Tyll went on to say that he believed that he did discover that there is "break-in" but that it's subtle. As I pointed out in the Sound Science thread: Quote:
Ka-ching! Here we can see a clear downward trend of IMD products over time. While the data is a bit noisy, all IMD products are reducing in level about 1.5dB each over the course of the test. I included IMD in the test because I thought that the type of differences I've heard over time might be due to this type of distortion.
Quote:
Music is made of a multitude of frequencies. When the entire spectrum of music suffers from intermodulation distortion producing a sea of IMD products some 60dB down, I suspect it can be clearly audible. Reducing the level of this background crud 1 or 2 dB might certainly effect the subjective experience. I think it's extremely important to recognize that the perceptions of my measurement system in objective metrics may be on a completely different scale than that of the observer in the subjective experience.
How can you measure beauty?
The difference between a very good violin player and a truly great player is not objectively large. The devil is in the details; it's small subtleties that separate the two. So while the objectively measurable difference between the two players might be small, it may make the difference between an ecstatic and a merely pleasant listening experience to the human observer.
So, while headphones change little over time, their ability to deliver pleasure may improve markedly. Easily hearing the differences I've so often heard before 13 out of 15 times in a simple blind test proved to me this is a subtle, but important distinction.
Small changes can cause big reactions, enough to make one like or dislike a sound signature. The difference between the K701 and Q701 is small, according to measurements, but I can't stand the K701s and love the Qs.
I personally believe it's a little of both, physical changes in certain headphone models
and our minds adjusting to the new sound signature. No reason not to accept that a little of both is going on, it isn't an "either/or" situation.