A couple of questions for Campfire. To satisfy my curiosity only and not trying to stir anything...
1. Burn in - does CA believe in this, and/or conduct any pre burn in prior to packaging up for sale.
2. Stock cables - what philosophy is held here by CA, balancing cost and synergy analysis. By extension, do you test on multiple sources.
I tend to play my IEM's with stock config, apart from tip rolling, and enjoy sound changes, if any, as part of daily listening.
Currently enjoying Bruce Soord - Luminescence album on Trifecta with stock 4.4 cable and SYMBIO W Premium tips.
Sure, happy to help answer your questions or at least share my perspective from my own experience.
1. In my experience, a driver that has just been made will sound better once it has had time to break-in or burn-in. By extension, an earphone that has just been assembled that contains a number of drivers will sound better after it has been given some time to burn in as a whole unit. This 'improvement' isn't orders of magnitude better, and it doesn't take something that sounds bad to suddenly sounding good. It also isn't a process that goes on indefinitely. And, in my experience, this is much more appreciable with Dynamic Drivers over other driver types.
We have even done some A/B testing here to see if we can hear a difference. With some models, yes, there is a 'mellowing out' and 'opening up' that happens as the sound becomes more coherent and natural. In some models, I could not tell the difference, even with careful listening. So, yeah, I'm not sure if that is helpful at all, but I would say that your earphones generally will sound better as you use them, but also not to sweat it too much. I like to think of it as breaking in a new pair of raw denim jeans; they are going to start out stiff when you first buy them, but the more you wear them, the more comfortable they become and the better they are going to be.
We do not burn-in earphones before shipping them. We do, however, do a ton of rigorous testing throughout the build, so the individual drivers and then your earphones, as a fully assembled unit, will have had sound played through them numerous times before we do our final QC check and packaging. Typically, we'll pre-test each driver to pre-qualify it for a build candidate. Then, we'll create sub-assemblies or full internal assemblies, depending on the build, and test those to make sure that the drivers are all working together as intended in the design. Next, the Left and Right earphones will be fully assembled and ready for testing. After that, we'll measure all of the earphones and make pairs from our qualifying pool. Then another final round of QC and inspection for the pair before they are packaged. This takes quite a bit more time than you might expect, but it also assures us that the earphones we're sending out are meeting our expectations when they leave our workshop.
2. Cables are clearly an important part of the earphone experience. Not only the ergonomics and aesthetics of the cable but also the sonic synergy between the particular cable and earphone. You are correct that it is important that we find a good balance between adding cost to the build and adding additional performance. But I think we are at a bit of an advantage in the area due to the many years Ken and the rest of our team have spent with cables. And while it may not always be immediately appreciable, there are many details to our cables that add up to an excellent all-purpose cable. For one small example, each of the strands that make up the wires is individually enameled. This allows us to use a clear jacket and not have the cable slowly turn green over time. We use silver-plated copper conductors for our stock cables because, in our listening, this formulation delivers the right balance between warmth and detail. The same goes for the conductor count and size. The same goes for our custom-made MMCX connectors. There are many design decisions that go into our stock cables, but our goal is to provide you with a cable that has excellent performance and lets you really get to know the earphone's sound.
This is turning into a longer reply than I expected
But yes, tips make a huge difference for IEMs, and it makes sense to try a wide variety to find the right performance for you for any particular earphone.
I pulled up Bruce Soord on Apple Music and put some SYMBIO W on my Trifecta while writing this response
I agree this is a sweet combination, and while it isn't usually the type of music I listen to regularly, the recording is really cool, with tons of spatial details that are fun to listen to. Thanks for the recommendation!
