[beamthegreat]

Have anyone ever scientifically proved if burn in is true or not?

 

[Armaegis]

On the science forum, I've offered to examine things under SEM if people will send me specimens and tell me what I should be looking for. No takers yet though.

 

[MomijiTMO]

Search button....

 

[stang]

Coz I can

 

[Uncle Erik]

I think the strongest proof against burn-in is that manufacturers don't do it.

The common arguments are that it would cost too much or would take too long. Nonsense. After coming up with a setup, it'd only cost a dollar or two. Second, once you got production ahead 30 or 60 days of demand, letting a product cook for a few hundred hours wouldn't hurt production.

The real reason burn-in doesn't occur is because of warranty claims. If a product made a significant change from new, it would expose the manufacturer to returns. Manufacturers dread returns. They take heavy bites out of the bottom line and can discourage someone who just bought the product. They take someone who paid and turn them into someone unlikely to buy again and who will probably spread negative word of mouth. Businesses really, really hate that sort of thing and do everything possible to make sure it doesn't happen.

The prevailing mythology at Head-Fi is that burn-in always makes an improvement. However, that also means that the product would undergo a material change. Someone who enjoyed the sound out of the box might also be unhappy with the change. Not every purchaser is a member here. If that person became unsatisfied with the change, then the product would go back. Further, it would lead the buyer to wonder how much more it would change over time. That's not a smart way to run a business.

Manufacturers extensively test products before releasing them, too. If they found big changes in test units, the engineers would be told to fix the problem.

It's very likely that manufacturers know that a period of psychological adjustment goes on and I'm sure they're fine with it. If customers think the product is improving, that's a good thing. An actual change isn't.

 

[brendon]

^^ That is a very thought provoking post. It makes a lot of sense actually. Why wouldn't manufacturers burn-in their products before they selling it ?

However I am a strong believer in burn-in so its very confusing to me as logically it doesn't seem possible. However when I have burned in some of earphones the change was drastic. How can sibilance prevalent in one earphone almost disappear after burn-in ? Very strange.

 

[Nachkebia]

Whats the difference? I mean it could be placebo but so what? it changes and we all have experienced it, so why would you want know reality? so that placebo wont work? no thanks

 

[brendon]

^^ Well Uncle Erik has mentioned a economic significance. If burn-in was completely disproved then perhaps audio manufacters would be forced to accept returns rather than state - "It requires 1000 hours of burn-in".

However thats all theory. In practice I really believe some (if not all) headphones/earphones that use a dynamic (moving coil ) driver 'burn-in' and the sound changes after some hours. However I believe 95% of the change occurs within 10 - 15 hours. I dont subscribe to the 1000 hour burn-in requirement that many people here suggest.

 

[joelpearce]

Our brains are incredible things. For those of us who listen throughout a burn-in period, I suspect we are doing a lot of acclimatizing to the sound of the headphones. We start to pay more attention, hear more or less detail, hear more or less bass.

Much of the rest is probably the placebo effect.

With the kind of effort that is poured into sound science and development by high-end audio manufacturers, if burn-in was real, we'd know by now.

 

[estreeter]

OP, I really view a thread like this as trolling - anyone who has been here for a day or two quickly realises that this is a question that just evokes the same set of answers from the same set of posters - we get nowhere fast. How you 'run in' your equipment is a totally personal choice - we arent talking a 1965 Corvette here.

 

[moonshake]

What do you guys think about K701 700 - 800 hours burn in? A lot of time, isn´t it? Psychological or technical?

 

[Drubbing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendon /img/forum/go_quote.gif ^^ That is a very thought provoking post. It makes a lot of sense actually. Why wouldn't manufacturers burn-in their products before they selling it ? How can sibilance prevalent in one earphone almost disappear after burn-in ? Very strange.

Not really. My RS2 sounded very bright when I first had them - but pleasantly so. Now they don't sound as bright. They haven't changed because anyone I've let listen to them says they're bright or clear or trebley, or whatever words they find, that mean the same as bright.

