On Sat, 09 Apr 2016 06:05:36 -0700, tabbypurr wrote:

On Saturday, 9 April 2016 12:28:39 UTC+1, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
On 09/04/16 09:50, tabbypurr wrote:
On Saturday, 9 April 2016 01:45:44 UTC+1, Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬)
wrote:
I thought speaker wire "burn in" was a B.S. audiphile thing but our
lad just got his hands on some super cheap Kef Q100 speakers which
sounded absolutely gorgeous. I'd be inclined to say quite possibly
the best sounding speakers I've ever heard (apart from the kef
LS50's)

Anyway... today we changed his no-brand "richer sounds" 2.5mm sq
(guesstimate) speaker cable that is about 3 years old, for some new
4mm sq. van damme OFC stuff. Bloody Hell the difference was beyond
belief.
Until today I thought Speaker wire "burn in" was complete B.S, but
every single track we played sounded "tight" and strangulated.
It made the speakers sound sharp and overly tight with a significant
separation between frequencies. In other words, just horrible
compared to his original, well etched cables.

Digging around t'internet, speaker wire "burn-in" seems to be as
much contested as computer O.S. ;¬)
There seems to be a certain market for "burner inner" boxes that
eliminate the requirement for 50+ hours of use to condition speaker
wire and given that with the new "home cinema" room we're looking at
quite a number of speaker wires, 50 to 100 hours of use to realize
the full potential of the surround sound system makes a full audio
spectrum burn-in box a worthwhile investment for speaker leads
(Atmos 7.1.4) and interconnects.
Just throwing it out there for any other thoughts about speaker wire
burning in. Definitely noticed a significant "strangulation" of
sound and gappy crossover between tweeter and base driver compared
to the well-used existing speaker wire.

Any thoughts from the experienced audiophiles?

Cheers Pete

The phenomenon of making changes that make no difference then being
convinced the sound is different is a well worn phenomenon. BTDT.

The resistance, capacitance & inductance of speaker cable is so
trivial compared to the resistance already present in the voice coil
that it makes no detectable difference.


resistance can make a slight difference to the bass.

That's all I ever detected in nearly a decade of designing and testing
hifi and high power audio kit.

large amounts may. Not milliohms.

8ohm speaker maybe 7 ohms of resistance 3m of 2.5 sqmm cable 53milliohms
resistance Now if you go upto 4mm2, 3m is 33 milliohms so the upgrade
has reduced R by 20 milliohms, a change of just 0.29%. No ears are going
to detect that.

That's what makes the ratio of amp impedance to speaker impedance quoted
as "Damping Factor, the marketing bull**** that it is. Yes, it's useful
to know that for all practical purposes, the amp acts like a constant
voltage generator rather than a partially constant current source but
that's as far as it should go.

Trying to imply that a 400:1 DF amp is twice as good as an 800:1 DF amp
for a specified (usually 8 ohm) load is a totally misleading and bogus
selling point. I think this marketing bull**** way of expressing output
impedance as a ratio of speaker load came about as a means of selling
transistor amps as an 'upgrade' to valve amplifiers where the output
impedance was often in the half to one ohm range (still effectively low
impedance as far as 8 ohm speakers are concerned).

It was relatively trivial to design a transistor amp to have output
impedance values in the 10 Milli Ohm range so calling this impedance
ratio a "Damping Factor" was an easy way to exaggerate this over rated
"Merit of Goodness" in order to sell into the existing valve amplifier
owning audiophile market.

--
Johnny B Good

On 09/04/2016 15:49, Alan Dawes wrote:

Having over 50 enjoyable years of "hi Fi" experience, I have never come
across the situation where changing one type of speaker cable for another
has improved the sound as much as you say "Bloody Hell the difference was
beyond belief".

Why is everybody reading that backwards?

;-)

Provided both cables could cope with the signal then any
percieved difference is subtle and usually due to particular speakers
presenting a difficult load to the amp.

One of the key words in many of these discussions is "adequate" i.e.
statements that you can't tell the difference between otherwise adequate
cables is probably true, but misses the point that in many cases you can
get noticeable changes swapping between adequate and inadequate cables
(e.g. upgrading the cheap 7 strand zip wire that comes with many budget
systems), or even deliberately under speccing a cable to reduce
excessive base in a system that is poorly suited to its surroundings etc.

