[Tyson]

Probably 2 weeks, although I cancelled my E3c order and am waiting for the E3 to be available from Guitar Center (should be around 1/15). I didn't want white, I wanted grey - less conspicuous with that color.

 

[Prodigul]

Are there any online pictures of them in grey? Only pictures I have seen of e3 are same color as e3c. Also are you breaking them in as a matter of practice, or because your Ety's opened up after one(I assume would be similar)?

 

[Tyson]

The main difference between the E3 and the E3c is the color (grey vs. white). I haven't seen any pics of the E3 yet.

I burn in all new headphones for a least a week of 24/7, and at the end of the week I will listen to them seriously. If they still sound a little rough or I think they might benefit from more burn in, I give them another week at 24/7 (that is almost always the case). This has been plenty for most headphones I've owned (Ety's included), with the sole exception of the 280's, which obviously took longer.

 

[Kirium]

I should have left a the CD B&W sent me when i registered my speakers on repeat while I went on holiday for 3 weeks... It's full of music and test tones... DOH!

 

[Earwax]

Anyone who doesn't believe in burn-in should get a pair of 280s. Out of the box I thought they were unusable, after 1 hour they improved to the level of a cheap sony. After 24 hours ( 12 hours of heavy bass + 12 of mixed new age) the sound is now at least "pretty good".

But is there anything that will improve the soundstage? These are more "in your head" than anything else I've heard. Even the V6 manages to get the sound around my head (just barely) instead of inside it. Will an amp help? how about with crossfeed? I have an amp w/ crossfeed on order, just wondering if I should expect any improvement here.

 

[Spiret]

I purchased my Sennheiser HD 280 Pro in October 2002 and have used them almost every day since, and they are getting better, day by day.

These headphones really need some serious treatment to sound good. Lets not forget that they are intended to be a tool for Professionals, with precise sound, ultrarugged construction, eminent noise attenuation for critical listening situations, and stable sound both in terms of soundpressure and over time.

 

[Stephonovich]

I got mine last Christmas ('03, not '04... so it's two Christmases ago. I don't handle new years well), and I estimate about 550 hours of play time total so far. Conservative estimate, but not too much more than that. They sound beautiful. Nice, tight defined bass, clear highs that aren't harsh, and with Tyson's blue tack mod, awesome mids too. The midbass reaches just a little more and has more punch.


EDIT: Just got Metallica's Kill 'em All from a friend. I posted previously on another thread somewhere about the results of the blue tack mod. It didn't do the results justice. (the review, that is) Cliff Burton's awesome bass playing shines through so awesomely, especially on Whiplash, where he's playing pretty much undistorted, so you just have a THUMP. I mean, it's just incredible. Anyone who has 280's, do the mod. It's removeable if you don't like it. But you owe it to yourself to try it.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[Tyson]

I went ahead and re-bought the HD280's a few days ago and have been burning them in 24/7 for the past 3 days straight, I'm at 72 hours right now. They are sounding very good, I've been running them in at very loud volumes (just a couple of notches below where I hear distortion) with very bass heavy music, and they are further along after 72 hours now than the last time I owned them and had run them in for about 120 hours.

I also experimented with the blu-tak mod a bit - I noticed there was a tiny bit of space I could stuff some cotton in there in addition to the blue tak, I figured this might make them less nasal during the burn in process. I was right, with the cotton, no nasality at all. But pretty much all the high frequencies and most of the mids were gone too

And the bass was just WAY too overpowering BOOOOOMMMM BOOOOOOMMMM BOOOOOOMMMM. So, out comes the cotton! Ah, that's much better. They are sounding very nice right now. Almost as good as my friends sounded, but still not quite there yet. Perhaps I just did not burn them in vigorously enough the first time and that's why the nasal quality took so long to dissipate.

Anyway, there is still a bit more burning in to do, but I'm pretty confident it will be complete at 200 hours of VERY loud, very bass heavy music.

And, just a bit of a mini-comparison, I've been A-B'ing the 280's with my Beyer 250-250's tonight, and at this point I'd say the overall quality is a draw. The 2 have very different sounds, the 280's being a slightly darker, more intimate, richer sounding headphone with stronger and deeper bass, while the 250-250 is a bit brigher, more energetic, lighter in the bass, but more textured and detailed. With vocals, the 250's have a slightly artificial quality, while the 280s make all the female singers sound like they are sorta coming on to you.

For an absolute reference, the HD600's have most of the strengths of both headphones, with few of their weaknesses. Deep, strong, and tight/textured bass, detailed mids and highs that are not aggressive, able to present ambiance better than either the 250's or the 280's.

But of course the 280's still have over 120 hours of breakin to go, so I'll re-compare in another week or so.

 

[meesha]

Shoot...
I just bought a beyer 250. Maybe the senn 250 I heard was not "burned in". Hmmm, how much change does the beyer go through with burn in?
The senn is half the price yet you say they seem about equal in audio quality... The senns I heard I had NO bass...I wonder?....

