety, thought I might have made a big mistake - In my opinion there's no doubt whatsoever that run, break-in or "work" time is beneficial and that most definitely applies to cables too - - - all fine by me, placebo or not, it's just part of the hobby.
Finally.. Myth busted. "it's your ears get broken in bs " Thanks Steve!
It's not a myth, it's just part of the larger picture. Speaker break in is a real thing but so is aural accommodation. I've known more than a few guys who bought speakers that had been taken care but still well used and they swore after "break in" the speakers sounded better. Sorry, once a speaker gets a little time on it, I'll be very generous and say a few weeks at most, you'd be hard pressed to measure any differences much less hear them going forward. At least as it relates to the speakers actual response. What one perceives after that is accommodation at work. I don't know if you watched part one but Andrew reveals what folks who have been building their own speakers for years have know. Which is that the vast majority of any change in a drivers parameters due to use occurs in a very short period of time. A few minutes to a few hours at most. And, honestly, drivers from top companies like Peerless and SB Acoustics don't change much at all from their listed specs. The FS of a woofer seems to change the most but if you're going to be using any driver well over it's Fs then that change doesn't matter much anyway. Not trying to bust your chops here. Just know there is more to the story than the speaker itself breaking in.
The mechanical part yes.. Very quickly..I'd say 40 50 hours tops. To get the qts fs stable.. (we measured it before)
I know many people including high end say it doesn't exist..or say take a few weeks tops.. Say it's excuse. Best way is do nothing the system and record using a mic every few weeks. Replay it. Compare.. Simple as that. Up till 6 months.. The focus and saturation is different. And setting up the speakers becomes easier. As it gets clearer it's the crossover parts that need time
So great to see so many myths debunked! I always said less power to a driver can’t be worse then too much!?! I was right.
But...but...he didn’t answer the question. 🧐 I want to hear that you need X hours of break in for our speakers. He alluded that the woofers take some time, but maybe the mid and tweeters don’t. From my own experience, it took between 10 to 20 hours for the woofers. The mids and highs didn’t seem to change. Of course, this would be speaker dependent. I don’t think there can be a general rule. Perhaps that’s why Andrew skirted the answer.
Loved your interviews of Andrew Jones, Steve. Remember when ferrofluid cooled tweeters were in vogue? Speaker manufacturers went to great lengths extolling the virtues of the magic of this technological advancement in their advertising copy. So, what ever happened to ferrofluid in speaker drivers?
Michael Schroeder I have early Uni-Q KEFs with ferrofluid cooled tweeters, and was going to ask if I can know by the sound when it’s time to “change” or replenish it.
A good question. As I'm sure you know, ferrofluid doesn't seem to age well.
It was replaced by snake oil.
I still managed to blow ff cooled tweeters with 30w amp
I think the only way to determine if break in makes a difference is to measure the frequency response, transient response, and spectral decay of the individual drivers in a speaker when new and also after maybe a hundred hours of break in. Buy a pair of speakers and do those measurements then break in just one of them then do those measurements again. Compare the before-and-after break in measurements and also the sound of the speakers when sitting side-by-side to try to discern if there is an audible difference and correlate the difference to the measurements differences.
If you believe the sound changed, then it did.
Will you be joining the HiFi Summit? Just a little over a month away. Quite a few companies have already signed up. Let me know if you're intrigued and I'll point the way.
Fantastic revelation that underpowered speakers are not in danger of failing. So what does this say for people pushing monster power amps with 400 watts of power into a 150 watt rated speaker? For years all I ever heard was you cant hurt a speaker with more power and speakers love more power. Thank you Steve and Andrew.
I think what it says is that people doing that shouldn't turn their amps up to max volume. You can't hurt a speaker with AVAILABLE power. You can hurt them with power through the coils. If you play the speakers at reasonable volumes for the intended use case it doesn't matter how much power the amp CAN deliver, only how much it IS delivering.
Simply listening one can hear significant compression onset. By definition this is the point whereby the driver begins down the path of destruction.
So upon hearing that thickening, that dullness, back off.
Myself, I prefer utilizing loudspeakers that don't encounter their limits before I do. The primary family rig; active 2kw three-way mains, supported by eight sub drivers, (4)18"s, and (4)15"s, I don't often encounter their limits either.
As a retired pro-audio professional, audiophile enthusiast, when I want to bring the heat I do.
Also it's bullet proof, our kids are college age now but bullet proof unbreakable has it's advantages.
@@FOH3663 the old PA speakers in the living room trick does get you plenty of volume you're right! I only have 2 12" subwoofers but it still gets pretty loud. On max my system is enough to blast a school hall.
@@TimpBizkit
Nice!