However there is one situation where the changing of a speaker cable can
have a drastic effect on the sound and that is where the original cables
had been incorrectly fitted out of phase. The correctly connected cable
gives a marked tightening of the sound, positioning of instruments in the
sound stage become precise, bass loses its flabiness etc. I can remember
being thrown out of one of the demos at a HiFi show in a London hotel in
the 1970s when I pointed out that this trick was being used by a purveyor
of expensive "snake oil" speaker cables to show how good his product was!

I have been caught out by an interconnect that had red and black phono's
on both ends of the typical figure 8 cable. Took a while to spot the red
on one end was wired to the black on the other!

The other problem that I have come across is where the speakers are
bi-wired (ie each speaker has 2 sets of cable from the amp to the
different drivers in the speaker) which I don't think is so in your case.
If one of those cables is connected out of phase with the other then you
get poor results from that speaker.

As Tim has mentioned the "burning in of speakers" by using them to play a
range of source material for a day or 2 normally leads to an improvement
to the sound of new speakers.

You can apparently accelerate it a bit if you wire one out of phase with
the other and place them facing each other - almost touching - then play
music for a few hours.

Other ways of making differences to the sound is by altering the pseaker
placement in the room.

That can make a massive difference I have found. When we moved into this
house I had great difficulty getting anything like the quality of sound
I had enjoyed previously. At first I put it down to a larger room, and
tried different combinations of speakers and amps etc. Nothing seemed to
be able to produce a good sound - everything lacked low end and sounded
very flat and lifeless. In the end out of curiosity I tried putting the
speakers the other side of the room, and instantly normality was
restored. The layout of the room (squarish, but with an arch through to
a dining room), just seems to be sonically hostile in one direction!



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Sat, 09 Apr 2016 14:20:28 +0100, Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬) wrote:

On 09/04/2016 14:05, John Rumm wrote:

In which case, one of us has misread what the OP was trying to say... I
took it as the "better" cable gave noticeably *less* likeable sound.

Indeed John.
It's only a 2m run between amp and each speaker too. I wasn't expecting
to notice any difference in sound.

That seems more likely an effect to do with marginal stability of the
amp which now 'sees' the effects of a badly designed crossover filter in
the speakers with less resistive damping than the original cables were
providing causing the amp to misbehave, perhaps even generating high
frequency oscillations that were simply absent with the inferior cable.

You could try wiring in half to one ohm resistors in series with the
amplifier speaker connections to see whether this returns the sound
quality back to its earlier character. If it does, then either the
speaker has a very tortuous impedance frequency characteristic or else
the amp was poorly designed to begin with.

--
Johnny B Good

On 09/04/2016 09:50, wrote:

The phenomenon of making changes that make no difference then being convinced the sound is different is a well worn phenomenon. BTDT.

The resistance, capacitance & inductance of speaker cable is so trivial compared to the resistance already present in the voice coil that it makes no detectable difference.

What about skin effect?

A single solid wire strand like T&E compared to a high strand count
quality speaker wire of the same CSA ?

Pet wrote:

the Amazon vendor let him have it at no cost in exchange for a
review apparently. The sound is right back to as it was the first day
I heard it so there we have it. Nothing to do with the wires

Should make for a concise review :-P

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...

On 09/04/2016 15:49, Alan Dawes wrote:

Having over 50 enjoyable years of "hi Fi" experience, I have never come
across the situation where changing one type of speaker cable for another
has improved the sound as much as you say "Bloody Hell the difference was
beyond belief".

Why is everybody reading that backwards?

;-)

Provided both cables could cope with the signal then any
percieved difference is subtle and usually due to particular speakers
presenting a difficult load to the amp.

One of the key words in many of these discussions is "adequate" i.e.
statements that you can't tell the difference between otherwise adequate
cables is probably true, but misses the point that in many cases you can
get noticeable changes swapping between adequate and inadequate cables
(e.g. upgrading the cheap 7 strand zip wire that comes with many budget
systems), or even deliberately under speccing a cable to reduce excessive
base in a system that is poorly suited to its surroundings etc.

However there is one situation where the changing of a speaker cable can
have a drastic effect on the sound and that is where the original cables
had been incorrectly fitted out of phase. The correctly connected cable
gives a marked tightening of the sound, positioning of instruments in the
sound stage become precise, bass loses its flabiness etc. I can remember
being thrown out of one of the demos at a HiFi show in a London hotel in
the 1970s when I pointed out that this trick was being used by a purveyor
of expensive "snake oil" speaker cables to show how good his product was!

I have been caught out by an interconnect that had red and black phono's on
both ends of the typical figure 8 cable. Took a while to spot the red on
one end was wired to the black on the other!

