[DL-ish]

A few days I ago I bought a Audio Technica ATH M50 and I just wanted to know what the difference was between the noises and what can benefit the M50s the most during a 100 hr burn in period 

 

[rroseperry]

Wikipedia is your friend
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise
 
but you're on your own about the burn in part.

 

[khaos974]

Don't use white noise to burn in, I repeat again, DON'T USE WHITE NOISE.
Too much energy in the trebles, you risk damaging the beadphones because of too much energy in the trebles.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

To ask what kind of noise you want to use to burn in your headphones means that both burn in and the type of noise used result in an audible differences. However, the evidence that either do produce an audible difference is pretty much nonexistent. 

 

[khaos974]

Correct me if I.m wrong, but the volume in the trebles is much much high with white noise than with pink, and white noise spectrum doesn't approximate musical spectrum the slightest. There are reported incidents where the tweeter was blown by playing white noise.
 
Never said that burning in had a beneficial effect (or any effect at all), but transducers are not normally meant to play trebles at white noise level (30 dB louder than pink noise at 20 kHz).
 
Actually, scratch that explanation, I'll go at it tomorrow morning because it's 2:30 am in Beijing.

 

[DL-ish]

Quote:

Don't use white noise to burn in, I repeat again, DON'T USE WHITE NOISE.
Too much energy in the trebles, you risk damaging the beadphones because of too much energy in the trebles.

 
So which would you recommend? According to wikipedia there are more than white, pink, and brown noise 
but they all sound the same O.o
or at least similar  not only that, I do not have a clue what the description on each sound means 

 

[nikongod]

 
Quote:

Quote:

Don't use white noise to burn in, I repeat again, DON'T USE WHITE NOISE.
Too much energy in the trebles, you risk damaging the beadphones because of too much energy in the trebles.

 
So which would you recommend? According to wikipedia there are more than white, pink, and brown noise 
but they all sound the same O.o
or at least similar  not only that, I do not have a clue what the description on each sound means 

khaos974:
too much energy in the treble? Hunh? At 60db@1khz? Played at a tasteful level no "color" of random noise should damage anything. Id agree that setting that level without without the aid of an SPL meter is dificult, but advising against its use as a blanket thing. 
 
Edited: saw a reply above I skipped.... maybe ignore this.
 
 
DL:
The various colors should all sound substantially different. 
 
Listen to them: one is reasonably flat, one has lots of bass, one has lots of treble.
 
I use whatever was playing when I put the headphones down to burn in. just keep it looping. 

 

[DL-ish]

Which one is the flatter one? 
To me white seems flatter than the other noises but khaos seems to disagree 

 

[khaos974]

Both are flat, white noise is linearly flat and pink noise is flat in a logarithmic space.
 
The frequency spectrum of with noise is flat, which means that given a band of frequencies of the same width, there's the same amount of power, ie there's the same amount of power from 20 to 40 Hz than there is from 19980 Hz to 20000 Hz. In a standard floor standing 3 way speaker, trebles (actually upper midrange and trebles ie. fro 2.5 kHz on) are reproduced by the tweeter. Suppose now that we are making it reproduce white noise, the range is17.5 kHz, 7 times wider than the 0 to 2.5 kHz, you are asking the tiny tweeter to deal with 7 times more power than the midrange driver and the woofer combined, that's why you don't burn in with white noise, people have blown up tweeters by doing so. Granted, this isn't likely of occur if you burn in at very low level, and headphones have a single drive, which may be a little different as power handling capacities go, ut for the sake of prudence, don't burn in with white noise.
 
Now, pink noise is flat in the logarithmic space, that means that given a band of frequencies with the same ratio between the top and bottom frequencies, there's the same amount of power, ie. from the same amount of power from 20 to 40 HHz, from 40 to 80 Hz or from 10 kHz to 20 kHz. Musically speaking, each octave (range corresponding to a doubling of frequency) is fed with the same amount of power. If you stick to a linear representation, you have a gentle -3 dB/octave slope. You may think this is unnatural (if you have no knowledge of music), but it is not, if you check the spectrum of any track, be ot classical, jazz, pop, rock, hip-hop... the spectrum is very close to pink noise, both the human hearing and music are logarithmic, after all, don't we use octaves for musical notes? For example, the standard tuning note is A4, at 440 Hz, the same note an octave higher is A5 at 880 Hz...
 
Now, burn in may or may not have an effect on the sound of headphones, I personally think that anything beyond 10 hours is superfluous, but regardless of this, it doesn't make sense to burn in with white noise, which is potentially dangerous to your transducers and doesn't have the slightest resemblance with the spectrum of real music.

 

[monterto]

Now regarding using white noise. What you are saying makes sense but the M50s don't have a dedicated tweeter and woofer, correct? They only have the one driver.
 
Would what your saying still apply to the M50s and why?

 

[khaos974]

I don't know how valid my comment about white noise was as far as headphones (1 driver) are concerned, but provided that the driver was not extremely over-engineered (ie. is able to reproduce signals very different form the typical spectrum of music), it would make sense to stay on the side of prudence and burn in with pink noise and stay away from high volume white noise.

 

[Eastern Snap]

I recently got AKG K601's and for the first 20 or 30 hours I have been using them like regular headphones not at high volumes and while I am away I just let music play at regular listening levels. Today I got some Pink, White, and Brown noise. After reading khaos posts you said 'NOT to burn in with White Noise'.
 
I am currently burning them in with Pink Noise. But When should I use the brown noise, and will using 'White Noise' ever be beneficial after 300 or so hours of burning the headphones in? Should I let the Pink and Brown noise loop every 60 minutes? (i.e. Pink 60, Brown 60 -- Repeat). I am burning them in at listening levels.
 
I have been looking on countless threads on this forum and I have found a lot of helpful information! But I am having trouble finding the questions I posted above. I am not trying to hi-jack this thread by the way hehe, and thanks for any input if possible!
 
My first post and I hope I will have many more with you all, take care!

 

[khaos974]

 As I wrote earlier, don't burn in with white noise, your headphones may remain undamaged after that, but it's silly to risk your brand new K601 for an hypothetical improvement, isn't it?
Especially since you could get the same improvement by playing music or pink noise.

 

[Eastern Snap]

Quote:

 As I wrote earlier, don't burn in with white noise, your headphones may remain undamaged after that, but it's silly to risk your brand new K601 for an hypothetical improvement, isn't it?
Especially since you could get the same improvement by playing music or pink noise.

Yes it is silly to risk it. That is all I have been doing since I got my headphones out of the box. I just play them at safe listening levels without hearing static or anything like that. And when I am gone I put on 20 minutes of pink noise with a 2 minute digital silence(Repeat).
 
Also of course I use them like regular headphones with my games or music too. I am very happy with the way they sound anyways. And whether 'burning-in' is a myth or not it gives me peace of mind, also there is far less static now at higher volumes - I don't know if that's a part of burning or or what.
 
Anyways thanks for the reply.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

, it would make sense to stay on the side of prudence and burn in with pink noise and stay away from high volume white noise.

^^This.
 
Pink noise at a bit higher than normal listening level for a couple of days pretty much does it.