My canals are quite bassy, but very clear and warm sounding. Now they just sound good, but not bassy at all. I've let a couple of others listen to them (spare tips) and they say 'wow, these are bassy'.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moonshake /img/forum/go_quote.gif What do you guys think about K701 700 - 800 hours burn in? A lot of time, isn´t it? Psychological or technical?

I think - BS. Just gives 701 owners something to talk about with other 701 owners. That much time spent listening to your equipment is time wasted when could be just listening to the music they're playing.

 

[ourfpshero]

i have had 3 pairs of identical headphones older vs newer during my time here. 2 of them (jvc hag101 and senn hd545) showed no or very slight difference, one (stanton dynaphase 60) had a significant difference in sound.

the old senn hd545 had thousands of hours on it!

 

[weibby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think the strongest proof against burn-in is that manufacturers don't do it. The common arguments are that it would cost too much or would take too long. Nonsense. After coming up with a setup, it'd only cost a dollar or two. Second, once you got production ahead 30 or 60 days of demand, letting a product cook for a few hundred hours wouldn't hurt production. The real reason burn-in doesn't occur is because of warranty claims. If a product made a significant change from new, it would expose the manufacturer to returns. Manufacturers dread returns. They take heavy bites out of the bottom line and can discourage someone who just bought the product. They take someone who paid and turn them into someone unlikely to buy again and who will probably spread negative word of mouth. Businesses really, really hate that sort of thing and do everything possible to make sure it doesn't happen. The prevailing mythology at Head-Fi is that burn-in always makes an improvement. However, that also means that the product would undergo a material change. Someone who enjoyed the sound out of the box might also be unhappy with the change. Not every purchaser is a member here. If that person became unsatisfied with the change, then the product would go back. Further, it would lead the buyer to wonder how much more it would change over time. That's not a smart way to run a business. Manufacturers extensively test products before releasing them, too. If they found big changes in test units, the engineers would be told to fix the problem. It's very likely that manufacturers know that a period of psychological adjustment goes on and I'm sure they're fine with it. If customers think the product is improving, that's a good thing. An actual change isn't.

Logical fallacy.

It does take too long and it does nothing but adds cost.
A business strives to keep cost low and profits up - if burning in can be proven to up sales by 30%, everyone will do it.

But that doesn't really prove or disprove the burn in theory, it doesn't make business sense to increase production time and add a process in when stringent QC is in place.

You're coming from a very idealistic standpoint which doesn't please investors nor guarantee increased sales.

 

[fjrabon]

I think it's mostly psychological.

For instance, I use my AD700 for the vast majority of my everyday listening. I recently went almost 5 months without listening to my Grados at all. I plugged them in and they sounded exactly like I remembered them sounding when I first pulled them out of the box, pre-burn in. Additionally, when I've borrowed used headphones that should be well, well past the burn in stage, they actually seemed to "settle".

The reality is that headphones, much more so than speakers, have wildly differing sound signatures. It takes the brain a bit of time to acclimate and get the sound to what it thinks it's supposed to sound like. The brain is an amazing thing. You need no proof further than how hard it is to make computers that can pull out information from sound. They pick up tons of noise that make the job nearly impossible that our brains basically tune out. THink of how bad most speech to text programs are, even today, when even a small kid can understand what the person is saying. Our brain can compensate for all sorts of difficult listening environments and get the information it wants.

This is what I think people are talking about when they refer to burn in with modern equipment in general, and especially headphones.

People don't like that answer, I don't think, for multiple reasons. First of all, it is a bit unnerving to realize that our brains do a lot of deciding that our consciousness doesn't do when it comes to deciding how things "should" sound. Second of all, it kind of hurts an audiophile's sensibilities to suggest that his equipment isn't improving, he's just getting used to it's "flaws". Third, and perhaps most importantly here, it's part of the initiation into high-fidelity audio that you put your equipment through ridiculous burn in periods. It's part of the club that some will run white noise and all sorts of stuff for hundreds of hours before they even consider putting the headphone on. To suggest it's not really necessary and that you should just listen to the music is bordering sacrilege to a group that for some, the importance of the equipment outweighs the importance of what the equipment was designed to play.