Headphone Burn-in...Part II

Yup. Thanks for all the hard work Tyl!

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacedonianHero 

Very interesting article on innerfidelity.com by Tyll.

 

A fantastic contribution and the reduced ringing in the treble (not much mind you) pretty much lines up with my Ed. 8 experiences when I had my drivers replaced under warranty. Very cool stuff!

 

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/measurement-and-audibility-headphone-break

 

Should be an interesting discussion!

It is a very irresponsible thing to take these results and apply them to claimed audible differences in an entirely different headphone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

It is a very irresponsible thing to take these results and apply them to claimed audible differences in an entirely different headphone.

Yup.  People are going to be dying in the streets at any moment.

Thanks for the link, MacedonianHero.

I don't think anyone (with common sense) ever said the phenomenon called burn in wasn't real, assuming that's what he's coining.

That's swell, now let's all carry on with our lives 

Quote:

Originally Posted by RazorJack 
That's swell, now let's all carry on with our lives 

Now we're talkin'!

I read this earlier and thought it was a good article. I’ve always been skeptical of folks saying that burn in can drastically change a headphone’s sound signature. At least now we have some data showing the effect to be incredibly minor with one set of headphones.

Maybe someone that knows more about these tests could answer this, but how are they changed by temperature and humidity?  The time lapse of the FR seems to jump a bit, could that simply be the air conditioning or something clicking on for a cycle?

Quote:

Originally Posted by KraftD1 

Maybe someone that knows more about these tests could answer this, but how are they changed by temperature and humidity?  The time lapse of the FR seems to jump a bit, could that simply be the air conditioning or something clicking on for a cycle?

Yup. People with no-joke serious facilities with all sorts of special infrastructure (separate foundation pads; shielded rooms; highly conditioned power; etc) are the only folks who are properly equipped for these types of investigation. (Sennheiser, AKG; Sony; et al.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by KraftD1 

Maybe someone that knows more about these tests could answer this, but how are they changed by temperature and humidity?  The time lapse of the FR seems to jump a bit, could that simply be the air conditioning or something clicking on for a cycle?

A message I sent Tyll earlier today about the sudden jumps: 

They occured every 50 hour or so and it seems like the tonal balance goes warmer (e.g. level at 100Hz doesn't change - it's the normalized 0dB point actually - but MF/HF response goes progressively down until the sudden jump which puts it back to where it was at after the previous jump (like a couple dB increase at HF). How weird is that?

Great work, Tyll, Arnaud, and anyone else that helped too!

It seems you are nearing the limits of what you can do with your equipment and setup - the dedication to do this is incredible.  The results are great, too.  At least as many questions were answered as raised - a good thing, I think.

Great control for the ear pads - that's one of the things that has been thrown around here by myself and others as a very real change that hasn't been controlled for yet.  I don't think anyone's made measurements yet, though.  I don't know about the Q701, but the HD 600 pads wear down very considerably over time (depending on the clamping force of course).  Not saying I expect you to measure a well-worn set of pads compared to new ones, but you know, if you get bored... 

The first thing I can think of that would have been interesting to do with the same setup that you had is leave the headphones on when you were done, and wait a whole test period of 331 hours - then do the whole thing over again (or at least the start of it).  Another one of the loose ends that has been mentioned here is driver suspensions returning to their original state after use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackbeardBen 

 

Not saying I expect you to measure a well-worn set of pads compared to new ones, but you know, if you get bored... 

 

The first thing I can think of that would have been interesting to do with the same setup that you had is leave the headphones on when you were done, and wait a whole test period of 331 hours - then do the whole thing over again (or at least the start of it). 

 

I just might do the earpad replacement measurement.  I've got an old pair of 600s with mushy pads to use. Good idea.

662 hours is is almost a month. I just can't tie up my chamber for that long when there are so many headphones to measure. A perfect example of why I really can't do research. 

Thanks for the comments!