Sonic Defender, you're looking at this the wrong way. There are people who spend years researching and futzing with headphone drivers. They are the people who design them.
If a driver changed significantly after X number of hours, it would absolutely be noticed and probably regarded as a design flaw. You don't want a design that changes over time - that's also known as a liability. It's the stuff class action lawsuits are made of. Management and legal would be really, really, really unhappy if there was significant change over time. Lawsuits aside, warranty claims would be a nightmare.
Consider that years of research goes into high-end headphones. The engineers put the prototypes through thousands of hours of tests and measurements. If big variations happened over time, the engineers would fix it, lest management and legal chop off their heads. Oh, the corporate beancounters would be angry, too. Potential warranty claims keep them up at night - they're expensive.
Another way to think about this is that if the engineers found that break-in truly was necessary. Management, legal and beancounters would likely agree that burn-in be performed at the factory so they would ship consistent products. Then marketing would get all moist and excited about how they could put some advertising out about the extensive QC they perform.
The True Believers here think a changing driver is always a good thing. Funny how things only get better and never worse, isn't it? If burn-in was real, then there would be a wrong way to do it and not every driver would improve. Further, a product that changes over time scares the feces out of corporations. No way they'd market something like that.
So don't listen to the palm-readers, mystics and audio spiritualists here. You'll notice that people who spend time building stuff and are interested in how things work generally don't subscribe to magical thinking in audio.
One of my pet theories (purely anecdotal) is that those who are afraid of or unwilling to explore the scientific end of how things work often wrap themselves in the fairytale end of audio. They love the gear and want to demonstrate some level of expertise. But equations totally freak them out and they assume that a soldering iron is some kind of witchcraft.
If you want to run off the demons, get an iron and build a CMoy. Then move onto other projects. But some measuring devices, read a lot and start experimenting. Experience cause and effect on your workbench. See what really happens. Don't take my word on faith or anyone else's. Put these magical, mystical claims to the test yourself.
If a driver changed significantly after X number of hours, it would absolutely be noticed and probably regarded as a design flaw. You don't want a design that changes over time - that's also known as a liability. It's the stuff class action lawsuits are made of. Management and legal would be really, really, really unhappy if there was significant change over time. Lawsuits aside, warranty claims would be a nightmare.
Consider that years of research goes into high-end headphones. The engineers put the prototypes through thousands of hours of tests and measurements. If big variations happened over time, the engineers would fix it, lest management and legal chop off their heads. Oh, the corporate beancounters would be angry, too. Potential warranty claims keep them up at night - they're expensive.
Another way to think about this is that if the engineers found that break-in truly was necessary. Management, legal and beancounters would likely agree that burn-in be performed at the factory so they would ship consistent products. Then marketing would get all moist and excited about how they could put some advertising out about the extensive QC they perform.
The True Believers here think a changing driver is always a good thing. Funny how things only get better and never worse, isn't it? If burn-in was real, then there would be a wrong way to do it and not every driver would improve. Further, a product that changes over time scares the feces out of corporations. No way they'd market something like that.
So don't listen to the palm-readers, mystics and audio spiritualists here. You'll notice that people who spend time building stuff and are interested in how things work generally don't subscribe to magical thinking in audio.
One of my pet theories (purely anecdotal) is that those who are afraid of or unwilling to explore the scientific end of how things work often wrap themselves in the fairytale end of audio. They love the gear and want to demonstrate some level of expertise. But equations totally freak them out and they assume that a soldering iron is some kind of witchcraft.
If you want to run off the demons, get an iron and build a CMoy. Then move onto other projects. But some measuring devices, read a lot and start experimenting. Experience cause and effect on your workbench. See what really happens. Don't take my word on faith or anyone else's. Put these magical, mystical claims to the test yourself.
