Better sound with more hours? - Page 2

 

Lol, so this is what the beginning of a practical joke looks like...

 

 

I think they want you to burn in some cans for 1,000+ hours to get rid of that last half decibel of IMD.  But hey, look on the bright side!  At least they're not saying that if you keep cans on long enough you can burn in the air between the drivers and your ears. 

I think the op is talking about a potential effect of repeated harmonic waves on the wood/metal/rubber/ceramic/plastic over time.

 

Personally I haven't had this experience.  Is it possible you are just becoming a better clarinetist?  I know my piano sounded better once I got better at it.  

Edited by Eargasmo - 10/2/12 at 8:46am

 

My guess is a) you won't see much difference. 2) What difference you might see will be obscured by the differences from placing the headphones on the measurment head. III) In real life, the pad wear would be significantly more important than the changes due to break-in.

 

That does tend to give headphones a bit warmer, more musical sound due to the lingering soundwaves bouncing around.

However, as it's unpractical and damaging to you ears to be playing music into them at all times, what I like to do is put the headphone earpieces into two separate jars and play music into them. Then, when I am ready to listen I pour the air between my ears and the drivers.

 

After I'm done I very carefully pour it back into the jars. Right now I have about 200 hours of burnt in air and it sounds noticibly warmer than with fresh air, or even 50 hour air.

Don't worry planx, if you hear what you hear then it is right, the flat earth scientists will never accept anything if they cannot qualify it from measurements which is why they are so vehement in their arguments as they only have 'facts' to back them up rather than things not quantifiable like, oh, imagination, thinking outside the box, believing in more than what is placed before their narrow sights.. I could go on but their egos wind me up so I won't as that would have them bullying their way into another statistical win!

If you feel or hear something it it sounds like it has changed then just enjoy that change and hang what to flat earthers say, contrary to their charts and graphs they don't know it all!

Planx, far from you being a troll I think it is the naysayers who would benefit from that term better. If you go and check out audio note UK's website and look under 'manuals' you will find their loudspeakers, if you click on the An-E range and read what they say about the effects of what happens over time, they give an initial time for change but then go on to say that if a speaker is not used for a week or so then it would need bedding in again for a shorter time for it to perform to its fullest.
considering they make some of the most musical HiFi in the business I think they might be worth trusting!

I agree years of use can definitely change the sound of a headphone at least with the Koss UR-40 i had since about 2004. Its like one day in 2007 i noticed a major sound difference with the treble sounding crispy cold clear like a ghostly whistling on a chilly winter night. After hearing this i all of sudden wanted to see how other headphones sounded since i had recently moved into a small building in a small studio apartment with thin walls. All bad environmental factors for getting along with the neighbors ha ha. So all of a sudden getting involved with headphones seemed like a great idea after witnessing how after all these years my Koss UR-40 just kept getting better. Thanks to the head-fi forums i now enjoy the always improving wondrous sound of headphones and nearfield bookshelf speakers never missing my floor standers and subwoofer.

 

Yes i've noticed this myself since i switch back and forth alot between bookshelf speakers noticing sometimes the sound seems more similar to when i just got it from the store. Thats why i always warm up my speakers with low volume slowly cranking them up to a normal level and preferably with the morning news before enjoying music or other entertainment on them.

I just got back to my hotel room so now have my laptop so I can show this piece of the PDF from Audio Note..

"While we fully expect your AN-E loudspeakers to produce
beautiful music, they may not do so from the first moment out
of the box. Donʼt be alarmed; this is perfectly normal.
Dynamic loudspeakers have a running in period, during which
time the drive units “loosen up”. During this period, the sound
may be somewhat dry, bright and constricted. As the
suspension and cone materials of both drive units “softens up”,
the fullness of the bass and the smoothness of the treble will
start to emerge and the true sound of the AN-E will be
revealed.
We expect the AN-E to have a running in period of around 100
hours, which for the average listener will take about a month,
based on three hours of listening per day. This period can
however vary considerably due to factors such as music types,
listening volume and type of amplification used. (Loud heavy
metal or Mahler symphonies are especially effective!)
If the rest of your system is of commensurate quality, you may
notice that when you havenʼt played your AN-E for a week or
longer, they seem to experience a lesser version of this
running-in process again. Everything will be completely back to
normal within 5 to 10 hours."

 

Yes, but do you think that 1,000-hour air is going to be significantly better than 200-hour air?  Surely there is a point of diminishing returns somewhere.  Plus, my beef was mainly with people volunteering Tyll to do the measurement work on that. 

Tyll's done a burn-in experiment on AKG Q/K70x headphones over <100 hours, I think. But I don't know if it's worth his while to do more than that.

 

OP: I don't think anyone believes you're trolling! It's an interesting question, and I'm sure we'd be curious to read findings of any experiments, but it's just not very practical to find the answer, I think.