[vandit]

herro

i have a sennheiser hd 280 pro headphone and i was wondering if the burn in time ever stop?

im over the 100 hr limit, as i have had these headphones for about 3+ months now

thanks

vandit

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Although I have never actually read anything one way or the other, I would have to say no. To qualify that statement what I mean is that the vast majority of break-in occurs in the first 100 hours of use. After that first break-in period which accounts for propbably 90% or mroe of the total sonic changes in the sound of a set of cans, the rest is either too small or insignificant to be detected after that!

It would be nice to see if someone would track all the changes of a set of cans for the first several months of use to verify what, if any, changes occur throughout their initial few weeks/months.

I can say that Audio-Technica claims that their wooden series cans will always continue to break in as the wood seasons throughout their lifetime!!!

 

[austonia]

i was wondering that if headphones sound soooo much better after 100 hrs of break-in, why don't they do this at the factory..? when people plunk down a few hundred bucks a set of cans it sure would be nice to hear them at (or near) their best right outa the box.

 

[puppyslugg]

Quote:

I was wondering that if headphones sound soooo much better after 100 hrs of break-in, why don't they do this at the factory..? when people plunk down a few hundred bucks a set of cans it sure would be nice to hear them at (or near) their best right outa the box.

If the hp company was to do that, the 'few hundred bucks a set of cans...', will become another 'few hundred bucks a set of cans...more'!.

 

[pedxing]

Technically, burning in is a form of wear and tear. In other words, the acoustic qualities of your heapdhone will never stop changing, but the changes will be much slower after you initially burned them in.

Some people have claimed that their headphones were used so much over the years, the quality of sound has been compromised and a new pair of headphones had to be purchased to replace them. Because I have not read many postings about this in this forum, I assume this occurrence is rare or people just don't notice it because they are use to the way their headphones sound.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

Quote:

Originally posted by austonia i was wondering that if headphones sound soooo much better after 100 hrs of break-in, why don't they do this at the factory..? when people plunk down a few hundred bucks a set of cans it sure would be nice to hear them at (or near) their best right outa the box.

I can't even imagine what they would charge to actually take a set of headphones and run music and such into them for just a little over four straight days!! Much less how much it would slow down production and time to retailers!! They would have to have tons and tons of jacks, amps and splitters to drive the vast amount that get produced each day.

Some companies do rapid burn-in of their cables, but that uses high voltage for short periods of time.

How many here would spend another $50 or so to have a set of headphones burned-in before you bought them??? I know I wouldn't!!!!

 

[Ruahrc]

But isn't burning in supposed to be one of the fun things you get to do with new cans? It's like tinkering with your new toy and "getting to know it" by tracking its sound right out of the box...

...or maybe I'm just too sleep-deprived....

Ruahrc

 

[elipsis]

I'm not convinced that 90% of the sonic changes take place during the burn-in period, more like 90% of the psychological conditioning needed to get used to a new-sounding set of phones takes place.

I don't doubt that there is some physical change in a set of headphones through use, perhaps over their entire lifespan, but I think the perceived drasticness of the original "burn in" is mostly psychological.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

The debate sounds something like this: are you breaking the cans in, or are you getting used to their sonic characteristics? Could be, but I doubt it. I put my new Sony V6s on and listened to them and teh highs were shrill on one particular song. I didn't pick them up and listen again few almost 12 hours of burn-in, and that same note had toned down quite a bit. After nreayl three days that same note is now much, much better sounding!! It sounded so nice on the Senns when I switched back and forth between them and the Sony in the beginning. Then after those couple of days ended they sounded more similar than not! I can say unequivically that they broke-in over time and the sound was much better after two days. It's not psychoacoustic when you can switch between two headphones and compare the sound coming in your ears.

 

[Mystic]

Burning in is most definitely NOT psychological. Some cans go through a greater amout of change than others, but they all change. I always listen to my HPs right out of the box for a little bit. I then put them away someplace being driven at fairly loud levels for at least a day before I listen to them again. There is no gradual affect of me getting used to them. HPs are an electro-mechanical system. Of course they are going to break in over time. The first few hours of use being the most significant.

 

[bangraman]

I think it is psychological to an extent. There is obviously a mechanical component which will definitely change the sound but there is also a psychological acclimatisation to a degree, I'm sure. I buy perhaps 3-4 new headphones a year (since discovering head-fi my total this year is more likely to be 6-7 if not more) and I don't spend enough time on each headphone to 'get used' to it. I use different phones on two of my main PC's and my mixing consoles, I have a walkman phone, and I make a point of having two very different main hi-fi phones.
With that in mind, I find that my other 'audiophiley' friends who buy say one headphone every two years to have very different opinions of the same phones.
I'm also quite impatient, if something doesn't make me go 'holy shiznit' or grin widely straight away, or break in to be good in under 50 hours I'd usually sell it off.

 

[Davie]

Quote:

Originally posted by ServinginEcuador The debate sounds something like this: are you breaking the cans in, or are you getting used to their sonic characteristics? Could be, but I doubt it. I put my new Sony V6s on and listened to them and teh highs were shrill on one particular song. I didn't pick them up and listen again few almost 12 hours of burn-in, and that same note had toned down quite a bit. After nreayl three days that same note is now much, much better sounding!! It sounded so nice on the Senns when I switched back and forth between them and the Sony in the beginning. Then after those couple of days ended they sounded more similar than not! I can say unequivically that they broke-in over time and the sound was much better after two days. It's not psychoacoustic when you can switch between two headphones and compare the sound coming in your ears.

I second everything you said. I was skeptical about burn in until I got the 7506's. The Sony's sounded very shrill in direct comparison to Grado SR-60's immediately out of the box. After about a week, the shrillness was gone.

I don't know if there is an underlying similarity or not, but to me burn in seems like breaking in a shoe. Some shoes need quite a bit of wear and tear to assume a comfortable shape, some don't. It depends on what they're made of, how they're put together, etc. I think there is a psychological component also. Otherwise, I'm not sure why my OTHER phones would sound different after I'm used to listening to the Sony's. But psychology isn't the whole story.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

I tend to rule out psychological effect for one reason: when I plunk down a bunch of money for something, I want it to sound good when I get it. I mean, come on, after spending $350 on a new set of AT W1000s, and waiting a week to get them, you're all worked up and thinking, "Man, these things are going to sound awesome!!" But upon plugging them in you're quite disappointed. All that hype, all that waiting, all those wonderful reviews, etc, etc, and they kinda suck!! At that point your expectations and hopes are dashed, then 24 hours passes and you start to listen again, and this time they sound better. Tha shrillness is gone.

Isn't part of the psychoacoustic effect supposed to be driven by EXPECTATION!!! My findings show that they generally are opposite of my expectations!! Kinda some wierd reverse psychacoustic effect.