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Maybe I'm crazy, JBL 530 vs DCM..

Just received my JBL 530s, on sale.

Tremendous, mostly clean bottom on these little guys. Now to be fair, I've had them less than a day, not sure what appropriate break-in time is. 
Initially they sound smooth and piano is especially nice (' Love over Gold').

But I'm hearing a slightly thinner but livelier more open sound from my 30? Year old DCM CX 17s. Probably about as diametrically opposed design-wise as 2 speakers can be.

I had a bad experience a few years ago with another pair of Chinese made speakers, Chane 2.4s. These JBLs are better to my ears, but do I need to run them for a week and then compare, or..?
Amp is wired 4 sound sti 500. Source is CD player. Thoughts for an old newbie? Thanks



sifter

Showing 2 responses by reubent

reubent
7,093 posts
 
@sifter  - As long as you can get the speakers really close together (without touching) and face-to-face, it should work. Just make sure you only wire one of the speakers out of phase (+ to -, - to +). The out of phase signal will cancel out a good percentage of the total sound output.

Can't hurt to try it. I've done it many times over the years, to speed up break-in and allow me to run my system around the clock for a couple of days to speed up break-in. Can't say if it will work with your horn loaded speakers, but don't know why it wouldn't work, unless you can't get the face of the horns close enough to each other to have them effectively cancel out the output signal.
reubent
7,093 posts
 
Let the new speakers break-in before passing judgement. To speed up break-in try to let them play when you are out of the house, or over night if you can isolate them from your sleeping area. 

To reduce the volume, while still breaking them in, wire one of the speakers out of phase, face the speakers directly facing each other, and as close together face-to-face as possible, without touching, and cover them with thick blankets. It will greatly reduce the perceived volume by cancelling out much of the sound. This allows you to break them in much quicker than just listening to them. 
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