Break in time and method for V30s?

What I understand is that you can use music playing though them loud enough to exercise the speaker but not distort for 4-8 hours. Or a signal generator or variac. The idea is to get the most motion without breaking stuff. Not too low a freq.

You can also use something like fabric softener or mineral spirits rubbed into the cone material, but I don't like that idea too much.
 
According to jay Mitchel there is no such thing as speaker Break-in. Discuss :)

For me, I have always just likes playing at a decent volume for a few hours each day. Have noticed things smoothing out after a few days. I have heard lots Of short cuts, but jamming is just much more fun :)
 
V30's sound fucking awful without breaking in. They have this obnoxious almost out of phase sound to them until they break in properly.

I have a 2x12 that i bought new, and it took a good 40 hours playing at high volume before they sounded nice.
 
Mudder":11bm1r9k said:
You can also use something like fabric softener or mineral spirits rubbed into the cone material, but I don't like that idea too much.

Mesa sprays their speakers down prior to installation (I read on another thread that he's bought a Recto Traditional). I've broken in a number of Mesa cabs and I don't find their tone shifts that much (relative to other V30 cabs I've broken in).

Myself, I plug them into my guitar amp and play the shit out of them. I start off at moderate volume and if I can smell a papery smell it tells me the cones are being worked. Once I can't smell it anymore I turn up louder. Once I'm maxed out and I can't smell anything they're done.
 
A loud and fat clean tone actually breaks speakers in more effectively than a signal with lot's of gain.
 
One weekend of AC/DC's Highway to Hell album played LOUD on a continuous loop does wonders...I'm dead serious.
 
rupe":21seepf5 said:
One weekend of AC/DC's Highway to Hell album played LOUD on a continuous loop does wonders...I'm dead serious.

My wife already deals with more s**t then a person should have to...lol I have been looping a 30 clip of me playing rhythm through my Uber, pretty loud for the last 6 hours. Gonna let it roll till tomorrow morning. It's driving my assistant nuts. :D
 
James Lugo":20u9ozmm said:
rupe":20u9ozmm said:
One weekend of AC/DC's Highway to Hell album played LOUD on a continuous loop does wonders...I'm dead serious.

My wife already deals with more s**t then a person should have to...lol I have been looping a 30 clip of me playing rhythm through my Uber, pretty loud for the last 6 hours. Gonna let it roll till tomorrow morning. It's driving my assistant nuts. :D
:LOL: :LOL:
 
I'm a speaker junkie and I break all my speakers in with a clean, bassy guitar loop before I ever use them. In fact, I made a pine 2x12 iso-cab just for this purpose. I notice the most drastic change after about 10-12 hours (regardless of speaker model). Break-in is a highly debated topic around the web. But once you do it as often and methodical as I do, you will not wonder if it makes a difference or not......because it does.
 
I noticed a big difference with Mesa V30s after just a 2 hours of playing a very, very loud VH4 in channel 1 with a 7 string using the neck and middle pickups.
 
EyesOfTheSouth":3sgphgej said:
I'm a speaker junkie and I break all my speakers in with a clean, bassy guitar loop before I ever use them. In fact, I made a pine 2x12 iso-cab just for this purpose. I notice the most drastic change after about 10-12 hours (regardless of speaker model). Break-in is a highly debated topic around the web. But once you do it as often and methodical as I do, you will not wonder if it makes a difference or not......because it does.

Speaker break in is not a myth. I use a variac set to 9 volts with a digital timer ($25 from Home Depot) set for 2 hours on, 1 hour off to cool the speaker. I do this for 18-24 hours. Heavy magnet speakers take longer (V30/G12H/H75, etc), M series take a little less time.

rupe":3sgphgej said:
One weekend of AC/DC's Highway to Hell album played LOUD on a continuous loop does wonders...I'm dead serious.

And you're right as well. I used to use five classic rock albums in rotation on the CD player with the volume set to around 20-25w while my wife was at work. 24-30 hours of this and they'll be much better.

Be advised that Celestion uses a stiff spider/doping setup on V30's which takes a lot longer to break in than their G12M Greenbacks. Also, the heavier (50 oz) magnet resists moving the cone as easily as the medium (35 oz) magnet in the G12M.

Hit the button James!

:thumbsup:
 
Has anyone here tried white or pink noise to break speakers in? I've read on other forums of people using this method on both stereo systems and guitar speakers.
 
Issue with any kinda of "noise" is that it's usually quite consistent in its signal delivery.

Speaker break-in is like a person at the gym, you know? Applying "noise" is like having the person on the Life-Cycle for a few hours - it's doing some good, but it's repetitious and they're going through the same motions. In order to truly "soften a speaker up" you gotta force it in all directions - that means big powerful thuds, ka-chunks, booms, with repeated mid blasts and sustained high blasts. Yes, clearer signals move the cone a lot more than that of a compressed gain signal - absolutely. Play any AC/DC album on master volume 6 or 7 with the channel volume dimed and gain at 2.
 
just loop this, really piss everyone off


seriously, doesn't Avatar have a non-proprietary method of breaking in the V30's they use?
 
Back
Top