I think the "new" 2022 Celestion Vintage 30 is dead already

[The other John Browne]

What's up guys? Hope you don't mind me posting my own video here. Some of you may have seen my 50+ Celestion Vintage 30 shootout as someone else posted it here (which is how I found this awesome forum in the first place).

In that video, I looked at the supposedly new V30 as popularized by a Glenn Fricker/Spectre Sound video from about a year ago. I didn't get a clear result in my big test but I needed closure so I got four more new V30s.

It seems it's all in the cones and for a short period, the V30s/their cones sounded like they did in the early 2000s again but my observations indicate that that period is already over.

 

[James Freeman]

Yup, it's the cone that makes the biggest difference
I wonder if variation in cone thickness or doping amount affects that 5.5kHz region.
Maybe a de-doping and sanding test is in order?

But first I'd like to know if burn-in is bullshit or not (it is).
Let the motor cool for a few minutes every hour of work at like 1/2 the rated wattage.

 

[The other John Browne]

Yup, it's the cone that makes the biggest difference
I wonder if variation in cone thickness or doping amount affects that 5.5kHz region.
Maybe a de-doping and sanding test is in order?

But first I'd like to know if burn-in is bullshit or not (it is).
Let the motor cool for a few minutes every hour of work at like 1/2 the rated wattage.

Yeah! Break-in test is the next test on the agenda. My expectation is, it's going to be subtle, if I can measure a phenomenon at all but I will try to keep an open mind.

 

[Deadpan]

But first I'd like to know if burn-in is bullshit or not (it is).
Let the motor cool for a few minutes every hour of work at like 1/2 the rated wattage.

I have some V30s that sounded absolutely horrible. I pumped music through them for over 30 hours. The high end after was much less spikey. This was a long time ago and I unfortunately didn't document the before and after. The speakers were unusable in their original state.

I'm not saying all speaker have this change. I have many that it didn't effect them much.

 

[Orvillain]

Nice work @The other John Browne !

You know what I'm curious about, and maybe you could test, is if the presence differences of these speakers (the 2000 versus 2019 reference ones for instance) can be equalized and accounted for using the amplifier. IE: Does turning up/down the presence on the amp bring the closer?

 

[Baba]

Maybe it's already been done, but I would LOVE for someone to REALLY document the differences pre and post speaker "break in" (in quotes because I'm not sure I believe in such a thing).

And more importantly than charts and graphs, a real world clip comparison of the phenomena.

 

[Gearzilla]

Maybe it's already been done, but I would LOVE for someone to REALLY document the differences pre and post speaker "break in" (in quotes because I'm not sure I believe in such a thing).

 

[James Freeman]

Judging by what I've seen so far, John will put a nail on this myth once and for all.
Break/Burn-In is 100% psycho-acoustical and just a matter of your auditory system (brain) getting used to an unfamiliar sound.

I will eat my words if there is an actual significant frequency response difference before and after 100+ hours.

Ask yourself why Scumback didn't perform this simple test yet, and he breaks in hundreds of brand new speakers a month.

 

[norminal]

Break/Burn-In is 100% psycho-acoustical and just a matter of your auditory system (brain) getting used to an unfamiliar sound.

Burn-in? I agree is BS. What effect would electrical or thermal energy have on a voice coil or any electrical component of a speaker, unless it’s overheated.

Break-in, I have a lot of first-hand experience with in the home and mobile audio industry.

A fresh, out of the box surround and spider is much stiffer than one that has been played for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years.

We used to play single-digit test tones through drivers for an entire day and see an improvement in Xmax vs. mechanical distortion. Subwoofers are the obvious culprits. Woofers with excessively worn out suspension can actually suffer because the voice coil is no longer properly positioned perfectly centered in the gap, leading to contact and subsequent destruction of the coil.

But, like I stated, this is just my experience. I do not, however, have experience intentionally doing this with say, a 12” guitar-specific driver. If I remember correctly, Nolly experienced a difference with an excessively broken-in V30, which he described as “guttural.”

That said, I am really looking forward to John’s test results.

