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Bass Drivers - Quickest / Best Way to Break In?

As a proud owner of new EgglestonWorks Andra I speakers, I am completely impressed and satisfied with their sound, from 63 Hz and up. In my room, they are amazingly live, dynamic, detailed but natural, very well balanced (as the frequency response shows (Rives CD, RS analog meter)), and the sense of acoustic space is just unbelievable.

But then there's the bass...I know the Dynaudio bass drivers (two 12" in each cabinet) take some time to break in. I have bearly any audible response below 50Hz; the response drops 15 to 20dB from reference (80dB) very quickly after 63Hz. When I crank up the volume on the 20Hz tone, I get the woofers moving, but the equivalent volume level would be around 95db at 1Khz. That's loud folks!

I tried respositioning the speakers closer together, to simulate a friend's setup, also Andra Is, and he's only down 3dB at 31Hz. No such luck for me, so I don't think it's a room thing, not for the lowest octave and a half range like this, so it must be break in, right? My bass drivers just don't seem to want to move that much at 80dB.

What would be the safest way (for the drivers and the simple low pass bass crossover). I assume that playing the 20Hz tone repeatedly may cause overheating of either? I guess I am impatient! I have about 50 hours on the speakers thus far (yeah, I know, that's nothing!).

Thanks!
1markr
1markr OP
525 posts
 
I can't believe it's upstream since nothing really changed since the Andra IIs.

I did look at both speakers, and neither of the bass drivers are moving very much with a normal music signal at normal to louder listening levels. Hardly moving = hardly any bass.
tvad
9,467 posts
 
Mark, I can't tell from your response, "I did look at both speakers", whether they were both operating simultaneously when you looked at them, or if you looked at them with only one or the other operational at a time.

Have you listened and tested just one speaker at a time by using a balance control, or by disconnecting a left interconnect, and then a right interconnect (don't disconnect the speaker cabling to do this as you might risk damaging your amp without a load attached)?

Also, a stupid question, but something that's possible...did you connect the speakers in proper phase, or is perhaps one speaker lead reversed?
1markr OP
525 posts
 
Grant, I checked both speakers out while playing a 20hz tone (volume level normalized to 80dB @ 1kHz), and felt both drivers...very slight movement on the bass drivers of both l and r channels. I then cranked the volume up to what would normally be about 95dB @ 1Khz, and I got the drivers moving pretty well, and they were outputting about 80dB (or slightly less) of the 20Hz test tone.

So to answer your question, no, I didn't inspect them individually while the alternate channel was unpowered.

Phase is correct, as it was one of the first things I checked, as are the connections.
tvad
9,467 posts
 
I'd suggest checking them out individually. It doesn't make logical sense that both speakers would display the same anomaly if the problem was with a driver, drivers or crossover.

If they both respond the same during the individual troubleshooting, then my money is on a problem upstream.

Do you have another pair of full range speakers available, or even a pair of monitor speaker that go into to 50Hz range, to install to rule out an upstream problem?
1markr OP
525 posts
 
I can put my little VSA VR-1s back in the loop, but I'm not sure that they go deep enough. I can also connect my cdp directly to my Dodd monoblocks to at least rule out the preamp.

That just reminded me....I used to run off the 4ohm taps on the Dodds, now they are on the 8ohm...hmmmm, could that kill my lowest two octaves?
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