I found that with some large woofers and some very old mid ranges, the surounds were pretty stiff. The music sounded tight and compressed.
I occasionally take a Q Tip saturated with brake fluid and run it around the cloth surrounds. Sound opens up, relaxes and let's micro detail flow freely.
I think it is 10 years of break in delivered in a few minutes.
Could you ask Andrew in future videos why has he never used a compression driver and a horn / waveguide? With today's technology they sound less and less colored. Thanks.
Andrew seems to be making an argument against direct radiator loudspeakers, 2 ways monitors etc since by design they are highly flawed devises easily damaged and near melting at listening volumes. This high temp causes thermal compression and listening fatigue. Also, some of my horn drivers are 60 years old and still close to spec while anything made by ELAC will be binned like an old toaster in a decade or so.
So what he's saying is that a woofer takes a couple of minutes to break in, but as far as midranges and especially tweeters goes burn in is simply a myth?
Andrew Jones has done some fantastic things with the speakers he has designed. I have the utmost respect for him But JBL engineers disagree with your opinion on amplifiers with too little power damaging speakers. JBLTechNoteDangerLowPower
I am sure that over driven solid-state amplifiers can burn out tweeters from the added harmonics of clipping. But in practice I don't think that happens very much in home audio because most amplifiers are plenty powerful these days to avoid the heavy clipping that would cause Tweeter burnout. That could be different in pro audio though because of the high levels used if they don't have enough power and the sound engineers are clueless.
Interesting the argument that clipping at low power does not cause tweeter damage according to Andrew Jones.
I think I know where this theory comes from (And note I say theory and not hypothesis or myth) and reason is that I still have the original JBL warning leaflet that came with their tweeters (I bought new in the late 70's as teenage audio hobbyist). They start with: Warning, low power amplifiers. And then go on to tell you how a 20 W amp can blow up a much higher rated tweeter by clipping. This clipping has many harmonic frequencies that will pass the tweeter filter and will put more power on the tweeter then the amp is rated at on the tweeter.
So it is JBL in the 70's versus Andrew Jones in 2020 I guess. The jury is out on that one in my opinion.
So you're saying JBL +40yrs ago vs. Andrew Jones today is a push?
A 2005 Jaycar electronics mag featured little amps big speakers potential problem article about clipping
I would vote JBL 100% That and my personal experience of blowing up a shit load of tweeters on low-powered car amps. My dad also being a JBL pro sound dealer in the 70s that stuff was crazily advanced.
I was interested of buying ELAC B6.2. My rule is if budget is 10. speakers get 6, amp get 3 and accessories get 1.But in order to make the ELACs sing properly I had to spend 3 on the speakers, 6 on the amp and 1 in the accessories .That put me off and went another route.
what did you wind up getting?
@@darrellgorsuch5599 FOCAL chorus 706
After 2000 hours burn in, the SOUNDSTAGE starts to expand, as your bank account dwindles. Hee hee hee, ha ha.
Andrew's comments make me distrustful of high-end box speakers with beryllium drivers.
Summarizing,1) do speakers change as they age? A little, mostly the woofer, and it ages very quickly (an hour or so) and doesn't really change after that. Do tweeters and midrange drivers age and change? Not really 2) can you blow out a tweeter by clipping an under-powered amplifier for the speaker? No, that's an audio myth.
Paul Homchick Actually most tweeters have ferrofluid which dries out in as little as two years - especially with heavy use and heat! There are designs without ferrofluid but they are more expensive to build
Jeremy Hughes well, that would be breaking down, not breaking in.
Speaker break in, tube burn in...its all in your head.
Blowing race car engine due to driving too slow is very rare. Lol
If any audiophool clown brings up the low powered amp argument after this....i swear to God....
I'm afraid you misunderstood him. And this is from a professional perspective. Poorly matched or used low power amps can still damage the tweeters fairly easy, depending on the crossover. Nothing new here.
But can't damage the woofers in the same way. Sort of. Mechanical damage in itself is not really common. Not even with a lot of power. Thermal damage is, though. What does it mean? The coil gets cooled as the speaker is driven and has a clean signal to move. It will be OK even with more power, up to a limit obviously.
With a lower power amp overdriven into a distorted signal, most of the time that coil will eventually overheat and get damaged, because you push power into it, but not a clean signal to move the coil accordingly and cool it. So, it's not the lower power itself, but a situation when the amp is pushed well beyond its limits and the speaker can't deal with the heat. Thing is, it's not always that obvious and damage happens over a period of time.
But that's not really the main problem with low power. It's dynamics. There's no way going around dB and not enough power to sustain the peaks will make music seem loud, but sound crappy.
That's why in the professional world it's pretty much always more power made available accordingly to the type of music played.
