offdaheeze

My Bose system seems louder than it was a few days ago. Could this be due to break-in?

ATL RX-8

Turn off that Audio-Pilot crap. It's supposed to adjust it's own volume based on ambient noise, but didn't appear to work as I had expected, so I just disabled that feature. It could definitely account for varying volumes as you drive along.

offdaheeze

Disabling audio-pilot was the first thing I did when I got the car.

emailists

speakers tend to be stiff at first resulting in less movement, so as they break in they travel further. Usually you will notice it in the bass, hearing more bass after break in.

mikeb

wow, this is all new news to me

I never heard of speakers breaking in

mac

Many of the mid to high end home systems requires anywhere from 50 to 100 hours to break in. My Ohms sounded like **** boxes for the first couple of days, it took a full 2 weeks before the high and low end to finally kick in. The same deal for my Totems.

It's the first time that I hear that a car speaker needs breaking in tho'.

OverLOAD

First I've ever heard of speaker breakin...

I'll have to raise a BS flag on that one. I work at a big Audio company, and we do all kinds of tests on the speakers, but usually on brand new speakers. We eq sweeps, frequency response cureves, etc, always on speakers with Zero hours of playtime.

As to the speaker being stiff, and having to loosen up, the ideal speaker cone is one that is completely inflexible. Speaker cones that start to flex, cause more distortion. They don't improve the sound.

OverLAD

mdw33333

I'm in the business myself and I have to disagree. Speakers do "break in." And in doing so, their level of excursion increases. I'm sure you know what excursion is, so I won't explain it. The speaker's cone then has the ability to travel further, thus moving more air, thus creating a higher level of sound and doing so more efficiantly.

OverLOAD

If you are referring to the amount of resistance to travel which happens in the cone as a result of the stiffness of the cone gasket, then that is usually strongly related to temperature.

The Gaskets are usually rubberized polymers, such as neoprene (Think weatherstripping). The amount of flexibility of this material is highly dependent on temperature, and does not loose it strength. The bending modulus (see http://www.astm.org/cgi-bin/SoftCart....htm?E+mystore for reference) is highly related to the temprature in these materials and rarely changes as a result of this kind of wear.

I'd believe that the system is appreciably louder in warmer temperatures, due to greater flexibility in the gasket as a result of warmer temperatures, but not as a result of "Speaker Break-In". I hold to my original statement, unless you have some reference material which backs you up that you would care to share.

Regards,

OverLOAD

edit: This document http://www.astm.org/cgi-bin/SoftCart...080+1079025767 also provides a correlation to a strong link to temperature and relative humidity. While the actual test specs aren't free, the summary of the documents should make it clear as to the nature of the material.

jonalan

I'm with mdw33333 on this one. Speakers do have a "break-in" period. Most audio company literature will mention this. The break-in shouldn't really affect the volume so much as the sound quality. Speakers are generally a bit harsher when new.

Just my $0.02.

Nigandahu

Well, might as well add my opinion. I'm with Overload 100% on this one. The more a speaker is "broken in" the more coloring of sound and degradation will occur until the point where you replace the speaker. Otherwise we'd be buying speakers like wine "oooh 1969 JLB woofer, thats a good year". I do believe in varience due to temperatures, have experianced it first hand, and will also point out the coincidence that it's spring and things are warming up.