Speakers - Running them in?

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Is this required, can I expect the performance of brand new speakers to improve after time?

The reason I ask is I've owned a second hand pairs of Mission 773e's for a year now, I've always thought they were good but lacked a little on the bass.

I've been saving for some B&W 684's or similar for a while but after hearing my brothers Wharfdale Diamond 10.2's I thought the 10.4's (2.5 way floor standing version) would be great stop gap.

Just unpacked them and compaired them back to back against my Missions and if I'm honest I'm kind of hoping there's an invisible brick wall I can remove from the front of them...

Am I disappointed too soon?
 
They will loosen up over time and eventually settle at the response the cabinet was designed for. Quick way to loosen them up: Wire 1 of them out of phase and place and position them facing each other, this causes each speaker to cancel out the output of the other (to some extent), you can now play a mixture of sine-waves, sweeps and pink noise at louder volumes without disturbing your neighbours.
 
Just playing music is the best way to burn them in. Plays a range of frequencies through them then. You won't notice day and night drastic changes, but after using my Sennheiser MM70is for 100+ hours now, they definitely have better bass than I remember when I first listened to them :)
 
If your really not happy with the sound straight away then don't expect any miracles, any sound quality increase from them running in would be fairly minor.

Maybe the sonic signature of these speakers just isn't for you.
 
Perhaps both speakers are telling you the quality of bass coming from your source and amp is the problem. Bigger and better speakers need better signal fed to them, or the sound gets worse not better.
 
9designs2 said:
Perhaps both speakers are telling you the quality of bass coming from your source and amp is the problem. Bigger and better speakers need better signal fed to them, or the sound gets worse not better.
Click to expand...

I'll willing to accept you could be right. (any excuse for a new amp).

I'm currently using a Cambridge Audio A400 which should be plenty powerfull. I could understand a better amp helping with the bass on my Missions, but the bass from it on these Wharfedales is plenty, it's the treble that's lacking on these, but is crystal clear on the Missions.

Thoughts?

Here's what they both look like btw.
2.jpg
1.jpg
 
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Speakers are a personal thing, you could have bought something you like less !!!!
Get the missions on some spiked basses to tighten up the bass, and use a better source and amp perhaps. Also work with room placement to get the most out of them.
 
With regards to treble, I've actually got a pair of Mission 773e's and Wharfedale 9.6 and compared to the Wharfedale's, the missions are a lot more bright sounding. Maybe that's why you prefer the treble of the Missions. Wharfedale's are much more warm sounding to me.
 
I'd have to agree with Nick, 9designs2 and Soul here.

I've had a set of standmount 771's in the past and they were particularly bright and accurate sounding.

Like you I chose the Wharfedale route but in my case it was a combination of 1) the desire to move to floorstanding units for additional bass power and 2) a bit of a necessity as I had moved to using Cyrus equipment which was far faster and leaner sounding.

In your case it may just be a mismatch of components combined with your own personal preference of sound. For me the move worked well as the Pacific Pi40's perfectly complemented the Smartpower amp and PSX-R combo I used. Especially compared to the 771 and CDM2SE units I'd used previously with them.

I can also confirm that I experienced run-in improvements with the 771's so it does happen. They went from being almost painfully sharp to perfect witghin a week or so of use. I also had to run in a set of Focul car speakers (which were also super sharp) for a couple of weeks before they calmed down. Finally I had the same with the Pi40's but to a much smaller degree and more focused on loose and plodding bass delivery. However that improvement there was minimal as it wasn't as much of an issue to begin with... overall those were pretty good from the start.

Obviously your 773e's are leaner sounding units (they were certainly reviewed that way) as well as the compact enclosure and 13cm drivers the sprung tweeter was reviewed as a particularly fast and accurate unit.

Incidentally - I'd be very interested to hear what source kit your brother's using? Might hint at the hardware you'd ideally need to get the sound you're looking for.

It virtually comes down to 3 things... all of which have been mentioned in the thread:

1) Speaker positioning and set up (spikes, toe in, distance from walls, etc).

2) Source adjustment (CD player or amp change to improve/adjust delivery of chosen sound signature).

3) Potentially a run in period but as others have said this can range from somewhat noticeable to virtually non-existant.

gt
 
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What speaker cable is that in the pics

Looks like its worth more than the speakers? not trying to be a nob, but looks high end / expensive?
 
drum n bass jungle tunes from the 90s often have a wicked basline real deep and long

pump some out at 100% volume for atleast 1 hour
 
( |-| |2 ][ $;20409939 said:
Is this required, can I expect the performance of brand new speakers to improve after time?

The reason I ask is I've owned a second hand pairs of Mission 773e's for a year now, I've always thought they were good but lacked a little on the bass.

I've been saving for some B&W 684's or similar for a while but after hearing my brothers Wharfdale Diamond 10.2's I thought the 10.4's (2.5 way floor standing version) would be great stop gap.

Just unpacked them and compaired them back to back against my Missions and if I'm honest I'm kind of hoping there's an invisible brick wall I can remove from the front of them...

Am I disappointed too soon?
Click to expand...
running them in low volume will heat up the resin in the coils and bed the coil in the magnate they will last longer and sound better over time. blasting them at full volume out the box will over heat the coils and stink out your house
 
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