Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Axiom's view on speaker break-in?

Yes you agree? OR Yes you do laugh? … just causing trouble, I is …

I’ve never really heard any “break-in’ changes in my speakers … but then again i don’t think I’ve ever done any critical listening or speaker comparisons till they had run a few hours.

This is because I can’t evaluate anything till they are set up … so end up doing a quick listen to make sure everything seems to be working, then setup 2 channel, listen a bit to get an impression, then setup for video listen a bit and somewhere way later try to critically listen.

So far my experiential view is they either don’t need it or only need a few hours. That said …

As an engineer, I can see how this might vary depending on the speaker and manufacturer.
So a much longer break-in might be necessary. As stated above the parts might need to wear a bit for smoother motion or materials may need vibrate a bit to get to their intended characteristics.

Given that “break-in” has no real down side and that it might actually help in some cases … my thinking is …

Just do it …

Come on Kodak, Everybody needs a new power plant!

When Axiom made it’s debut offer on the actives, the package deal with the dual ADA1500-5 was too good to pass up. I thought it was crazy to have that much power. I’m still not sure if it does anything over what a 1250 or 1000 would do in my room … but that setup sings better then anything I’ve ever owned.

Fear not! I’m now hell bent on a full upgrade! Speakers, source and power plant.

Wish I could get a preview of what’s going to show up in the b stock / refurb for Black Friday sale…..

I really think I have the space now ( by accident ) to run lfr actives in here. So when I hear you mention dual Ada-1500-5 I start salivating!!

Just curious, do you run 5 your channels vertically off the amp or horizontally?

And order of operations is : Source, Pre amp, dsp, power amp?

One amp per speaker.
Currently AV8805 prepro -> L/R DSP -> L/R ADA1500 -> L/R Active

Cool. Multi channel mono block sort of. It’s such an interesting system. Very cool. I’ve been reading threads about active system. Really interesting.

I’m on the fence with break in for equipment. I think there is definitely some level of break in but it’s probably not as dramatic as some might think. I think it’s easier to understand with something mechanical like woofer surrounds and moving parts but I can’t say I know enough about electronics to make an opinion. But I do know electronics wear out so it does show type of lifecycle…

Edit: right! Left and right dsp for actives into l r amps. Makes sense. I was picturing a single dsp like with the passives.

Big advantage to having a separate amp per active speaker.

You can put the amp on the DSP right next to each speaker.
So, you have 5 short speaker cables from amp to speaker,
5 very short XLR cables from DSP to the amp, and
a single Single XLR cable running back to the prepro.

Nice. So shortest signal path possible, very desirable. Longest run then is from DSP to pre then. Sweet. With XLR all around and to your pre is it all “ balanced “?

I’ve heard of xlr being used but not actually “ balanced”.

I’m assuming that with the level of LFR sophistication that it’s all fully balanced.

I stil don’t totally understand “ balanced “ but liken it to a noise cancelling of any hum by using inverted signals? ( I’m reaching here….)

That’s a nice symmetrical way to set it up. Each speaker with its own stand alone power and processing. I really like visual symmetry and all things symmetric.

XLR is a connector which is intended to be used for low level balance audio. It has three pins (+, -, and ground). Yes, it's good for noise rejection.



A bit more on that if your interested

... good for noise rejection because the input is differential ... the amplitude of the signal is the voltage difference between the lines (+) and (-). So when stray noise is picked up it should effect both the (+) and (-) lines by the same amount, the voltage between them is not effected and the injected noise is thus rejected.

A non-balanced signal is the voltage difference between the (+) line and ground. When stray noise gets picked up it will effect only the + line (for the most part). The noise will be added into your signal.

In addition a balance connection helps with ground loops ... This is when the ground at the device a one end is slightly different than the ground at the device at the other end. Since in a balanced signal only the difference between (+) and (-) matter ... the two grounds moving relative is not an issue. But in a non-balance situation the (+) signal is sent relative to one ground but the input is relative to another. If the grounds are moving relative to each other noise is being injecting. To think of it another way if you have no signal out (+=0) but the other ground is moving then the signal input will be that grounds movement.

Thankyou. As an FYI, ( maybe it’s already common knowledge to most but….) I have read that not all XLR connections are fully balanced / differential. I can imagine why this would be but apparently it’s a thing. ( maybe I’m wrong?) But there are a number of adapters out there too to convert XLR to single ended.