The other problem that I have come across is where the speakers are
bi-wired (ie each speaker has 2 sets of cable from the amp to the
different drivers in the speaker) which I don't think is so in your case.
If one of those cables is connected out of phase with the other then you
get poor results from that speaker.

As Tim has mentioned the "burning in of speakers" by using them to play a
range of source material for a day or 2 normally leads to an improvement
to the sound of new speakers.

You can apparently accelerate it a bit if you wire one out of phase with
the other and place them facing each other - almost touching - then play
music for a few hours.

Other ways of making differences to the sound is by altering the pseaker
placement in the room.

That can make a massive difference I have found. When we moved into this
house I had great difficulty getting anything like the quality of sound I
had enjoyed previously. At first I put it down to a larger room, and tried
different combinations of speakers and amps etc. Nothing seemed to be able
to produce a good sound - everything lacked low end and sounded very flat
and lifeless. In the end out of curiosity I tried putting the speakers the
other side of the room, and instantly normality was restored. The layout of
the room (squarish, but with an arch through to a dining room), just seems
to be sonically hostile in one direction!


The satisfaction of having stuffed up hearing and relying on hearing aids is
that I am simply satisfied that there is audio.

On Sunday, 10 April 2016 00:25:13 UTC+1, Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬) wrote:
On 09/04/2016 09:50, tabbypurr wrote:

The phenomenon of making changes that make no difference then being convinced the sound is different is a well worn phenomenon. BTDT.

The resistance, capacitance & inductance of speaker cable is so trivial compared to the resistance already present in the voice coil that it makes no detectable difference.

What about skin effect?

If you ran your speakers at rf, skin effect would affect the coil as much as the cable

A single solid wire strand like T&E compared to a high strand count
quality speaker wire of the same CSA ?


quality? Copper is copper.


NT

In article ,
Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬)
wrote:
On 09/04/2016 09:50, wrote:

The phenomenon of making changes that make no difference then being
convinced the sound is different is a well worn phenomenon. BTDT.

The resistance, capacitance & inductance of speaker cable is so
trivial compared to the resistance already present in the voice coil
that it makes no detectable difference.

What about skin effect?

At audio frequencies?

A single solid wire strand like T&E compared to a high strand count
quality speaker wire of the same CSA ?


--
*When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 09/04/16 21:32, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sat, 09 Apr 2016 14:07:30 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article l.net,
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sat, 9 Apr 2016 01:45:36 +0100, Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬) wrote:

Anyway... today we changed his no-brand "richer sounds" 2.5mm sq
(guesstimate) speaker cable that is about 3 years old, for some new
4mm sq. van damme OFC stuff. Bloody Hell the difference was beyond
belief. Until today I thought Speaker wire "burn in" was complete
B.S,
but every single track we played sounded "tight" and strangulated. It
made the speakers sound sharp and overly tight with a significant
separation between frequencies. In other words, just horrible
compared to his original, well etched cables.

You mean it sounds how it should, ie a snare drum hurts and you can
hear individual bass guitar notes not some resonant, woolly, mush.

More copper between amp and speakers means the cones are better damped
and thus don't waggle about uncontrolled.

That's only really true if you start off with cable of an appreciable
resistance. Which 2.5mm in the average domestic run simply won't have.

That's very true. I wonder how many metres of 2.5mm you would need to
create the extra 8 ohms loop impedance[1] required to make a noticeable
enough difference? :-)

[1] Assuming the use of 8 ohm speakers. It's amazing how often
audiophiles will concern themselves over the 10 or so mili ohms output
impedance of the amp yet blithely ignore the 7.5 ohms coil resistance
effectively in series with this 'damping' circuit impedance.

it isnt in series


--
All political activity makes complete sense once the proposition that
all government is basically a self-legalising protection racket, is
fully understood.

On Sat, 09 Apr 2016 20:32:07 GMT, Johnny B Good wrote:

More copper between amp and speakers means the cones are better
damped
and thus don't waggle about uncontrolled.

That's only really true if you start off with cable of an
appreciable
resistance. Which 2.5mm in the average domestic run simply won't
have.

That's very true. I wonder how many metres of 2.5mm you would need to
create the extra 8 ohms loop impedance[1] required to make a noticeable
enough difference? :-)

100 W into a nominal 8 ohms is 3.5 A. The around 5 V drop on a single
leg of "heavy bell wire" implies a resistance of 1.5 ish ohms or
three ohms for both legs. That is a significant proportion of 8...

