LeDave
100+ Head-Fier
Does having a higher volume help burn-in the headphones quicker? Also, how many hours does it typically take to burn-in a headphone?
If burn in is a myth, then it's a harmless placebo. Costs nothing and makes you feel music better, sounds like a good bargain no?
You should go attack those $20,000 cable manufacturers.
But Tyll at Innerfidelity has done tests that show the effect of burn-in with headphones is much less pronounced.
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/measurement-and-audibility-headphone-break
His tests mostly consists of FR and CSD plots of the headphone before and after "burn-in". And they seem to be mostly concerned with the midrange and treble. I'd like to see how the headphone driver parameters change with time and how the bass will change in turn. Since "better bass" seems to be the most common claim that audiophiles make about burn-in anyway.
The concern with the mid-range vs bass is likely because we are far more sensitive to changes in the mid-range. It takes much more significant changes in response at 20Hz to become audible.
Even with sub-woofer burn-in, the worst cases show less than 5 Hz change in Fs, and typically around 2Hz, which isn't enough to even alter box tuning audibly. If that's what's happening with woofers with huge Xmax, the changes in headphone drivers with microscopic Xmax would be insignificant.
Headphone Xmax is of course smaller than for loudspeaker. Yet the extension into the bass does change more than with loudspeakers - it is perfectly possible to see with a naked eye the diaphragm of a 40 mm dynamic driver ( to be precise, reflection of light from the diaphragm being "modulated") in a headphone playing a large amplitude signal - like low frequency sine wave. From say half a metre - that is in no case microscopic movement.
One, admittedly extreme, example of large Xmax is AKG K1000 - IIRC, + - 2 to 3 mm, most definitely visible during low frequency reproduction.
If burn in is a myth, then it's a harmless placebo.
I'm confused at how you can say the above. Yes, just to move enough air to present 20Hz at high volume a headphone driver has to move a bit. But in no way can we say "the extension into the bass does change more than with loudspeakers". A woofer movement at 20Hz is quite a bit greater than any headphones.
Perhaps I misunderstood your point?
It isn't completely harmless. For example if someone bought a pair of headphones which he/she didn't really like but thinking that burn-in will make a "night and day difference", which some people do claim happens for some headphones, then that person might have just wasted money.
Burn in effects in headphones vary in degree. One that is known to be extreme in this is JVC HA-S500 with carbon nanotube diaphragm. Judging this headphone on open box and dismissing it as not good based on the first impression would really be a mistake. This material needs much more/longer burn in than anything else I came across.
The differences in other hps might be less pronounced, but are audible nonetheless.