are speakers like tires...do they have to be rotated?

[nusiclover]

my guess would be no. but who am i to know? either way, id like to hear what others have to say about this: do you think speakers need to be rotated every once in a while? just like one would do with car tires? if i am listening to the same music and the bass seems to be from the right more often while the horns come out of the left would there be any reasonable assumption to rotate these every so often? i cant find any information on this, so i guess it is up to opinion...whats yours?

[RGA]

At first i laughed and then geez that made some sense. Yeay I suppose from a wear and tear perspsctive - but chances are you're listening to a wide variety of music and things will even out ---and of course this line of reasoning only applies if you believe in break in.

Really no you don't need to worry about it. Maybe in 10 years you want to check the actual speakers and surrounds to ensure they're not beginning to fray or deteriorate.

[topspeed]

Listen to more music. Like RGA said, it'll all even out in the end. Possibly, and this is a stretch, if you had your balance on the pre skewed to one side, MAYBE it would make sense...but I sincerely doubt it.

[mtrycraft]

my guess would be no. but who am i to know? either way, id like to hear what others have to say about this: do you think speakers need to be rotated every once in a while? just like one would do with car tires? if i am listening to the same music and the bass seems to be from the right more often while the horns come out of the left would there be any reasonable assumption to rotate these every so often? i cant find any information on this, so i guess it is up to opinion...whats yours?


Not to worry, ever. Your speakers are not tires. Wires don't wear. Magnetic fields don't wear. The material is not stretched to the limits to break or permanently deform. If they are, you will notice the blood first :)

[pelly3s]

mtrycraft - that is not 100% true. speakers go through a lot of stages of wear, anywhere from blistering the vc due to heat, fatigue to the spider or cone, tinsel leads pulling out. and a lot of times i have noticed if a speaker goes without being used for a while the cone may begin to go off center and shift itself downward causing the voice coil to rub

[nusiclover]

At first i laughed and then geez that made some sense. Yeay I suppose from a wear and tear perspsctive - but chances are you're listening to a wide variety of music and things will even out ---and of course this line of reasoning only applies if you believe in break in.


why do i have the funny feeling that someone is going to read this thread, you know the person - the one that spent a few grand on cables and has top of the line power conditioners and has made every tweek and mod possible and religiously uses that thing you put over the cd when inserting it to make it sound better* (what do they call thos anyway) - and they are going to look at their precious speakers and think "darn, i never rotated them, i knew i forgot something" and cancel all plans so that this feat could be accomplished.
{*this statement is fictitious and resembles no audiophile living or just plain crazy}

[kexodusc]

Should you rotate speakers? Absolutely!!! The proper way to rotate is to swap the Front Left with the Rear Right speaker, and Front Right with Rear Left is possible.
You wouldn't want your speakers pulling your sound field to the right...could eventually cause the center image to fall out of alignment...If that happens you could notice your speakers wearing unevenly, the right wearing thinner than the left for example. Then voices will appear to move from the center off to the side, forcing you to constantly re-adjust. Next thing you know you'll have to buy a whole new audio rack and pinion to simply because you didn't perform proper maintenance on your speakers.

[Resident Loser]

...if one is consistently exposed to direct sunlight and the other isn't you might want to swap L for R for purely cosmetic reasons I'd guess or like if the dog or cat likes to rub itself on one more than the other...and if you had four of the same units, swapping front to rear might be an idea, after all the front units would bear the brunt of each performance and the rears would be crusin' for the most part. Like chicken soup, it couldn't hurt!

jimHJJ(...and of course, if they are mirror imaged, all bets are off!...)

[Bryan]

I don't know as I've never done it. How would you rotate 7.1 with bipole side surrounds? Would it go front left to rear right, front right to rear left, swap the side surrounds, and then put the dual rear speakers in the front center and vice versa? Additionally, how would you rotate a single subwoofer? All I know is those poor folks in movie theaters must love speaker rotation time! ;)

[aurobot]

[QUOTE=Resident Loser]...and if you had four of the same units, swapping front to rear might be an idea, after all the front units would bear the brunt of each performance and the rears would be crusin' for the most part. Like chicken soup, it couldn't hurt!
QUOTE]

I was reading along, quite enjoying this thread, when this post made me realize that I DO rotate my speakers! It's not quite the same situation you describe, I've got four of the same speakers spread out among two rooms connected to the same system. Set B hardly gets played while set A gets played every day, so last year it occurred to me they would be wearing out unevenly, and I ought to let set B see more action. So I rotated them, yes. But just to make sure they age at a similar rate.