TBH the OP going from 2.5 to 4 mm^2 and having such a dramatic effect
in a percieved negative direction did surprise me. How ever I'm well
aware that people get used to "less than optimal" reproduction
systems and when placed in front of something "accurate" don't like
it for more or less the reasons stated.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Sat, 9 Apr 2016 18:59:58 +0100, Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬)
wrote:

More copper between amp and speakers means the cones are better
damped and thus don't waggle about uncontrolled.

No. The old speaker wire was decent stuff.
The new horrible noise had a distinct hole of missing frequencies.

But we've solved the issue.
Day one the speakers had been running all day when I heard them.
Day 2 they'd been off all day and we fitted the new cables before
listening so didn't realise just how big a difference there was between
being warm and cold.

Glad the issue has been resolved. Sort of surprised that domestic
speakers need to "warm up", though I'm aware that big, powerful, PA
speakers do.

Has the 2.5 to 4 mm upgrade made any difference after warm up?

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 11 Apr 2016 11:46:05 GMT, Huge wrote:

They don't. It's nonsense.

But it is conceivable that there are speakers that scrape, squeak or something
until warm. While this is not something that I have heard of (and I wouldn't
have even if were common) it doesn't violate any laws of physics, and there are
a handful of mechanisms to explain this.

The idea that speaker wire somehow sounds better after a current has passed
through it for a day or three is not just nonsense, it's impossible.


Thomas Prufer

In article ,
Thomas Prufer wrote:
But it is conceivable that there are speakers that scrape, squeak or
something until warm.

Only reason a speaker could scrape is if the voice coil is off centre or
damaged in another way.

There are two parts to the cone suspension. The surround - on the outside
diameter of the cone, and a second one (sometimes called the spider)
usually between the bottom of the cone and the voice coil. Well designed
ones only allow the cone to travel in and out. It's conceivable the lower
one may be warmed up by the voice coil heating - but I'd be most surprised
if the other one did at all.

Obviously, being some form of polymer, they might well react to extremes
of temperature. But domestic ones are likely only to be used at domestic
temperatures.

--
*A person who smiles in the face of adversity probably has a scapegoat *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 17:23:38 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

It's conceivable the lower one may be warmed up by the voice coil
heating - but I'd be most surprised if the other one did at all.

Heating at normal domestic listening levels isn't going to be great,
probably only a handful of watts dissipation. The "big, powerful, PA
speakers" I mentioned earlier are the things that take hundred of
watts and are designed, and expected, to be run at or near that level
indefinitely. I should imagine the voice coils and surroundings do
get quite warm, after all if you are pouring 500 W RMS plus into
something it has to go somewhere and the overall conversion
efficiency of electricity into sound isn't that brilliant. If you a
have 50% (ho, ho) that means there's 250 W plus going somewhere
else...

Obviously, being some form of polymer, they might well react to extremes
of temperature. But domestic ones are likely only to be used at domestic
temperatures.

And what about the ferro fluids, that you see mentioned in ads?
Presumably this is a magnetic fluid of some sort that the voice coil
is immersed in to help shift the heat away. The viscosity of that
could change considerably with temperature.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 11/04/16 15:15, Thomas Prufer wrote:
On 11 Apr 2016 11:46:05 GMT, Huge wrote:

They don't. It's nonsense.

But it is conceivable that there are speakers that scrape, squeak or something
until warm. While this is not something that I have heard of (and I wouldn't
have even if were common) it doesn't violate any laws of physics, and there are
a handful of mechanisms to explain this.

The idea that speaker wire somehow sounds better after a current has passed
through it for a day or three is not just nonsense, it's impossible.


Thomas Prufer

Only thing I can think of its that the spider and maybe cone surrounds
may get softer with heat.

If they do its a poor design.

Likewise amplifiers getting better with heat.


--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

Adolf Hitler

On 09/04/2016 13:17, Chris French wrote:
The Natural Philosopher Wrote in message:
Warning. Troll alert
*plonk*

Pete's been posting here for years, trolling seems unlikely.

For all it's sins, a quick search of Google Groups for the term
"gymratz.co.uk" will pull up most of my posts from all groups over the
years. (oops. Just broke firefox as it listed 28,000+ posts containing
that search term)
I changed my user name many years ago to get some "revenge" on the
numerous scraper sites that used usenet content to fill their own sites
and forums as they can't (don't) strip out url's from user names like
they do signature blocks.

First one google groups come up with is:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/uk.d-i-y/gymratz.co.uk|sort:date/uk.d-i-y/ifCiZZjB6s4/hRsYBFShEIQJ
1st December 2000
http://tinyurl.com/jbt9vwq
Look there's Mr. Gabriel in the same thread.

