How rubbish do non-broken-in speakers sound?

midlifecrisis

just thinking, so speakers broken in after say 20 hrs of vigorous loud  all frequency playing. is this a finite thing or do the speakers continue to change over their life. ie will a speaker that's been broken in for a week solid playing sound different from one that's been used for 5 or ten years?

ICBM

It's one of those exponential things, I think. Large, fast change over the first few hours, then smaller, slower change over a longer time, then even less over even longer, but still continues to some extent for a very long time or maybe indefinitely, even though the rate and the amount tends towards zero in the end.

p90fool

Just watched the video, that was very interesting, not least because the iso-cab seems to have a slightly congested tone itself, to my ears anyway.
My cab of choice is an open-backed 4x12, and I wonder whether that would make a greater or lesser difference to the pre-/post break-in sounds, given that my cones are already allowed to flap around far more than the ones in the test.

On one of the tests I preferred the Legend pre break-in, which is slightly worrying. It's expensive enough having to replace strings every gig, but four speakers too?

ICBM

p90fool said:

On one of the tests I preferred the Legend pre break-in, which is slightly worrying. It's expensive enough having to replace strings every gig, but four speakers too?

I think I did too. It sounded a bit muffled afterwards.

Depends on the amp though - I'm not a fan of those speakers in general because they do sound middy and a bit congested, to me - but I tried one (second hand and presumably well broken in) in an 80s Peavey Bandit, which has a bit of a tendency to sound hollow and edgy normally, and it was perfect.