[beeman458]

mmmm.... i'd like to hear people's experiences or what they do?
 
I thought that's what I was doing and what, your personal experiences aren't good enough?
 

 

[yearsofwisdom]

i have no prior experience. this is my first time.

 

[Permagrin]

Quote:

mmmm.... i'd like to hear people's experiences or what they do? and and anything involving pink noise and what to do?

 
From what I've gathered from this site, the only things that really need burning in physically are capacitors and amps (and someone said one certain headphone I can't recall the name).
 
My experience is that it takes maybe 100 hours for me to get a real feel on the sound of a new headphone and most likely, as others have said, this is where the burn-in phenonema arises. As your ears adjust to a new headphone (which is the majority of the sound, as it is what creates the sound from the digital signal) you get accustomed and in that interim it seems to change (this will become evident as you get more cans). It's not the can itself that changes but it's specific reproduction of sound which your ears are not accustomed to which takes some time to get a hold of.
 
I don't mean to be difficult or anti-burn-in but that is my opinion/viewpoint at this time.
 
To be helpful, I've never heard anyone state that there is a "wrong" way to burn-in headphones so I think you're safe doing it however you like. But in my opinion the more you listen to them, the sooner you'll have grasp on their specific sound signature.

 

[yearsofwisdom]

appreciate the answer!^^ love to hear more people. maybe even from those that are "pro-burn in lol

 

[beeman458]

i have no prior experience. this is my first time.
 
Rely on your first time experiences.  That's why you write down your impressions when you first get the headphones and then again, at fifty and a hundred hours, make note of your listening impressions of the same musical piece.  This way you have something to compare your listening notes against as opposed to relying on your short term memory.

 

[jarrett]

Just put on some music and listen. Why does it take people 100 hours of hypothetical "burn-in" before they can enjoy their new earphones? We give far too much credit to this as if they go from unlistenable to tolerable

 

[yearsofwisdom]

well that's what i've been doing but i thought i would give the pink noise or w.e the burn-in experts use, a try?

 

[beeman458]

We give far too much credit to this as if they go from unlistenable to tolerable
 
And many times they do.  And sometimes, after the burn-in period has elapsed, they're still intolerable.  Tain't no thang.
 
FWIW, some people have lower thresholds of pain than others and we just have to take their word for it.  This is the same thing, when it comes to unlistenable as apparently you have a higher threshold to listening pain than I do.  Consider yourself lucky.  There are those who have less tolerance than I.  I both pity them and wish them well as they suffer mightily in a fashion you'll never understand and I can only sympathize with.

 

[tdockweiler]

I'm a huge believer of burn-in now. Years ago I never did burn-in my headphones at all.
 
I had a pair of Koss Pro DJ 100's and they sounded good out of the box. When my pair died due to my own fault I immediately bought a new pair and they sounded like garbage out of the box. The mids were a lot more distant and the bass and soundstage were a bit strange. I actually felt that I had a defective pair! I burned them in for several days and I could not believe the difference. No way it was just my imagination since I was going to actually send them back. A lot of Koss headphones seem to be very well known for needing lots of burn-in.
 
I never really noticed any huge differences with burning in my M50 and SRH-840.
 
I do think most headphones can probably sound good out of the box, but not all of them. Perhaps some companies burn them in at the factory for very long periods of times, but I highly doubt it. That would raises costs I imagine.
 
I also did not believe a headphone cable could make such a huge difference until I upgraded a pair with a silver cable ($50). Of course i'd never pay over a $100 for a cable, but at least now I know there is a difference.
 
The best thing to do is just to not listen to anyone else on if it makes a difference, but just try it out for yourself. It can't hurt. So far I'm not convinced a headphone would need 100+ hours of burn-in, but maybe I'll find this out eventually.
 
BTW I think the AKG 240 may be another pair that needs a lot of burn-in to sound good. My first pair was very muffled out of the box and didn't sound all that clear. I also heard the D2000 is too boomy until it's burned in properly, but not sure how true this is.

 

[yearsofwisdom]

yeah... im definitely burning in.... just don't know how or what to do. and what to do with pink noise?

 

[Permagrin]

Quote:

yeah... im definitely burning in.... just don't know how or what to do. and what to do with pink noise?

 
"From what I've read on these forums", there is no consensus when it comes to burn-in as far as pink noise or white noise or classical music/whatever.
 
If you want to burn-in I would suggest just playing whatever you like at the volume you normally listen to and don't feel it's wrong to peek in and put the phones on during the process to start to enjoy them.
 
With that said, if you want to use pink noise, go ahead. From my uneducated point of view though I can't see the method of burn-in physically changing the sound of the cans.
 

 

[Danz03]

I don't know much about burning-in but my first pair of IEM is the Shure E4c, loved them right away and the only thing I didn't like about them was the lack of bass response. Then the Shure SE530 came out and I got them right away, hoping them to be just like the E4c with better bass response. But to my horror, they sounded terrible, yes, the bass response was better, but they sounded dull and lifeless. Since I've already given my E4c to my gf, and having spent a fortune on the SE530, thought I'd just have to live with them. After about a couple of months or so, as I was listening to a new CD I just bought, I noticed they actually sounded quite different, much better than I first remembered them to be. Now a lot of people would say that's because my ears or brain have adapted to these IEMs, but when I compared the SE530 with the E4c again, the highs and mids of the SE530 were now on-par with the E4c, so it seemed to me there was a physical change in the sound signature. Anyway, a few months later when I mentioned that to a shop owner as I was getting my UM-2, he told me that was due to the SE530 having burnt-in, he claimed that they needed about 100-150 hrs of burn-in time before they would sound good. That sounded logical to me, so since then, I just burn-in whatever new phones I bought for a week, using white noise from a de-tuned radio station with slightly above average listening volume. Whether it's true or not doesn't really matter to me that much, since it doesn't really cost anything and it isn't that hard to do, so I don't see any harm in doing it. Hope that helps. 

 

[ardgedee]

Burning in your headphones is nothing more than the act of exercising the moving parts for an extended period of time. You can burn them in on your computer with a pink noise generator - there are free noise generators for every operating system. You don't need a lot of controls and settings, just something that generates continuous noise at controllable volume.
 
If you have a spare computer (as a fileserver or whatever), and you don't need to use these headphones right now, you can break them in around the clock. Put your headphones on, plug them into the computer, generate noise at a listenable volume, then put the headphones down (put them in a box if noise bothers you). Then let the computer run for a couple days. Otherwise, keep the noise software handy and run it whenever you're away from the computer.
 
Remember that listening to music is also a way to break in your headphones. So listen to music whenever you want to, and whenever you're going to be away from them run the pink noise generator.

 

[yearsofwisdom]

mmmm white noise now? diff results vs white/pink noise? and what was your setup on the white noise burn in ? like how long did you do it? and what was your process?

 

[Danz03]

I'm sure using real music is the best way, but white noise is real easy, I just de-tuned the radio on my mini hi-fi, and leave it plugged in inside my bedside drawer for a week. Could have used pink noise but that would be a hassle for me. How long depends on how much patience you have.