After all these years you'd think I'd have got a bit better at trolling
#MustTryHarder Now there's some bait... use of #tags on a usenet
server..

On 11/04/2016 15:15, Thomas Prufer wrote:
On 11 Apr 2016 11:46:05 GMT, Huge wrote:

They don't. It's nonsense.

But it is conceivable that there are speakers that scrape, squeak or something
until warm. While this is not something that I have heard of (and I wouldn't
have even if were common) it doesn't violate any laws of physics, and there are
a handful of mechanisms to explain this.

The idea that speaker wire somehow sounds better after a current has passed
through it for a day or three is not just nonsense, it's impossible.

Its nothing to do with the current it has passed, and everything to do
with the elasticity of the cones suspension. New speakers will certainly
free off with a little use, and tend to sound better than when first out
of the box.




--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 10/04/2016 10:33, wrote:

quality? Copper is copper.

Apparently not. There's mutterings of "grains per foot" and "linear
grains" Voids and boundaries, the crystalline structure of the conductor
which has an effect on electron flow...
So "they" say...

Welder wire anyone?

Talking of which, the best workshop jump leads we had "back in the day"
for lorries, tractors etc were really long and extremely flexible....
Yep, welder wires.

On Monday, 11 April 2016 20:15:08 UTC+1, www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:
On 10/04/2016 10:33, tabbypurr wrote:

quality? Copper is copper.

Apparently not. There's mutterings of "grains per foot" and "linear
grains" Voids and boundaries, the crystalline structure of the conductor
which has an effect on electron flow...
So "they" say...

People say all sorts of things, especially when it sells stuff.
Copper electrical wire is stretched, or formerly extruded, not composed of crystals with resistances between.


NT

On 09/04/2016 01:45, Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬) wrote:
Any thoughts from the experienced audiophiles?

It's ********. (1)

You like the old ones because you are used to them. What you need to do
is compare a recording with something live. Then you'll know which is right.

Andy
--
(1) Medieval priests, M'lud

On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46, wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just gone into his
room to listen. The sound is right back to as it was the first day I
heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.


Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time you use
them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit of warm up time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most speakers are run
nowhere near their limits; I don't believe they get hot.

Andy

On 11/04/2016 21:48, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46, wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just gone into his
room to listen. The sound is right back to as it was the first day I
heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.


Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time you use
them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit of warm up time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most speakers are run
nowhere near their limits; I don't believe they get hot.

With the speakers, I am not convinced its heat that does it so much as
just use after a period of inactivity. (the effect is more pronounced
now they are quite old)



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Monday, 11 April 2016 21:48:29 UTC+1, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46, wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just gone into his
room to listen. The sound is right back to as it was the first day I
heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.


Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time you use
them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit of warm up time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most speakers are run
nowhere near their limits; I don't believe they get hot.

Andy

I'm inclined to agree. Amp output devices do heat up and bias point often changes, typically improving fidelity. Speaker cones & suspension don't at usual listening levels, and a hot voice coil won't improve the sound.


NT

On 11/04/16 21:26, wrote:
On Monday, 11 April 2016 20:15:08 UTC+1, www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:
On 10/04/2016 10:33, tabbypurr wrote:

quality? Copper is copper.

Apparently not. There's mutterings of "grains per foot" and "linear
grains" Voids and boundaries, the crystalline structure of the conductor
which has an effect on electron flow...
So "they" say...

People say all sorts of things, especially when it sells stuff.
Copper electrical wire is stretched, or formerly extruded, not composed of crystals with resistances between.


it's composed of stretched crystals, with resistances between ;-)

NT



--
€œit should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism
(or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans,
about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and
the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a
'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,'
a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for
rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet
things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that
you live neither in Joseph Stalins Communist era, nor in the Orwellian
utopia of 1984.€�

Vaclav Klaus

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
On 11/04/2016 21:48, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46, wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just gone into
his room to listen. The sound is right back to as it was the first
day I heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.


Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time you use
them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit of warm up
time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most speakers are
run nowhere near their limits; I don't believe they get hot.

With the speakers, I am not convinced its heat that does it so much as
just use after a period of inactivity. (the effect is more pronounced
now they are quite old)

This may be due to ageing of the components in the crossover circuit of
old speakers particularly the capacitors which may have started to dry out
which is common as they age and change their capacity (or if manufactured
sometime between 1999 and 2007+ possibily the dreaded capacitor plague
which is much worse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague )

There is some interesting information on restoring loudspeakers he
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.co...ntage-speakers

It happened to a friends old Tannoy speakers which didn't sound right.
Using a test CD to run a frequency sweep on each speaker showed that they
were no longer matched ie had resonances at different frequencies. Once
the old capacitors in the crossover circuit in each speaker were replaced
by good quality new ones they sounded a lot better with quite similar
frequency sweep results and were good enough for occasional use in a
bedroom.

