[whirlwind]

Quote:

 
It could be your ears dying from the treble and having to turn up the volume to compensate for the lack of isolation plus noisy environment.

Nah....I did not need to increase the volume, and very seldom listen in a noisy environment.

 

[obobskivich]

It could be your ears dying from the treble and having to turn up the volume to compensate for the lack of isolation plus noisy environment.

Hahahahahaha.

More likely, with a Grado, the pads or the headband are settling into and they're starting to fit better.

"Break in" is a myth for some headphones and not a myth for others.

Some headphones demand break in and can sound pretty dreadful straight out of the box.

I know there's a few manufacturers that actually do run-in before sending gear out; both to weed out the early failures and for various other reasons. I think JVC (at least on the high end) and STAX are fairly open about it, and I remember Grado saying something to the effect of burning-in some of their models (I'd guess RS-2 and higher, but who knows).

 

[kkfan]

Thanks for all the feedback.

I guess there's no agreement on this issue end of the day.

If breaking in, is it better to use music or white noise?

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

Thanks for all the feedback.

I guess there's no agreement on this issue end of the day.

If breaking in, is it better to use music or white noise?

 
I don't know if Hi Fi components of any sort benefit from break in.
 
However I have never given it much thought, I just use them as normal from the start.
 
Most Hi Fi components I have obtained have required a period for me to adjust to them, so I never decide if I like them or not near the beginning.

 

[achristilaw]

  People (mainly young people) that have never owned either Vandersteen or Magnepan loudspeakers are not convinced concerning break-in. Both of those brands tax the patience, until they finally settle in, after having owned many examples of each over the years.
 
  Wire and resistors alter with time, for hole flow allowing electron flow. Caps gain saturation after many saturation's and dumpings, improving (or altering) time constants. Transformers? A subject unto itself! Sometimes the effects are subtle....many times they are not! That's my opine after 40 years of listening.....

 

[JohnnyCrash8]

I can say that I definitely have noticed an improvement in my Grado 325 cans. Where the highs seemed tinny at first (new out of the box), they settled down after about 15 hours. After 50 hours they seemed to be completely smoothed out. It only makes sense that the flexible parts of the drivers would loosen up over time and that overall response would improve as well.

 

[AnsBjork]

I had the chance to listen to two HD800 side by side at home on my system for more than a day. One of the phone had over 400h of use and the other was a brand new one out of the box. I can confirm without any doubts that there is a significant difference in the sound of the two sets. The sound of the new set was kind of in between the HD600 (which I also have at home for comparison) and broken-in HD800. The sound had not yet a fully extended and was lacking details. Contrarily to what is often reported, I did not find the new set to be crisper than the old one, just lacking extension and details. Speed may also be a tad slower on the new set. 
 
Being able to compare the sets side by side should remove most of the psychoacoustics effect off the equation (It was not a blind A/B comparison but the difference was obvious enough). So either break-in is real or the specs of the Seenheiser HD800 varies wildly from set to set, which I doubt.
 
It is possible that the change I observed is caused by the pads / head band; indeed there was a difference between the clamping pressure of the new and old set. But the seal was better on the new set... Also with the HD800 being extremely open, can we really attribute the sound differences to the sealing factor?
 
PS: Both sets were aquired this year (2013) and manufactured recently: one was 3-4 months old (demo in a store with daily usage) and the other was purchased this week (from the same store).
 
 
 
 

 

[Happy Camper]

  People (mainly young people) that have never owned either Vandersteen or Magnepan loudspeakers are not convinced concerning break-in. Both of those brands tax the patience, until they finally settle in, after having owned many examples of each over the years.

  Wire and resistors alter with time, for hole flow allowing electron flow. Caps gain saturation after many saturation's and dumpings, improving (or altering) time constants. Transformers? A subject unto itself! Sometimes the effects are subtle....many times they are not! That's my opine after 40 years of listening.....

I'm in this camp.