 

[Stephonovich]

Cotton kills your mids and highs, eh? You know, I'd really like to learn why doing stuff like adding sticky tack changes the sound. I know the basic reason, less reverb, but it'd be interesting to compare various substances, their effects, and stuff like that.

I decided since I've going to have the computer running all night anyway (downloading RtCW: Enemy Territory to prepare for a LAN party. 258MB over dial-up ain't pretty. BitTorrent says 23 hours left. Ah well. Gives me an excuse for...) I'll just leave QCD running on Repeat All. Just need to get a rubber band to put the cans together. Or maybe I'll put a pillow between them, like someone up here had. Otherwise people complain about the noise. Anyway, I've got a Metallica album (Kill 'em All), a Skillet album (Invincible), and two Linkin Park ones, Hybrid Theory, and Meteora. Very bass heavy. Oughta give them a workout.

I think I might try leaving them running overnight for a few weeks, to get the usage up to around 1000 hours. Say starting at midnight, (when I usually stop listening to music) 'till noon. By now I've probably gotten them up to 575 hours or so; I'll say 600 for the sake of argument. 400 hours, 12 hours a day/night/whatever, 33 1/3 days. A little over a month. I don't think I want to submit my PDCP to 12 hours of non-stop playback for that length of time, so I'll just use the computer.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[Xplo]

I did the blue tack mod to mine, and it did add a little warmth and weight to the midbass.. but over time I felt that I preferred the original sound, and removed the tack. (Also, some of it had come loose, and was doing kind of a nasty resonance thing with the low treble.) As far as burn-in and usage goes, I left mine plugged into the computer most of the time, and I usually have it playing music softly in the background 24/7, so while it's not the bass workout many suggest for initial burn-in of the 280, it did have a long and unrelenting sort of "polishing" period.

I wonder if it was really the "original sound" that I preferred, though, or if the phones continued to burn in to the point where their natural sound was like their earlier sound with the tack in. Or, perhaps it was all psychological and I got used to the 280's light bass over time.. but there was nothing light about the bass from those 280s on certain tracks! The low bass rumble from some of my Aphex Twin resembled a jumbo jet taking off...

As far as damping materials go, I suppose I would be curious to hear the effects of that spray-on rubberized stuff, or a thin layer of cork.. though, again, I came to prefer mine unmodified.

Alas, here comes the sad part of my rambling post. I had submitted my 280 for repair/replacement under warranty, since some of the plastic parts on the headband were splitting and cracking, as though the cups had been stretched too far apart. I don't think they had been, but who knows.. word to the wise, be careful not to overstretch these! Anyway, it should have gotten to Sennheiser USA a couple of weeks ago now, and they still say it isn't there.. so I can only assume that it got lost in the mail.

Guess I should have gone for the insurance and delivery confirmation, but I didn't bother since I've never had any problems with the USPS...

Well, in the grand scheme of things, I guess another $80 isn't all that much. I'm not sure I look forward to burning in a 280 all over again, but the end result is worth it.

 

[Tyson]

The blue tak mod works on 2 fronts, first it absorbs some of the higher frequencies that would normally bounce off the hard plastic and be reflected back through the driver in to your ears, creating a re-inforced upper mids and treble, with a time delay/smear, I might add.

The 2nd is that it reduces the volume of air available in the earcup. That results in the driver having a slightly higher tuning, and in the case of the 280's, giving the mid-bass a boost over it's stock sound. Different ammounts of tak will affect the bass in different ways. The more tak you use, the more bassy they are, the less you use, the more light they sound in the midbass.

Knowing this, it's relatively easy to adjust the tuning of the 280's to suit personal preference. Right now mine are just slightly boosted in the bass, and just slightly dark sounding, but they are not sibilant or nasal at all, and I'm loving the sound.

 

[Stephonovich]

First, I've got a question... if there was only bass in one channel (or heavy in one) during burn-in, would that channel have less bass later? I can't see it being very possible, as I switched CD's around tons of time during burn-in, but my right channel has hardly any when I do a sweep from left to right in Audacity. It sounds fine in music, though, so it could be Audacity.

Second, the underside of my headstrap broke too. Luckily, they've got a 2-year warranty, and I've had 'em for 1. Is Sennheiser likely to open up the cans, looking for signs of modification? I can't see them doing that, and even if they did, what would adding blue tack have to do with the headstrap breaking?

(-:Stephonovich

 

[Tyson]

Just listen to some rap music, or anything else that has strong mono bass signals, and use the balance control in your Volume window to make the balance all left, then all right. If it's something with the cans, one side will be noticably stronger in the bass when you do this.

You could also try this (or a variation) using a different source and/or amp to see if it is specific to the headphones or to the source or amp.

 

[Stephonovich]

I hate rap music. But no matter. I made a 34 Hz mono tone with Audacity, saved it as a WAV file, then played it in QCD, and panned back and forth with the balance. Perfect. Just tried it again in Audacity, and it's working fine now too. I have no idea what it was.

In any case, so far, I've got about 12 hours more of burn-in on 'em. Now, just keep this up for a few weeks...

(-:Stephonovich