Alan

--


Using an ARMX6

On 12/04/2016 13:20, Alan Dawes wrote:
In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
On 11/04/2016 21:48, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46, wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just gone into
his room to listen. The sound is right back to as it was the first
day I heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.


Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time you use
them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit of warm up
time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most speakers are
run nowhere near their limits; I don't believe they get hot.

With the speakers, I am not convinced its heat that does it so much as
just use after a period of inactivity. (the effect is more pronounced
now they are quite old)

This may be due to ageing of the components in the crossover circuit of
old speakers particularly the capacitors which may have started to dry out
which is common as they age and change their capacity (or if manufactured
sometime between 1999 and 2007+ possibily the dreaded capacitor plague
which is much worse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague )

Yup also possible... although I would expect the change in sound to be
rather more "fixed" than something audible in the space of half a CDs
worth of music.

There is some interesting information on restoring loudspeakers he
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.co...ntage-speakers

I rebuilt the crossovers on a pair of TDL RTL3s, since having looked at
one when I was replacing a damaged base driver, I noticed the big wire
wound resistor on the board looked scorched, and an electrolytic had
blown its lid off! So I checked the other one, and that crossover was
missing entirely - someone had replaced it with a couple of chock block
connectors. Not too surprising to find the tweeter was shagged on that
one as well. So a pair of new tweeters, and they sound rather good now ;-)

It happened to a friends old Tannoy speakers which didn't sound right.
Using a test CD to run a frequency sweep on each speaker showed that they
were no longer matched ie had resonances at different frequencies. Once
the old capacitors in the crossover circuit in each speaker were replaced
by good quality new ones they sounded a lot better with quite similar
frequency sweep results and were good enough for occasional use in a
bedroom.

That reminds me - I really ought to go investigate the source of the hum
on my REL active sub... I suspect the PSU is in need of some new caps.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 12/04/2016 12:32, wrote:
On Monday, 11 April 2016 21:48:29 UTC+1, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46, wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just gone
into his room to listen. The sound is right back to as it was
the first day I heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.

Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time you
use them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit of warm
up time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most speakers
are run nowhere near their limits; I don't believe they get hot.

Andy

I'm inclined to agree. Amp output devices do heat up and bias point
often changes, typically improving fidelity. Speaker cones &
suspension don't at usual listening levels, and a hot voice coil
won't improve the sound.

At first I assumed it would be the amp that was the main culprit, so I
tried a few experiments on my system to try and see how much influence
came from the different parts. Running a warm amp[1] into the "cold" (in
quotes since I don't know if temperature has much to do with it!)
speakers did reduce the time until sounding "right" by a little bit -
but no more than about 5 mins. 20 - 25 mins of the delay seems to be
just the speaker. (I get the same result with different amps as well on
those speakers, and very little effect running their usual amp into
other speakers).

[1] I setup the amp with two sets of speakers on it - the Heybrooks, and
a pair of Kef Coda 8s. Ran it for half an hour driving the Kefs and then
switched to the Heybrooks.



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
With the speakers, I am not convinced its heat that does it so much as
just use after a period of inactivity. (the effect is more pronounced
now they are quite old)

Could be they would benefit from having the surrounds replaced. There are
firms who specialise in this. IMHO it's not normal for a domestic speaker
to need 'warming up' .

--
*HOW DO THEY GET DEER TO CROSS THE ROAD ONLY AT THOSE YELLOW ROAD SIGNS?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 19:38:42 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

Its nothing to do with the current it has passed, and everything to do
with the elasticity of the cones suspension. New speakers will certainly
free off with a little use, and tend to sound better than when first out
of the box.


That's not what the to OP found, or said:

"Digging around t'internet, speaker wire "burn-in" seems to be as much
contested as computer O.S. ;¬)
There seems to be a certain market for "burner inner" boxes that
eliminate the requirement for 50+ hours of use to condition speaker wire
and given that with the new "home cinema" room we're looking at quite a
number of speaker wires, 50 to 100 hours of use to realize the full
potential of the surround sound system makes a full audio spectrum
burn-in box a worthwhile investment for speaker leads (Atmos 7.1.4) and
interconnects."

Cone suspensions breaking in -- ok, sounds like mechanical effects, and I'd
believe in those .

