DIY speaker mod- Newbie Needs Advice.

Burn in complete and initial brightness has gone away. All is sounding good.

I am not replacing the fuse with a resistor. I am removing the fuse and replacing the potentiometer that controls the rear firing tweeter with a resistor.. The factory setting is 12:00 for a neutral setting and the 1 ohm resistor is supppose to match that value when the potentiometer is removed from the circuit. The dirty deed was done yesterday and sounds ok. My techie friend says this resistor will take about 20 hours to burn in.

If that 12:00 setting your referring to is actually at the center of its full rotation, using a resistor that's 1/2 of the the potentiometers full value will most likely give you a more neutral setting. For example, if it's a 8 ohm pot, use a 4 ohm resistor, for a 20 ohm pot, use a 10 ohm resistor. This is the way a lot of speakers are wired.

You said you've done it and it sounds OK. So if it does seem too bright, try the half of the pot value method.

Make sure you use a wirewound, non-inductive resistor. Make sure it has a rating (wattage) as high as the pot itself. For a tweeter, I'm guessing a 10-20 watt wirewound resistor. Don't use a carbon, or a film type, unless a manufacturer says to for some reason.

Sidssp:
I am not replacing the fuse with a resistor. I am removing the fuse and replacing the potentiometer that controls the rear firing tweeter with a resistor.. The factory setting is 12:00 for a neutral setting and the 1 ohm resistor is supppose to match that value when the potentiometer is removed from the circuit. The dirty deed was done yesterday and sounds ok. My techie friend says this resistor will take about 20 hours to burn in. Will report back when burn in is complete. The mfg. is ok with this mod.

Blueskiespbd, I don't have Snell speaker so I don't know what that fuse is for.
But whatever it is, you can't just replace a fuse with any 1 ohm resistor
without knowing how much current will pass through it. If the current is high,
you will need a high wattage resistor or you will be looking at a burn out
rather than burn in.

I am not against mod but I think too many of us assume we know better than
the equipment designer. I can tell you from experience that most of us aren't
smarter nor do we know more.

Unless you know exactly what is going on, I sincerely suggest you stay away
from mod.

I have no clue on resistors. I generally just burn in anything by listening regularly (sometimes I'll leave the system running at a low volume while taking care of things in the other room). When I've got about 200 hours on whatever I'm burning in, I sit down for some in-depth critical listening, but generally I find things don't sound terrible during burn-in.

Someone else may have a better idea about the typical break-in regarding resistors. It might be a good idea for you to post the specific resistors you're going to use.

One thing you'll learn real fast when playing with loudspeaker crossovers is that even the best resistors sound terrible.

So, I would try not using that 1 Ohm resistor at all. If you find the speaker too relentless, which is likely not the case if it's actually only a 1 Ohm resistor that's required, then you will need a resistor. The best for speaker use in my opinion are the Ohmite silicone conformal coated wirewound. Many folks like the Mills, but I find them a significant step down compared to the Ohmite.

Thanks Dave. My friend gave me some audiophile grade resistors to try so I will give them a spin. How long for something like this to burn in??

Here's an old thread that discussed this issue:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1006214362&openfrom&1&4#1

The answers to your question can be heavily dependent upon your tonal preference.