 

[The other John Browne]

It's going to be interesting for sure. I think the effect of speaker break might be an order of magnitude smaller than the overall tolerances. I didn't see anything in the graphs from the big test that stood out as possibly being speaker break in. There were a couple of dB difference in the lows up to about 125 Hz in some. Maybe that is one sign of a well used speaker. The mids were pretty much the same in almost all of them (regardless if very well used or brand new) with some minor variance in the high mids. The presence range has more variance and the brilliance range got wild af.
Regularly recording frequency sweeps of the same speaker is one only viable way I can think of to prove speaker break in.
And honestly, I hope I record something otherwise it'll be hard to decide when to stop or go brack to the drawing board.

 

[TheTrueZoltan!]

I'm surprised none of the cryotuning faithful have tried their hand at speakers yet.

 

[James Freeman]

@The other John Browne
It will probably be good to capture 10 sweeps before break-in to demonstrate the consistency of your setup and taking the same speaker in and out of the iso-box 10 times.
If the graphs align it means your setup is very consistent and there was no user error during measurement, makes sense?

If we're talking like 0.5-1dB difference after break-in, setup consistency is everything.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Are speakers not like drum heads a bit? In Arizona, we'd just tighten the heads too much and leave the drums outside in the sun for half an hour and all the "rice krispies" would be gone. here in hawaii I have to use a hair dryer or heat gun, or just push and lean on them till the snap crackle pop goes away

 

[The other John Browne]

I've prepped the set up for the break in test and made some sweeps of a pair of 2021 Marshall G12 Vintages to supplement the results from the last video. I also needed to get a few things off my chest before moving on to the break in test and V30 alternatives:

 

[James Freeman]

Yep, the letter after the T number on the white sticker.

A = Asia
B = Britain

 

[KyleBull]

Great work as always, John! We need more speaker gurus on the interwebs.

I have been putting off the idea of doing a speaker break in test for a long time, but I think I'm finally going to do it soon. I have a 112 cab and a dedicated practice space where I can let a power amp and speaker run all day without bothering anyone. My idea is to test the sound difference after 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours to see if there is a noticeable change in sound.

 

[The other John Browne]

Great work as always, John! We need more speaker gurus on the interwebs.

I have been putting off the idea of doing a speaker break in test for a long time, but I think I'm finally going to do it soon. I have a 112 cab and a dedicated practice space where I can let a power amp and speaker run all day without bothering anyone. My idea is to test the sound difference after 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours to see if there is a noticeable change in sound.

Hey Kyle!

Please do that! The more data we gather the better. My main concern is, if I can't measure break in in my test, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. One can't prove a negative so who knows what factors play a role in speaker break in.

 

[dk_ace]

Judging by what I've seen so far, John will put a nail on this myth once and for all.
Break/Burn-In is 100% psycho-acoustical and just a matter of your auditory system (brain) getting used to an unfamiliar sound.

I will eat my words if there is an actual significant frequency response difference before and after 100+ hours.

Ask yourself why Scumback didn't perform this simple test yet, and he breaks in hundreds of brand new speakers a month.

Dave Friedman says they change after breaking in. He also says that most of the things people do to break them in don’t work as I recall. He’s broken them in by blasting music through them at very high volume for a fairly long period of time (days I think), and says it makes a noticeable difference. It’s so much trouble he rarely does it though. I’ve never done it in a controlled manner, so I have no idea. He tends to know his stuff and isn’t selling “pre broken in” speakers though, so I think I believe him.

D

 

[The other John Browne]

Dave Friedman says they change after breaking in. He also says that most of the things people do to break them in don’t work as I recall. He’s broken them in by blasting music through them at very high volume for a fairly long period of time (days I think), and says it makes a noticeable difference. It’s so much trouble he rarely does it though. I’ve never done it in a controlled manner, so I have no idea. He tends to know his stuff and isn’t selling “pre broken in” speakers though, so I think I believe him.

D

Nolly and Ignacio from Jensen speakers have also spoken about break in on Kohlekellers youtube channel and I was able to confirm pretty much everything either of those gentlemen have said through testing so I do think speaker break in exists but I think it will be a much more subtle effect to what people think it is. I believe its quite possible that real speaker break in gets muddled up with peoples ears adjusting and their minds playing tricks on them. We'll see. I am genuinely curious.

 

[Bob Zaod]

Wouldnt a "break In" test be pretty simple? Do an RTA capture, in the exact same environment of the same piece of music before and after. I havent bought a brand new speaker in ages but even I have the gear to do that.