How many of you actullay believe IE8 burn in effect? - Page 13

Wow, another burn-in debate. To me, the fact that I absolutely disliked the Klipsch Image S4s (dynamic phones) out of the box (way too harsh) but after playing them for about 100 hours in my PC, I loved them, says it all. I know, I know, I know. Some will say my "expectations" are what changed, not the phones. Heard it before on another thread. But no matter, the actual process of running them in for 100 hours changed the sound for me, and I am sure glad it did - no matter how it actually happened. If I had not done it, the S4s would be back at Amazon.

There has not been a discernible change to the sound signature of my IE8 since I started using it. It sounded great to me out of the box and it still sounds the same way now many hours later.

For what's its worth I bought a second hand IE8 which had been moderately burned in (200 hours ish) and didn't hear much of a burn-in.

I might get flamed for saying this, but how capable is the human mind at remembering subtle details that are there between sources in double blind testing? The anti-burn-in argument is always blind and double blind testing combined with testing. I have not been convinced that the testers really know enough about the human brain and it's ability to remember subtle details in sound, and are the industry standard tests really comprehensive enough to discern subtle differences between analog signals (maybe Carvers transfer function)? What is the ability of the human brain to remember subtle, yet audible differences in a complex piece of music after a certain period of time?

For example, if you are to look at two very similar but different pictures for a second second with a several second break between looking at the images (imagine how double blind tests are performed), how many people are going to be able to pick out the subtle differences that are there?

And how about the ability of testing to show small yet audible differences between two sources with full spectrum testing of analog sources. Basically, my two questions about hardware testing: are they comprehensive enough to discern more info than just frequency response, general channel separation, distortion, etc., and at what level can the "average person" detect changes? And are we as a community better than the "average person" at hearing differences (true differences, it there are truly differences)?

I do believe our brains will adjust to sound signatures, but I also believe there are other things going on that I don't understand and haven't heard a convincing, intuitive argument that addresses my points.

I am very open to other opinions and facts, and while I have my beliefs, I am not firmly planted on one side of the wall. But my ears continue to keep me on one side

In my opinion, having highly discerning hearing (audiophile definition) is sort of like being myopic, your near vision is sometimes better than those with perfect sight but you don't see or imagine everything clearly. Unless trained, the human brain won't fuss about the sort of subtle details audiophiles mean because it has no purpose to get stuck on faulty data, its purpose is to take ever variable sensory data and make sense of it. Those with good imaginations see tv with an almost 3d vision, or hear cheap audio reproduction as almost being there. Being unable to do these two things allows one to critically analyze such things but it goes against our instincts and you often see stress when subjects are doing such things. There's much psychological obstacles to making a good audio DBT, so people shouldn't get all uppity that there hasn't been one yet to prove without a doubt the truth of the matter.

My experience with two pairs of IE8 has remained quite consistent. The first pair I got sounded great out of the box but the treble was quite artificial with some songs I knew well. After 24 hours everything was fine and I couldn't detect any more changes after that.

The second pair sounded great out of the box and I still haven't noticed any changes since then. Perhaps there are variations in IE8 units.

The only semi-credible evidence I've heard concerning burn in effects was from Jorge at Headroom, the guys who provide the handy frequency response charts on their website.

According to Jorge:
"we have not noted any changes in specs graph or overall audio performance of the IE8 after 200-250hrs of 'burn-in' period!"

I have no lack of confidence in the scope of the human mind's capacity for self delusion.
As a practical matter, who cares? As long as you end up liking what you hear, what's the difference how you got there?

And just to show you what a hypocrite I am, I have at least 100 hours burn-in of Bob Marley's "Catch a Fire" on my um3x. I don't believe in burn-in, but I do believe in Jah.

And as for my 2nd IE8...didn't sound as bad out of the box as the first one, which I attribute to being used to the sound signature. But there were still significant improvements over 150 hours and continuing improvements for the next 100+ hours.

I think my brain/ears always burn in faster then any headphone can.

What if I just heard one hour when it was right out of the box, then I burned it 48 hr and listened again?

Don't think my brain would affect from "burn" in

It sounded about the same to me, 1st hour and 48th hour, for IE8. After some time when i thought its bass had really toned down, a simple A/B switch between it and TF10pro makes it sound like its not burnt in at all.

Maybe its just me, 'cause i usually experience "slowing down" of music after a bath, lack of bass whenever i have a slight headache, and a totally awesome music experience when i just woke up. And only an hour of listening to SE530 makes me find it harsh sounding. So the brain burn in thing is kinda literal to me.

It's as easy to be sceptical of headphone/earphone burn-in as it is to be sceptical about any other belief that is yet to be empirically proven. The onus is on the proponents of this phenomenon to provide compelling proof that it is more than a figment of their imaginations. So far, they have failed to do so. I remain to be convinced but to be quite honest, I couldn't give a rodent's rear end care either way.

iponderous, did you read the test on page 12? The way I see it, there's just little incentive for people to do tests. What allows the huge quantities of studies in like the medical field is a very real monetary incentive thus all the money spent on research.

^ No I didn't! I just posted for something to do. Did I write it? I think I've posted in this thread before. I might go back a page and have a look.