Bought HD 518 :|

Dolby headphone normally sounds a little weird for music. It's supposed to spread out the sound a little more and make it seem farther away from you and all around you.

I personally think it slaughters the artists production, but some people like it. I only use it for games myself.

As far as burn in, it's probably not a big deal. If you want to do it, just play your headphones at slightly above comfortable listening volumes for like a hundred hours(not straight, about 5 hours a day to be safe). You can use regular music, but some people do weird stuff like frequency sweeps and white noise.

Here's my thoughts, do with them what you will:

"Dolby headhone" sucks, just like every other audio "effect", and does nothing more than screw up what the artist / game designer intended.

Burn-in is, for the most part, a placebo. Just start enjoying your headphones. If they change over time... then whoopee. Whatever. There's no reason to waste your time running white noise through them for a hundred hours when you could instead be wearing them and enjoying your music and games.

Happy listenin' and gamin'. :)

Edit: You should always remember to set the speaker config in each game's audio settings to headphones (if the option is there). This will slightly change where noises appear to be coming from in order to compensate for the fact that your speakers are on your ears rather than sitting in front of you.

Hi there i had HD 518 too (these were my first better headphones), they sounded not so good for me i also tought that i dont have audiophile ear :D alltrough i heared a significant change in audio quality from my old headphone. but it showed up that they simply were not good for my taste, now i have HD 598 and they are 500% better for me and if you want better headphone for same money as HD 518 buy AKG K 240 they are amazing too :) HD 598 are the best headphone i have heared till now. I heared AKG K 240,272,181DJ, senn: HD 518, 558, 598 Shure: SRH 750DJ, Koss Porta pro and Marshall major. So these are the best 3 of these: 1. HD598, 2.AKG K 240, 3.AKG K 272, so try another headphone befor judging that you dont have audiophile hearing :D.

Great buy, I own a pair of Hd 518 aswell. Really like them.
 

Hi, i have been thinking about getting a pair of those headphones, but by reading this thread im not so sure now, what do you mean with dolby headphones? in the sennheiser website they say that about the 558 but not about the 518, so who should i believe? http://en-de.sennheiser.com/audio-headphones-stereo-hifi-tv-hd-518  there it starts talking about the 558 and then they starts talking about the 518 and never mentions the dolby thing, i would like to know better before buying, thank you and sorry for my english, let me know if something was not clear