joelongwood
Keeper of the 'Phones
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2001
- Posts
- 4,649
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- 14
OK, call me a non-believer......past tense! I was never convinced about the benefits of burn-in. When people posted that, out-of-the-box, their headphones sounded horrible, but after a lot of burn-in, the sound smoothed out, the highs were tamed, and the bass improved, I just said to myself, "Yeah, right." Well, I'll never say that again. As just about all my headphones, except for a few, have come to me used, I never experienced anything like that.
Based on a previous thread by Gout, I figured I would give the much maligned (mostly by me) AKG K270S a second chance. Geez, at a list price of close to $300, they shouldn't be that bad.
Anyway, Saturday morning, I went into my son's room (he's away at college) and plugged them into his stereo receiver. It was tuned to some hip-hop station, so I figured, what the hell, it's got a helluva lot of bass so it should be good for burning in. They sat there, unlistened to for 36 hours straight.
About 30 minutes ago I plugged them into the RKV (at 75 ohms, I used the Impedanzer) which is connected to the Sony 333ES SACD player and popped in Joni Mitchell's "Blue." I've been listening to this, and Johnny Cash just about non-stop for the past few days with the Grado RS-1/RA-1 combo and I've been loving it.
The first few notes told me something had definitely changed. The sound was now coherent, whereas before it had been a jumbled mess, with a honky midrange, shrill highs, and a non-existent bass. The bass was still a tad weak, but the mids had filled out nicely and the highs were not nearly as ragged. After a few cuts, I popped Johnny Cash in, and again noticed the dramatic improvement.
But the lack of bass was rather annoying, as was the stickiness of the pleather or vinyl earpads, as it's rather humid tonight.
Again, after reading another thread by Tyson about tweaking the K271S, I figured I'd play around. What did I have to lose? I don't have any funtack around for the tweak described, but I do have a spare pair of nice velour earpads for a Beyer DT-831. I popped the old pads off, and placed the Beyer pads on. Aaah.....pure comfort. I really like the feel of the Beyer pads. I believe they also improved the sound, because they are a bit thinner than the stock pads and bring my ears closer to the drivers (there's two in each earcup).
Right now I'm listening to Cash's "The Man Comes Around," his last album. The sound is now nicely balanced and smooth, with a much improved bass. These 'phones don't convey the intimacy of the Grados, but then again, what does?
To those of you who doubt the validity of headphone burn-in, I would just say, "Don't knock it until you've tried it."
I feel like I've just gotten a new pair of 'phones.
Based on a previous thread by Gout, I figured I would give the much maligned (mostly by me) AKG K270S a second chance. Geez, at a list price of close to $300, they shouldn't be that bad.
Anyway, Saturday morning, I went into my son's room (he's away at college) and plugged them into his stereo receiver. It was tuned to some hip-hop station, so I figured, what the hell, it's got a helluva lot of bass so it should be good for burning in. They sat there, unlistened to for 36 hours straight.
About 30 minutes ago I plugged them into the RKV (at 75 ohms, I used the Impedanzer) which is connected to the Sony 333ES SACD player and popped in Joni Mitchell's "Blue." I've been listening to this, and Johnny Cash just about non-stop for the past few days with the Grado RS-1/RA-1 combo and I've been loving it.
The first few notes told me something had definitely changed. The sound was now coherent, whereas before it had been a jumbled mess, with a honky midrange, shrill highs, and a non-existent bass. The bass was still a tad weak, but the mids had filled out nicely and the highs were not nearly as ragged. After a few cuts, I popped Johnny Cash in, and again noticed the dramatic improvement.
But the lack of bass was rather annoying, as was the stickiness of the pleather or vinyl earpads, as it's rather humid tonight.
Again, after reading another thread by Tyson about tweaking the K271S, I figured I'd play around. What did I have to lose? I don't have any funtack around for the tweak described, but I do have a spare pair of nice velour earpads for a Beyer DT-831. I popped the old pads off, and placed the Beyer pads on. Aaah.....pure comfort. I really like the feel of the Beyer pads. I believe they also improved the sound, because they are a bit thinner than the stock pads and bring my ears closer to the drivers (there's two in each earcup).
Right now I'm listening to Cash's "The Man Comes Around," his last album. The sound is now nicely balanced and smooth, with a much improved bass. These 'phones don't convey the intimacy of the Grados, but then again, what does?
To those of you who doubt the validity of headphone burn-in, I would just say, "Don't knock it until you've tried it."
I feel like I've just gotten a new pair of 'phones.
