Breaking period

spirovious

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Breaking-in period

Hi,

I recently bought Tannoy F1 custom.They are nice to listen,but
treble is thin but clear.Old spk sound open in High freq. area.

What can be it?
Do they need breaking?
What differnce one can find?
Do tweeter sound quality improve?

Pls. share your experiences.
 
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absolutely no offence meant, and please take this as a Joke.....but "breaking" might be very bad for the speakers.....breaking-in on the other hand might be worth considering....
 
it could well be that it needs breaking in. normally the new model is mostly an improvement on the previous. breaking in could take anywhere from 10 to 100 hours
 
Hi,

I recently bought Tannoy F1 custom.They are nice to listen,but
treble is thin but clear.Old spk sound open in High freq. area.

What can be it?
Do they need breaking?
What differnce one can find?
Do tweeter sound quality improve?

Pls. share your experiences.

I have no experience with these particular speakers but I cannot think of a brand that does not have a breaking in period after which sound improves dramatically. You can of course accelerate the breaking-in period by using the popular method of: wiring one out of phase, having them face each other and playing music that spans as much of the frequency range as possible. If not, simply give them time and they'll sound a lot better after around 10 hours of play.
 
accelerate the breaking-in period by using the popular method of: wiring one out of phase, having them face each other and playing music that spans as much of the frequency range as possible.

Particleman,
I'm curious to understand why this accelerates the break-in period.

Thanks,
Jinx.
 
OK,

As I know breaking causes improvement in Bass department(deep)
I wld like to know does treble improve?currently treble from my spk.
are thin.Will they open, & become wide,sweat by breaking?

I have no experience with these particular speakers but I cannot think of a brand that does not have a breaking in period after which sound improves dramatically. You can of course accelerate the breaking-in period by using the popular method of: wiring one out of phase, having them face each other and playing music that spans as much of the frequency range as possible. If not, simply give them time and they'll sound a lot better after around 10 hours of play.
 
OK,

As I know breaking causes improvement in Bass department(deep) I wld like to know does treble improve?currently treble from my spk. are thin.Will they open, & become wide,sweat by breaking?

Spirovious, the word is Break-in or Breaking-in. Not 'BREAKING'. When your are breaking something, you take a hammer to it and smash it to pieces. I am sure you do not want to do that your brand new Tannoys.

Break-in is also called 'burn-in', or 'run-in'. An analogy I can think of is when you buy a new car, you find it a little stiff. When you have driven it for a little while, you will find it is responding better to your commands.

A loudspeaker consists of a cabinet in which there are two sets of devices. One is the crossover circuitry, the other are the 'drivers'. The drivers are the units that generate sound for you.

The driver is a electromechanical device. Look at the following image of a driver.



Th two important parts are the Diaphragm and the Spider. The diaphragm vibrates when it gets electrical signals thereby moving a volume of air to generate the sound. The diaphragm is suspended between the outer frame and the Spider. The Spider is made of varnish-impregnated linen and a new Spider is usually stiff. It does not allow the diaphragm enough freedom of movement. As the driver is exercised with electrical energy, the spider loosens up allowing the diaphragm to move freely.

Driver burn-in is considered relevant only for low frequencies (woofers) and mid frequencies drivers. Why not for tweeters that generate high frequencies? Simply because the tweeters are very small units, have very little physical movement, and many tweeters operate on principles that are different compared to a conventional LF and MF drivers.

Cheers
 
Hi,

I recently bought Tannoy F1 custom.They are nice to listen,but
treble is thin but clear.Old spk sound open in High freq. area.

What can be it?
Do they need breaking?
What differnce one can find?
Do tweeter sound quality improve?

Pls. share your experiences.

Did you change any of your cables? Are the speakers in the same position as the ones before?
Lean sound could be due to many reasons but most commonly due to RF/EMI being picked up by cables. Try moving cables away from power lines and raise them from the floor.
Also, if have any highly reflective surfaces at the first reflection points (side wall between you and speaker) these will increase the treble.
Try playing around with speaker placement.
If all else fails, PM me your email address and I will send you some tips sent to me by the owner of Shunmook (Shun Mook Audio, Inc.) to overcome this issue.
 
Here they are.. They may or may not work for you..

"If you have a glare in the sound, that means your highs are too extended.When your system high is sticking out too much, then the it begins to bother the human ear a lot.

To fix the high you need to work on the low. If you have no low then you work on the high. These are related by the overtone harmonics in resonance of acoustics.

1. Go find some cloth fabric material. One is silk and one is wool. Silk I am sure you have fine Indian silk, not rough Thai silk, chinese smooth silk but not too thick threads. Cut a small tiny piece about half inch square, roughly. Need two pieces. Use a simple household glue, one that you can clean up with water. Stick silk piece next to high tweeter. Usually right next to dome, or ribbon. This will smooth out the high.

2. Get a wool cloth like the one school children use for uniform, jacket or trousers. Cut a round piece size of 3/4" round. Glue this to the metal ring of the driver.

Try these two things on tweeter and bass driver and see what happens.

Do not use too much glue, just take a tooth pick and dip one drop for sticking silk. Maybe 3 dots for the wool dot."