"Burning in" speaker wires (just the wire!) using the full audio spectrum to
"condition" the wire -- no.


Thomas Prufer

On Tuesday, 12 April 2016 13:48:39 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 12/04/2016 12:32, tabbypurr wrote:
On Monday, 11 April 2016 21:48:29 UTC+1, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46, wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just gone
into his room to listen. The sound is right back to as it was
the first day I heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.

Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time you
use them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit of warm
up time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most speakers
are run nowhere near their limits; I don't believe they get hot.

Andy

I'm inclined to agree. Amp output devices do heat up and bias point
often changes, typically improving fidelity. Speaker cones &
suspension don't at usual listening levels, and a hot voice coil
won't improve the sound.

At first I assumed it would be the amp that was the main culprit, so I
tried a few experiments on my system to try and see how much influence
came from the different parts. Running a warm amp[1] into the "cold" (in
quotes since I don't know if temperature has much to do with it!)
speakers did reduce the time until sounding "right" by a little bit -
but no more than about 5 mins. 20 - 25 mins of the delay seems to be
just the speaker.

that pattern fits perfectly with it being all due to the amp. Idle power dissipation is low compared to with audio output.

(I get the same result with different amps as well on
those speakers, and very little effect running their usual amp into
other speakers).

[1] I setup the amp with two sets of speakers on it - the Heybrooks, and
a pair of Kef Coda 8s. Ran it for half an hour driving the Kefs and then
switched to the Heybrooks.


NT

In article ,
Thomas Prufer wrote:
"Burning in" speaker wires (just the wire!) using the full audio
spectrum to "condition" the wire -- no.

Yup. Total ********, as they say. Good wire comes with the dilithium
crystals already aligned.

--
He who laughs last, thinks slowest*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:49:18 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Yup. Total ********, as they say. Good wire comes with the dilithium
crystals already aligned.

.... by Peruvian virgins directly descended from oxygen-free blah fabulate
blather.

Some of that hi-fi cable stuff makes me wonder why *I* don't fleece them.
Morals, probably.


Thomas Prufer

On 12/04/2016 16:14, Thomas Prufer wrote:
On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 19:38:42 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

Its nothing to do with the current it has passed, and everything to do
with the elasticity of the cones suspension. New speakers will certainly
free off with a little use, and tend to sound better than when first out
of the box.


That's not what the to OP found, or said:

I am not taking about the OP specifically - however if you read what he
said carefully, you will note its very similar. He had a situation were
the speakers sounded much better once run for a while.

(the whole cable thing was a red herring)

"Digging around t'internet, speaker wire "burn-in" seems to be as much
contested as computer O.S. ;¬)
There seems to be a certain market for "burner inner" boxes that
eliminate the requirement for 50+ hours of use to condition speaker wire
and given that with the new "home cinema" room we're looking at quite a
number of speaker wires, 50 to 100 hours of use to realize the full
potential of the surround sound system makes a full audio spectrum
burn-in box a worthwhile investment for speaker leads (Atmos 7.1.4) and
interconnects."

Cone suspensions breaking in -- ok, sounds like mechanical effects, and I'd
believe in those .

"Burning in" speaker wires (just the wire!) using the full audio spectrum to
"condition" the wire -- no.

Agreed - complete nonsense - I was not suggesting otherwise!


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 12/04/2016 13:55, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
With the speakers, I am not convinced its heat that does it so much as
just use after a period of inactivity. (the effect is more pronounced
now they are quite old)

Could be they would benefit from having the surrounds replaced. There are
firms who specialise in this. IMHO it's not normal for a domestic speaker
to need 'warming up' .

Yup I did consider doing... to look at, the surrounds appear ok, in that
they are not falling apart or going all sticky - but you can't tell
everything from looking. Since I don't use these as my main speakers any
more, its less of an issue.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 12/04/2016 16:34, wrote:
On Tuesday, 12 April 2016 13:48:39 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 12/04/2016 12:32, tabbypurr wrote:
On Monday, 11 April 2016 21:48:29 UTC+1, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 09/04/2016 21:10, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/04/2016 18:46,
wrote:

He's left a CD running all day on shuffle and we've just
gone into his room to listen. The sound is right back to as
it was the first day I heard it so there we have it.

Nothing to do with the wires, just new speaker syndrome.


Sounds like my old Hayebrooks - they do that trick every time
you use them! (in fact the amp also benefits for a little bit
of warm up time).

The amp seems more likely to me than the speakers. Most
speakers are run nowhere near their limits; I don't believe
they get hot.

