"Burn in", or not "burn in": that is the question:
Dec 23, 2005 at 2:01 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 32
Agogic

Agogic

100+ Head-Fier
Joined
May 14, 2005
Posts
213
Likes
17
Location
Germany
I have found in Internet on some HiFi forum that there is
audiophiles that think
that "burn in" not allways necessary and sometimes can harm
instead help. That was a some time ago and I didn't pay any attention
on this eccentric thoughts. I have Senn's HD650 and of course
wery well burned in with burn in CD,
and later one my friend have bought on my recommendation
another HD650 and he didn't whant to burn in and uses them just hearing music
from first day. After 3 month I got idea to compare compare our headphones
and... and...? I was surprised!... His headphones sound more natural
and !three-dimensional and my like just bloated and a little flat...
Unfortunately I didn't bookmarked this page.
Of course I think that there must be done some more extensive test
to find answer on this phenomenon. I'm confused...
confused.gif

What you think? What experience have you with burning in you gear or headphones?
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 2:22 PM Post #2 of 32
Quote:

Originally Posted by agogic
"burn in" not allways necessary and sometimes can harm
instead help.


WHAT?!?! Harm? So playing music/sounds through your headphones can harm them?
confused.gif


I personally believe in "burn-in". My ER-6i and ER-4P didn't really respond to burning in(apparently due to the type of tranducers). My PX100 and my HD555 did respond well. So did my Apple in-Ears. The bass opens up, doesn't become bloated, but instead, gains depth and control. I highly recommend burning-in!
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 4:15 PM Post #4 of 32
Quote:

Originally Posted by allenf
I think this could be a long thread.


and has been discussed/argued about many many times before. A quick search for threads with "burn in" in the title gave 182 results.
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 4:31 PM Post #5 of 32
Quote:

Originally Posted by milkpowder
WHAT?!?! Harm? So playing music/sounds through your headphones can harm them?
confused.gif


I personally believe in "burn-in". My ER-6i and ER-4P didn't really respond to burning in(apparently due to the type of tranducers). My PX100 and my HD555 did respond well. So did my Apple in-Ears. The bass opens up, doesn't become bloated, but instead, gains depth and control. I highly recommend burning-in!



Sorry for my bad English, I just didn't find the right word...
Harm - is wrong word but I hope you anderstand what I mean.
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 4:49 PM Post #6 of 32
Where's Mike Scarpitti?!?
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 4:49 PM Post #7 of 32
Thank you allenf,

I have read it before

"Is burn in actually real?

The idea of burn in has always been controversial. Some people say that there is evidence that proves it while others say that there is evidence to disprove it. Some consider the phenomenon to be purely psychological conditioning while others insist upon physical changes to the drivers, and some agree upon a combination of the two. You are free to be a believer, and you are free to be a skeptic. Whether or not you believe in it and the position you take on the subject is a choice that you should make for yourself."

and I had always a good results with burning in my cables,
it's obvious that burn in changes the sound, the question is
is it allways for good? About test: of cousre I tryed to make it
as clean as it was possible, same set, same music, same cables etc.
His headphones are also burned in, while he heard the music this three month,
but burned in another way than I have done with my headphone.

.
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 5:10 PM Post #8 of 32
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=603725

In particular -

Quote:

David Clark, an AES Fellow presented "Precision Measurement of Loudspeaker Parameters", which was published in the March, 1997. Abstracting from that paper is the following quote:

Quote:

"5.1 Break-In"

"A break-in process is recommended. Drive-unit storage may cause the diaphragm suspension to drift away from its normal or in-use position. Break-in, with the drive-unit axis in the in-use orientation (usually horizontal), restores the normal diaphragm position. The recommended procedure pneumatically stretches the suspension to one excursion extreme, then the other and continues to alternate, decreasing the excursion each time until x is at zero. This process can be completed in less than 1 min."


Mr. Clark also indicated that drivers which had been stored face-up or face-down sometime need 1 minute of pink noise to restore the original center position. This could also be accomplished by a few strokes of the suspension which many manufacturers do routinely when the speaker is at the end of the assembly line. This suggests that most speakers, are in fact broken in when you get them.

Further work has been performed by Tom Nousaine who has measured speaker parameters pre and post break-in as well as having conducted controlled listening tests. He has found that the Fs of the speaker falls however that is offset by a rise in Vas. Both these parameters were related to the changes in compliance that occurred. During the playing or excercising if you will of the speaker both the spider and the surround become more compliant (they move easier if you will). Additional measurements on samples of identical drivers indicated that the changes that occured pre and post breakin on a single driver were smaller than the variations within a particular lot of drivers. Since there are manufacturing tolerances for drivers this indicates that whatever changes are that occur are smaller than those of manufacturing tolerances. This further indicates that the net effect of speaker breakin is nada, nothing, zilch, forget about it, etc.

In one experiment, Nousaine used a driver that was said to need 48 hours of break-in. Placing the driver in a 1.5 cubic foot box, he found the system resonance to be 53 Hz before break in. After 48 hours the resonance was 49 Hz. After a few minutes rest, the resonance had gone back to 51 Hz. The following morning it was back to 53 Hz. This indicates that whatever small changes that occur in a driver's characteristics during playback comeback to their original state after rest.

These experiments have been performed with other drivers such as from Dynaudio with similar results. Overall this indicated that whatever changes do occur, they do not change the sound quality.

Moreover, Richard Pierce, who some may know as having designed the crossovers for the Rockets, is a well known consultant and speaker designer who has examined the parameters and behavior of thousands, if not tens of thousands of drivers. His finding also concur with Clark's and Nousaine's with regards to how drivers behave in the real world.


The above is in regard to loudspeakers.. though how different is it for headphone drivers, really?

Either way - considering the above, the fleeting nature of human senses, and the blatant fact that human senses are NOT a valid measure of reality.. my basic stance is that while burn-in does exist to some degree, it certainly does not take hundreds of hours, and the effects are HUGELY over-exaggerated.
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 5:25 PM Post #9 of 32
Quote:

Originally Posted by asmox
the fleeting nature of human senses, and the blatant fact that human senses are NOT a valid measure of reality..


What are..?
biggrin.gif
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 5:57 PM Post #10 of 32
Quote:

Originally Posted by Agogic
and I had always a good results with burning in my cables,
.


Hahahahahaha

Quote:

Originally Posted by asmox
Either way - considering the above,...duals buy into it and hear what they want to.
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 6:21 PM Post #12 of 32
I agree that burning in cables and precise hourly numbers is ridiculous, but no need to start a flame war at all. And I'm rather confused, how can playing different sounds through a driver for a few months produce different sounding headphones? Unless a comparison was done BEFORE burn-in on both to determine if the differences are inherent in the differences between the 2 sets of cans (driver mis-matches, manufacturing flaws, etc) then this really has nothing to do with burn-in, be it real or imagined.
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 6:22 PM Post #13 of 32
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sugano-san
Where's Mike Scarpitti?!?


to quote Morris Day....."bwah ha ha!"
 
Dec 23, 2005 at 6:41 PM Post #14 of 32
Quote:

Originally Posted by RedLeader
I agree that burning in cables and precise hourly numbers is ridiculous, but no need to start a flame war at all. And I'm rather confused, how can playing different sounds through a driver for a few months produce different sounding headphones? Unless a comparison was done BEFORE burn-in on both to determine if the differences are inherent in the differences between the 2 sets of cans (driver mis-matches, manufacturing flaws, etc) then this really has nothing to do with burn-in, be it real or imagined.



I agree... I think if we try to compare few new headphones some of them would also sound different and may be even more different after burn in..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top