2. speakers
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Do speakers have to "warm-up" too?

i warm up my amplifiers for 30 minutes before listening (everything else is on "standby" all the time), but i strongly feel that
the (first) cd i have on sounds (much) better (fuller, more open sounding) towards the end than it did at the start. i get this impression time after time. my speakers are broken in of course, but (perhaps) they become more compliant, or the voice coils warm up (?) i'm not an engineer, but it makes sense that speakers reach a sort of "equilibrium" after playing music for a given period of time. otoh, of course, my ears could be "adjusting" to the sound, and/or the effect could be largely psychological. does anyone else have this experience or feel the same way i do?
french_fries

Showing 1 response by larryi

larryi
4,326 posts
 
I doubt that there is much warmup for speakers. Conceivably, the suspension parts (surround, the spider, etc.) could be warmed by friction, but I have never heard of that making an appreciable difference. The voice coil itself is NOT a moving part in that it should not be rubbing against anything so there is no issue of a change in friction coefficient.

If anything, the resistive heating of the voice coil from usage should detract from sound quality by causing compression. As the coil warms up resistance increases and the output of the driver will fall. I would expect hard usage to temporarily adversely affect the sound quality, not improve the sound.
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