Funny ... circa '82, I distinctly remember a college prof detailing the "under powered" amp clipping tweeter destroyer phenomenon in an audio physics course.
Of course it was the "amp clips, thus sending DC to the coil, coil deflected by DC not moving = not dissipating heat = coil leads open like a fuse...".
I never cared for that explanation.
Actually, I didn't care for the class. It had it's moments but largely I had already self taught and explored audio to a point well past most all of the course material.
At that exact same time, college roomie Jim Panozzo (of the Styx Panozzo family) continued blowing tweeters in his dorm speakers. I remember talking about it with him.
@@wa2368 yes, but mostly not likely. You might be looking at this from a too simple perspective. Many things play a role here.
Some amps hide things pretty well until gets too late. Damage happens even little by little over time.
Most people can't really discern just how much the sound is affected and just consider it's the loudness they hear.
The closer you are to nominal speaker power handling capabilities, the harder it gets to notice, up to a point where it is impossible. This was actually proven that has an almost 100% probability to damage the speakers. And it's because it's actually too little power (with measurements, graphics and so on). This means that for, let's say Debut 6.2, 120W amp in theory has a greater chance to damage the speakers with time, without even knowing, than 180W amp, if pushed.
Is too much power a problem? From a certain point, definitely. But rarely is in real life. In fact in pretty much any speaker manual I have ever read for the last 30 years, it was written that too much power rarely will damage the speaker, but less most likely will. I guess the writing itself was misinterpreted. People like to take things only to extremes.
Why is extra power recommended anyway? Peaks. Consider that for every 10 dB, you pretty much need 10x the power. And things go up really fast. In a typical room and listening position and placement and so on and so forth, for a typical 87 dB sensitivity loudspeaker, to have no problems with the dynamics at 106 dB peaks, without taking into account absolutely nothing else, you would need 200W. You would need just 20W for 96 dB, in theory (starts to be rather loud in such a room). Obviously, that's not exactly how it works in real life, but it's the theory and the best I can do for general assessment. It's why for some 200W rated speakers, the manufacturer would recommend 3-400W amplifier. 400W would be just 3 dB extra (from 200W in my example), but it's definitely more power and the amp most likely will be able to deliver even more for short term, while also the speakers would be able to withstand a lot more the same way (also remember how coil keeps cooler and some speakers can take about 4x the specified power rating as peak short term input and Elac for their TT180AS I remember saying it was capable of handling ridiculous amounts of extra power due to the way it would keep cool).
So, while saying that too much power will damage the speakers is true, it really is a bit harder to reach for most normal people, while overdriven less/insufficient power is rather common. That's why is more common to have heat damage from less power that extra power.
You mean like the engineers at JBL? Among others. See Danger:Low power
@@wa2368 We might agree to disagree, but you could look at a couple of examples, some fairly old, some fairly new, that pop into my head right now. ADS in the '80s, 910 (maximum input 150W, maximum recommended amplifier 300W), 2030 (maximum input 300W, maximum recommended amplifier 1200W) or Focal 1007 Be (rated 90W, recommended 150W), 1027 Be (rated 200W, recommended 300W), for 1037 they recommended 400W, I don't remember the rated power (maybe 250W, not exactly sure) and so on. Why do you think that anyone would say 400 for 250?Also look at any decent professional equipment recommendations and you usually see them based on a variety of factors, that are at least 1.5 to 2.5x plus. Obviously is not infinite power. Is this the problem? Just how much is too much? Well, depends.
I don't really know what's the exact rated power for something like Debut 6.2, I just took their numbers as maximum input is 120W (seems a bit high for this type of speaker, so maybe it's rated at around 70W, but again it's a guess and I don't have the actual specs beyond 120W), but I do know how other Elac drivers were made and some can take a really ridiculous amount of extra power and not get damaged, while they could get damaged the other way around. Why do you think that happens?
We could also do the numbers for your gigs. What's the desired dB? The space, typical distance? The speakers and the amps? I might find something surprising for you.
Also, cheap power is not necessarily good power, but that's a different subject.
20-25 years ago, I was looking at overheated woofers and fried tweeters and absolutely none had a lot of clean power into it. Not a single one. No one had too powerful amps or quality amps. Was quite a nightmare for warranty and service guys with JBL, Infinity and so on.
