Here is a post from a scientist that can provide some further clarity on the contentious issue of burn in (original thread:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/471605/burn-in-experiment-proof):
2/11/10 at 10:56pm
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Being a scientist myself, I have to say precise quantifiable data isn't always as meaningful as it's made out to be.
I agree with the above poster who said it seemswhenever there is data posted, it seems to be ignored. I'm new, but I've done a fair bit of searching on the matter.
The thing is, even top scientists discussing other topics(coughglobalwarmingcough) can't seem to agree on things that would be should be decently quantifiable.
I think a difference has to be made between those who argue burn in exists for all headphones, and those who argue it only exists in some headphones.
Yes, there isn't any concrete scientific evidence, but given what I mentioned above(about scientists disgreeing even on quantifiable things), I think the evidence of posters is just as valuable.
If a gazillion posters agree burn-in has a certain effect on a certain can(K701, RX700, Klipsch S4), but not on others, doesn't that tell you something about burn-in? What is it that makes those head phones be affected by burn-in but not others?
To those who have said that if burn-in does change the sound, how come people don't complain about the changed sound, firstly I have seen at least a couple of people not like the burned-in sound since joining, and that wasn't too long ago. But more importantly, I believe the reason people don't complain about the burned-in sound(and acknowledging psychological factors to an extent), is that people here aren't looking for the stock sound, they are looking for the burned-in one. Meaning, nearly everyone here posts theiy impressions after burn-in, and those who come across these posts know what to expect based on those impressions. there was a thread a while ago that I agreee very much with; people tend to get what they expect if they do enough searching. I also just think the general changes associated with burn-in aren't really things to complain about. Probably the most frequent association is the tightening of bass(which does not necessarily mean less power). I don't see how most people could prefer slow, long-decay bass to quick ones.
Another thing that leads me to believe in burn in for certain head phones. This is in the full-size forum, but check out the IEM forum sometime, if you haven't. You pretty much never hear anyone talk about extensive burn-in for balanced armature IEMs. Yet you hear it all the time for dynamic IEMs. And then, you hear it even more for some dynamic models than others, like the aforementioned S4s.
Going back to full size, as I mentioned before, both me and my sister spotted changes with my RX700. We both ehard it right after I got it. We both thought it sounded muddy. I listened through the burn in process, she didn't at all. A week or so later, she listens in again and on the same exact song thinks it sounds better than the FC700s I had bought for her.
I study the human voice on my own time as I sing. A while ago, there had been very little scientificc data saying things like dairy products and other foods had an impact on the proper functioning of the voice, yet thousands of singers agreed that eating cheese of drinking milk before a big performance gave them bad results; does that mean we should ignore the thousands of singers on the basis of not enough scientific data? You may cry apples and oranges, or that there have been other times where the multitude have been wrong, but I think my point still stands.
Yes, obviously there are countless other factors to consider. Your brain getting used to the sound signature and compensating for it, the amount of earwax in your ear, your own attentiveness to the music, the temperature at which the headphones are exposed, etc etc etc. But this is precisely why I think this anecdotal evidence of thousands of posters is just as valuable as any scientific data there has been to date. Because there are so many factors contributing to ones perception of sound, and even when there is data available people disagree with it's validity, I find the anecdotal confirmation by thousands of posters to hold just as much weight as scientific proof. No, this doesn't conclusively tell us burn-in exists(though to be honest, it pretty much does for me), but I would think based on what little evidence is available it's much more likely burn-in exists for some headphones than the contrary.
Of course, these are just my own thoughts and I may be totally wrong =P