Andy

I'm inclined to agree. Amp output devices do heat up and bias
point often changes, typically improving fidelity. Speaker cones
& suspension don't at usual listening levels, and a hot voice
coil won't improve the sound.

At first I assumed it would be the amp that was the main culprit,
so I tried a few experiments on my system to try and see how much
influence came from the different parts. Running a warm amp[1] into
the "cold" (in quotes since I don't know if temperature has much to
do with it!) speakers did reduce the time until sounding "right" by
a little bit - but no more than about 5 mins. 20 - 25 mins of the
delay seems to be just the speaker.

that pattern fits perfectly with it being all due to the amp. Idle
power dissipation is low compared to with audio output.

Not sure I follow that?

If I warm the amp up actively driving one set of speakers, then switch
it to the ones which exhibit the problem, they still exhibit same
problem for nearly as long.

The initial "warm up" speakers don't exhibit the problem at all, and
don't improve particularly as the amp warms up.

(I have also tried three different amps, and get similar results)


(I get the same result with different amps as well on those
speakers, and very little effect running their usual amp into other
speakers).

[1] I setup the amp with two sets of speakers on it - the
Heybrooks, and a pair of Kef Coda 8s. Ran it for half an hour
driving the Kefs and then switched to the Heybrooks.


NT



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 12/04/2016 19:57, John Rumm wrote:

I am not taking about the OP specifically - however if you read what he
said carefully, you will note its very similar. He had a situation were
the speakers sounded much better once run for a while.

(the whole cable thing was a red herring)

It was.
Unfortunately both my son any I had stumbled upon many an article
regarding the whole cable charade and looked to the only thing that had
physically changed.

We're all sorted now though. Can't notice any difference between the the
cables even though the new ones aren't bunt in yet!


Cheers - Pete

John Rumm wrote:
On 12/04/2016 16:14, Thomas Prufer wrote:
On Mon, 11 Apr 2016 19:38:42 +0100, John Rumm

wrote:

Its nothing to do with the current it has passed, and everything to do
with the elasticity of the cones suspension. New speakers will
certainly
free off with a little use, and tend to sound better than when first
out
of the box.


That's not what the to OP found, or said:

I am not taking about the OP specifically - however if you read what
he said carefully, you will note its very similar. He had a situation
were the speakers sounded much better once run for a while.

(the whole cable thing was a red herring)

"Digging around t'internet, speaker wire "burn-in" seems to be as much
contested as computer O.S. ;¬)
There seems to be a certain market for "burner inner" boxes that
eliminate the requirement for 50+ hours of use to condition speaker wire
and given that with the new "home cinema" room we're looking at quite a
number of speaker wires, 50 to 100 hours of use to realize the full
potential of the surround sound system makes a full audio spectrum
burn-in box a worthwhile investment for speaker leads (Atmos 7.1.4) and
interconnects."

Cone suspensions breaking in -- ok, sounds like mechanical effects,
and I'd
believe in those .

"Burning in" speaker wires (just the wire!) using the full audio
spectrum to
"condition" the wire -- no.

Agreed - complete nonsense - I was not suggesting otherwise!


As he was listening to a cd, the sound quality would be awful
anyway. A to D conversion, bandwidth limited, error correction, D to A
conversion, analogue filtering, YUK!! Plus the loudspeaker distortions.
Be interesting to see what a spectrum analyser found.

On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 23:06:00 +0100, Capitol wrote:

As he was listening to a cd, the sound quality would be awful
anyway. A to D conversion, bandwidth limited, error correction, D to A
conversion, analogue filtering, YUK!! Plus the loudspeaker distortions.
Be interesting to see what a spectrum analyser found.

I have the solution:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...9774df772d.jpg


Thomas Prufer

Thomas Prufer wrote:
On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 23:06:00 +0100, wrote:


As he was listening to a cd, the sound quality would be awful
anyway. A to D conversion, bandwidth limited, error correction, D to A
conversion, analogue filtering, YUK!! Plus the loudspeaker distortions.
Be interesting to see what a spectrum analyser found.

I have the solution:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...9774df772d.jpg


Thomas Prufer

Looks a winner!

On 12/04/2016 23:06, Capitol wrote:

As he was listening to a cd, the sound quality would be awful
anyway. A to D conversion, bandwidth limited, error correction, D to A
conversion, analogue filtering, YUK!! Plus the loudspeaker distortions.
Be interesting to see what a spectrum analyser found.

We did also used his collection of FLAC(?) and WAV files (purchased not
CD Rips)