Disagree. An Underpowered amp that is clipping will heat up a tweeter and eventually damage it more quickly than a higher power amp with a clean signal! There is a lot more power in a square wave (clipped signal) than normal music (sine wave) - more power means more heat! Ferrofluid in most tweeters can dry out over time and with heavy use (heat) - so these devices definitely change over time. Heat generated while playing loud music causes compression - most consumer designs sound dull when driven hard because transducers that can handle higher power and dissipate better the heat are generally much more expensive (only used in pro applications)! Compression due to hot voice coils happens every time a speaker is played loudly - so most designs change every time they are played! It can take as little as a few seconds to a minute to half an hour to fully heat up a transducer. The steady state heat dissipation depends on mass and tight tolerances of design and voice coil surface area (large voice coils of 3 to 4 inches diameter have a massive advantage over the majority of 1 inch voice coils - they have a much greater surface area to remove heat) Heat build up causes distortion and a loss of efficiency - the tendency is to increase volume to adjust for the compression and this only causes more heat. Most DJ’s are very careful to monitor the clipping lights on their speakers - constant clipping usually leads to dull sound and rapid aging of components in power amplifiers
if a 25w amp kills a driver/s in a fairly benign 8 ohm 50w/continuous/ handling speaker ,, how did it die ? it cant be too loud as the speaker still has power handling margin . i would love for Andrew to elaborate on this a touch more if poss as i am of the belief that the damage occurs due to the amp running out of clean power and dumping nonlinear garbage into the voice coils which can be seen when a blown driver is dissected postmortem , in my experience the coil damage looks different on the under powered damage compared to a damaged coil that saw a purely over powered amp .
Under the right circumstances, a coil that can't move enough to cool itself, will overheat and get damaged if you push hard an amp unable to provide a clean signal. This is a form of thermal damage that can actually happen and happens more than the other way around. People rarely have huge amounts of power anyway.
Interesting thinking more about this.
How can the "non-linear garbage" exceed in a meaningful way the output capability of the amplifier eased up into clipping during dubstep playback?
The amplifier only possesses so much swing, ... backed by so much current, ... supplied by so much kva bolstered by so much caps.
Some amplifiers do weird things when they are over driven..... The output stages can start drifting and have a DC offset. This constant DC current flowing through the woofer coils heats them up, with no time between transients to cool down. Remember.... a 50w amp CAN PUT OUT MORE than 50 watts!!! It may be rated at 50w at 0.1% distortion, but keep turning it up, and it will put out more and more power, with more and more distortion, up to the current limits of the power supply. At some point, you'll either blow a fuse, thermally shutdown the amp, or fry your voice coils.
@@TheMirolab
Interesting
Not rated output, I'm referring to outright output capability.
The DC offset affecting the LF driver I get that too... I was referring to tweeter damage from clipping nonlinearities.
I don't repair amplifiers, but I've seen amplifier distortion curves, once they hit clipping, their x axis representing power, essentially ceases going horizontal, instead goes vertical (distortion).
Unlike;
"keep turning it up and it'll output more and more power until it reaches the current limits of the power supply"
If they behave like that I wasn't aware.
I thought voltage swing limitations prevented more current being needed.
If the load remains the same, and voltage swing can't increase, then power supply current won't increase either, right?
Thanks, trying to understand this behavior.
Interview Andrew on his profession and how one may get into it and how much can you make. I would love to know how much Andrew’s salary is:)
Steve told Andrew in the last video not to move his hands so much. Steve "I talk with my hands" Guttenberg. 🙃😄
Are my comments showing have you blocked me
Yes he has. You are hard to tolerate (annoying lilsht)...lol....No he hasn't
I thought speaker burn-in was BS until I recieved my KEF LS50Metas, hooked them up to my Cambridge Audio int. amp and turned it on. It sounded like a single decent quality bluetooth speaker, no exaggeration. But 20-30 hours later I started hearing the speakers as they are supposed to sound - great! It's for real.
Steve skipped the most wanted question Andrew was about to answer. For his dumb question whats coming.
Do maggies need to be broken in?
Yes, Magnepan recommendations at least a few hundred hours of break in
Nothing about crossovers! :(
What kinda debunks the break in BS for me is..... 99% of the time everyone says how much better audio gear is after it breaks in. Wheres all the gear that sounds worse? Its Its nearly impossible to have this much scientific bias. I do beleave a woofer can become more compliant over time because of excursion causing its mechanical Q to lower and changing its musical characteristics. But it shouldn't cause a dramatic change if everything was engineered well. Look into human hearing its more likely to
I have three questions:
1. What were you smoking just before turning the camera on?
2. Would you like a cheeseburger and a Snickers Bar?
3. Who irons (doesn't iron) your bedsheets?
I don't think Steve smokes or irons, he may even be a vegetarian with a peanut allergy...
Audiophil but terrible sound quality in your streams... glad you dont need to listen to yourself, right? :D My phone line in the 70s had better quality.
Thanks for a good interview. But - Ads that interrupt your videos are insulting. Must we endure content that seems to be aimed at people who think we should drink household cleaners to fight covid19?