3. Check for the correct phasing of your power. In a typical room the power receptacles on each wall will be fed by different phase of the electricity coming into the house. You should try to have all of your components plugged into the same phase of power. If this cannot be done try to keep the CD, DA, Preamp to one receptacle and the power amps to another receptacle. For old homes without three prong receptacles you have lucked out and can try to listen to a component plug in one way, then flip the plug and listen to it the other way. One way always sound better then the other, mark this side and always plug it in the same way.

4. Typically a domestic room could cause standing waves in the corner. A cheap and better way to solve this is to use cardboard carton boxes stuffed with paper products (magazine, newspaper etc) stack them in the corners to tune out the excess booming. You can use three sizes of carton boxes, large, medium and small, one set for each corner. Stuffing the boxes full gives a tighter sound while a loose packing will increase the low frequency One must use patience to do this several time to get the right combination.

5. Often time furniture and decorative objects in your room can have a negative reaction with the acoustics. Glass, steel, copper etc will make the sound bright and harsh while carpet, curtains, sofas etc will soften the tone. Pay attention to the material you use to hold up your equipment. Marble sounds soft, granite sounds cold, glass sounds bright, steel sound harsh and MDF is worst material for acoustics as it is full of glue and retards any musical vibration to that is good. Natural material like wood, cotton, paper are all good sounding material.

6. Parallel components - Electronic equipment must not be parallel to each other due to the magnetic field of each transformer interfering with the other. If you have two mono block power amps usually placed nice and neat to each other, try and turn one of them slightly to a few degrees, you should hear some improvement in the clarity of your music. If you have pre-amp and other electronics stacked one on top of each other, then do the same by move either piece a few degrees you will notice a difference."

I would like to add that a good earth can do wonders to cure RF and EMI. If your equipment power cable supports earthing USE it. If not, you can try connecting your equipment chassis to earth with a simple wire - please do this at your own risk and only if you know what you are doing - if you put the wire in the wrong hole, the consequences can be dire.
 
Awdeophile, actually I would also like to know if there is a trick I can use. My TV downstairs that I use many times has a very high shrill sound that pains my ears. I know there is a high frequency being reflected, and I will like to know how to control it, short of making that room into another mini HT.

Cheers
 
Hi,

I recently bought Tannoy F1 custom.They are nice to listen,but
treble is thin but clear.Old spk sound open in High freq. area.

What can be it?
Do they need breaking?
What differnce one can find?
Do tweeter sound quality improve?

Pls. share your experiences.


do the speakers come with dual terminals. one of the reasons could be that you have connected the speaker wires to the bottom terminals (that power the lows) and on your previous set you connected it to the top terminals (that power the mids and highs). if this is the issue try switching it around and see if theres a difference. the best thing to do is bi-wire them - get rid of the brass plate connectors and connect both with speaker wire. they make quite a bit of difference
 
The F1's do not need too much of a break- in.
Also check if you do not have the speakers wired out of phase. i.e ensure that the negative from the speaker outlet is connected to the negative of the amp and vica versa.
Do also post your balance equipment. Maybe you have a weak link in your chain.( although I think they will sound great with almost anything )
All in all they are a great pair of speakers. Awesoem VFM. In the mids and highs department they can beat many 50-60k speakers. So enjoy!!
 
do the speakers come with dual terminals. one of the reasons could be that you have connected the speaker wires to the bottom terminals (that power the lows) and on your previous set you connected it to the top terminals (that power the mids and highs). if this is the issue try switching it around and see if theres a difference. the best thing to do is bi-wire them - get rid of the brass plate connectors and connect both with speaker wire. they make quite a bit of difference

Am not familiar with this speaker but generally in a 2 way speaker with 2 sets of terminals( for biwiring) the upper is for the HF and the lower is for the Mids and LF and its best to send the signal to the lower terminals as thats what does most of the work.If one wants to do away with the metal links one can always replace them by making jumpers from good speaker cables or better still from the same speaker cable used or one can biwire which is one of those controversial subjects in audio. I doubt these are biwirable though.
Break in may smoothen treble a bit but dont expect miracles.
Regards
 
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Re: Breaking-in period

Thanks,

Link- Onida DVD>co-ax> Onkyo AVR> OFC cables (16mm)> Tannoy F1 ctm

I know my link is not Hi end,but I compare F1 with same setup with
Onkyo sats.They are more bright (not harsh).Tannoy sounds softer.
Hence want to know about tweeters.

Thanks for Tips from another friend.
They are useful for bright,harsh spk.

For me the other way.

The F1's do not need too much of a break- in.
Also check if you do not have the speakers wired out of phase. i.e ensure that the negative from the speaker outlet is connected to the negative of the amp and vica versa.
Do also post your balance equipment. Maybe you have a weak link in your chain.( although I think they will sound great with almost anything )
All in all they are a great pair of speakers. Awesoem VFM. In the mids and highs department they can beat many 50-60k speakers. So enjoy!!
 
i tend to agree with saurabh. i think the weakest link in your system is the cdp. normally when you upgrade certain sections of your system, the start showcasing the defects in your weakest link. audition a dedicated cdp. also stop comparing it to your old speakers. instead compare the highs to what they would normally sound live. if they;re more correct then the its the onkyos that were unnaturally brightening the highs
 
A beautiful, well-constructed speaker with class-leading soundstage, imaging and bass that is fast, deep, and precise.
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