Well, I gave away a pair of my 280's to a friend as a birthday present, and so I could upgrade. Part of the reason I wanted to upgrade was a somewhat nasal quality to the sound of the 280's, even after 3 months of pretty intense useage. Well, the friend came to visit this week and brought the 280's with him. Now they have an additional 6 months of very, very heavy usage, and to my shock and suprise they have nary a hint of nasality. In fact they were kinda, well, warm sounding. They still had that great precision to their sound that I loved about them in the first place, but were now a lot more pleasant to listen to for all types of music, not just classical. I would have said before that breakin was done on them after 200 hours of use, but now I'm sure that it actually takes longer, perhaps as long as 500 hours. Hard to say, but the longer you use them the better they sound.

So, the question is, will you buy another pair of 280's and leave them running in your sock drawer until October?

HD280... the only headphones that require a breakdown period rather than a breakin period...

Hehe, good point. I'm just reporting what I heard, as I no longer own them I have no vested interest in the performing well. So my friend and I did a head-to-head comparison w/my Ultrasone HFI-700's. I was sure the 700's would stomp all over the 280's based on past experience, but both of use found the 280's to actually be more pleasing, and that was definitely NOT the case back when I owned the 280's for about 3 months. Amazing that the burn in is that real.

Oh yes, these did have the mod I described a while back (using blue tak on the inside of the cups to damp resonances), but that didn't address the nasality issue when I had them way back then, it merely boosted the midbass a bit to give them a move even overall response.

For you "long time" HD-280 owners, I would say don't worry too much about upgrading, you already have some of the best closed headphones out there. I would still recommend doing the blu-tak mod though, as it definitely helps bring out the midbass.

I wish I hadn't sold mine now, but soon I'll have new cans....soon.

Scott aka 'Livin with Zen Xtra stock buds, yerg!'

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This is very similar to my experienc. My Sennheiser HD-280 was used for a year and I also found the sound to be extremely anemic. Only after hearing another Sennheiser HD-280 that sounded so much better than mine did I figure that something was amiss with mine. My predicament stemmed from listening at very low volume as I do with all of my headphones so the Sennheiser HD-280 never truly burned in over the first year of usage. I carefully burned them in for 100 hours at a more than comfortable listening volume with bass-heavy music. Only then did they finally come to life with all of the splendor that they were meant to.

Mods and burn-in issues aside, I agree....

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Interesting you should say that Tyson.... I thought my 280's were excellent at first, but then over time, I found them less appealing to my ears.... They just lacked something.....

Perhaps I need to let them go for a couple of weeks with loudish music... Then go back to them and see how they are....

Hopefully I have the same revelation....

I have a new iPod and either some E2c or E3c's on the way too.... I'll be interested to compare sound and isolation characteristics of a canal phone to the mega-280's....

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I agree that the Sennheiser HD-280 does lack something. It doesn't sound very musical. Perhaps this is by and large due to the absence of a decent sound stage. Closed headphones often get a bad rap for having a poor soundstage. This is not always the case with closed headphones but unfortunately the HD-280 is one that is plagued with this weakness.

On the positive side, the Sennheiser HD-280 does give the ability to hear every detail from a recording. This makes it useful for computer gaming and for movie watching. For music, ordinarily I prefer my Sony or Beyerdynamic Headphones.

The interesting this is that my 280's had well over 100 hours of burn in with bass heavy music at loud volumes, and they still had a bit of a nasal quality that lead me to give them away, but after probably an additional 500 hours of heavy, loud use, they sound MUCH better, smoother and warmer. I just think (like a couple of high end speakers I've owned in the past), break in actually takes much longer than the standard 100-200 hours.

If you think 500 hours of breakin is a lot, really it is not. If you run them in 24 hours a day, you can have them at 500 hours in 21 days, well within the 30 day trial period of many places.

And of course the blue tak mod is very helpful in gettin the bass response nice and even.

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Are you suggesting, I burn my cans in for 500 hours/21 days non-stop?! I would think of that as more of a stress test before they exploded or something.

Just relaying my experience here. I've run in headphones 24/7 for 2 weeks straight before, no problems. As long as you are not pushing any distortion through them I doubt they will get very stressed.

So yes, I'm suggesting that 24/7 for about a month will get you all the break-in that the 280's seem to need to perform at their best. That may seem like a lot, but when you consider you can get the 280's for $70, and after the burn in they sound better than the Ultrasone's (which are $180) AND give better isolation, it's worth the time and effort, IMO.

I guess I forgot to mention that I have Beyerdynamic DT 770s.

Would the same apply to me?

Every headphone is different as far as break in goes. At this point I always run mine in for at least 2 weeks of hard use before making any "real" use of them. Lucky for me I already own several headphones that I can use while new ones are burning in. If I only had 1 pair of headphones, going through a long break in period would be maddening.

Are you planing to do a long burn in with your e3c's? Just wondering since I just ordered them and have no alternatives if I need wait.