26 replies to this topic

[Fragsman]

You can damage headphones with too much power. The break/burn in discussion is seperate too that.

It is related to an unproved or disproved notion that to get the best sound quality from new headphones/speakers or other components, you need to break them in by just playing hours and hours of music through them.

Yeah. Got it, my answer is above. Dunno why am I quotting here.

If you don't exceed their limitations there's no difference in life. The first few minutes of play probably shouldn't be at absolute maximum power though. "Loud" play is fine...OMG MAXIMUM VOLUME play right out of the box is probably not what you want to do.

Ok, waco I liked your explanation also. So if you buy a headset/headphones/subwoofers and you put at max just after u bought it lets say for 100 hours. That might break. Yeah. I wouldnt ever go to max volume. Well I did with the iPod but just 1 or 2 seconds just to test max sound but that put me very nervous and anxious and I wanna die (no that last was a joke.. the die part). When I bought my Home Teathre I also wanted to test max volume but that is something that put me very nervous too. I wanted to know what number was the maximun. It was 40. But I didnt tested with sound. I put something with very low sound up to 40. Because 40 is really loud. It is 600w not much but that is ALREADY a lot to me and neighbours will hear it... and I feel like it is going to break something I dont like to play myusic or movies very loud, just a cool decent medium-high sound but no more.

[Waco]

Ok, waco I liked your explanation also. So if you buy a headset/headphones/subwoofers and you put at max just after u bought it lets say for 100 hours. That might break. Yeah.

Well it's more complicated than that -- generally headsets don't suffer from it quite as much so even a few minutes of play should allow them to reach nearly their full suspension compliance. Subwoofers tend to have pretty heavy-duty suspension that can take quite a while to break in. The problem with going right to the limits of the speakers right when you get them without any breaking in is that if the suspension is not yet "loosened up" you could physically damage the speakers by pushing them past their mechanical limits (because with the suspension being "tighter" it exerts more force on the speaker and frame).

That said...causing damage by cranking up speakers right after you get them is exceedingly uncommon. It's just good practice not to go balls to the wall with the volume level until you get used to how the speaker performs -- this essentially breaks them in as you're using them without any real damage concerns or anything like that.

[hornybluecow]

It's just good practice not to go balls to the wall with the volume level.....

Edited by hornybluecow, 14 November 2012 - 05:37 PM.