How to kill Studio Speakers

[VicBar]

My brother has a small Home Studio and he was always very careful to explain to me that you never turn on the speakers with the volume knob at anything other than 0, and that they are the last thing to turn on. So I understand they are both important and susceptible to be  damaged if handled correctly.

 

The other day I went to another small home studio and the producer kept turning on the speakers to hear the recording and them turning them off to record.

Can this kill the Studio Speakers?

 

I heard he's blown through two crappy sets of speakers and now he has (1) legit speaker and if this seemingly ridiculous workflow is likely to kill this new better speaker I think I should warn him. The thing is idk if I'm missing something, so I've come to this subforum to ask. Is it damaging to be continuously turning them on and off like that? let's say.. 15 times an hour? Is the problem that he's turning them on with the volume knob up?

[OfficialTechSpace]

Not sure why your brother decided to instill that unnecessary worry of damaging monitors. They aren't that fragile, and it goes without saying you'd have to be REALLY abusing them to cause any sort of damage.

 

Starting your monitors at a volume of zero only really makes sense if you're scared because they're still cranked from their last session. Even so, if they didn't have any issues pumping out that SPL before, they won't now either unless your source material is distorted or missing a limiter. Playing anything over -0.00 dB will cause clipping.

 

Turning monitors on/off doesn't do anything. The drivers will go from sitting there with no power, to sitting there with power. They won't even use any of the power they're being supplied unless the source calls for it. It's also perfectly acceptable to turn them off when they're not in use, even if that's a couple times per session. The power switch is more likely to wear out than you are to kill anything.

 

For ex. if your monitors are rated at 25 Watts RMS, that's a peak power draw measured under load. It won't be using that power at idle, so you don't have to worry about a sudden surge of power killing them either. Even if there's a literal power surge that's more likely to kill the internal amplifier than the drivers themselves.

[VicBar]

14 minutes ago, OfficialTechSpace said:

[...]

Well on forums I've seen people just mention the popping sound it can produce when turning it on and that that can reduce the lifetime of the speakers. He probably instilled that unnecessary worry cause they were expensive speakers he bought during high school after saving up a ton of money whilst having no real income. I mean... I do get it.

 

But if there's no real damage that can occur to this other guy's speaker thanks for informing me.

[OfficialTechSpace]

3 minutes ago, VicBar said:

Well on forums I've seen people just mention the popping sound it can produce when turning it on and that that can reduce the lifetime of the speakers.

The capacitors drop their charge when you switch your gear off. On startup you'll get a burst of DC before the caps are charged, and that's what causes the popping sound. It's not a massive concern, and won't really damage anything. If necessary, adding a buffer to the power curcuit might fix that.

 

Generally it's also a good practice to be aware of your startup/shutdown routine. Monitors should be first on, and last off in the mix (pun intended).

 

[Derkoli]

21 hours ago, VicBar said:

My brother has a small Home Studio and he was always very careful to explain to me that you never turn on the speakers with the volume knob at anything other than 0, and that they are the last thing to turn on. So I understand they are both important and susceptible to be  damaged if handled correctly.

 

The other day I went to another small home studio and the producer kept turning on the speakers to hear the recording and them turning them off to record.

Can this kill the Studio Speakers?

 

I heard he's blown through two crappy sets of speakers and now he has (1) legit speaker and if this seemingly ridiculous workflow is likely to kill this new better speaker I think I should warn him. The thing is idk if I'm missing something, so I've come to this subforum to ask. Is it damaging to be continuously turning them on and off like that? let's say.. 15 times an hour? Is the problem that he's turning them on with the volume knob up?

That shouldn't destroy speakers.

 

Turning speakers on last is an extremely good idea. You should turn your source on first, then anything between the speakers on, then the speakers. This is extremely common practice and is how you should turn your kit on. Everyone in live events does this, and you should be doing it in your studio.

[The Flying Sloth]

I'm agreed with Derkoli, all of my power in my studio is controlled through 'smart outlets', I have a single command that turns everything on piece by piece until finally the monitors turn on.
Major reason this can be important is that you can't be sure what sort of signal your other gear is sending during its startup procedure, sure this may only create a snmall pop most of the time but if something were to go wrong you could have extremely loud buzzing, humming or other interference playing in your studio which
1 - hurts to hear,
2 - Isn't a good look in front of clients

3 - Is not what the crowd / audience paid good money to hear. And
4 - In niche cases could damage your speakers if the amplifier / sound source is clipping badly.

Don't be scared though, before my system upgrades I had a single switch that turned everything on all at once and I did that for yeeeaars and never managed to damage my speakers, the same switch would immediately cut power to everything (including the PC) when I turned it off so I learned that computers are far more resilient than we give them credit for most of the time but certainly would not recommend you copy this setup.