[gLer]

Actually, I had an experience that might be worth sharing here - I purchased my first custom Elysium September last year - exactly 2 months later, and significantly over 200 hours, I bought a second custom Elysium (I wanted a new toy and nothing else really appealed to me at the time), and they sounded exactly the same. 2 units, with exactly the same shell, perfect fit as they were both customs and the only difference being that one of them was burned in while the other was fresh out of the lab - no notable sound differences of any kind

Though I would point out here that I don't believe in burn-in with all-BA IEMs. I just don't get how that would even work given the tech and almost complete lack of moving parts.

 

[Deezel177]

Deezel

I do agree with the brain burn-in. I have said many times there are three IEMs that I have seen a physical change with burn-in. Atlas, X and ODIN. All with DD. Was it brain burn-in or physical on the XLS?

To me, it seemed physical. I very rarely mention if something's changed because of mental "burn-in", because it's a very subjective experience. The only in-ears I've heard change after run-in were the XLS, Phantom and one or two others that I can't recall at the moment. The Phantom's low-treble harshness died down a fair bit after some use. Unfortunately, the sub-bass toned down a tad as well, which made it a hair less fun. But, yeah, those are instances of perceivable burn-in that stuck out to me as more than the typical mental kind.

I think you’ve both struck a cord here and a possible rationale is somewhere in between / a merge of the two concepts.

I strongly believe that confirmation bias plays a big role in the way the brain interprets the way an IEM / headphone sounds - initially, and even more so after a period of time (aka burn in).

The indication of this is sprinkled across the forum and in reviews - where it’s not just a case of the IEM being “better”, but how it virtually always improves in the EXACT areas that were “weak”, “inadequate”, or otherwise not ideal at the start.

And those vary wildly - bass was too heavy, thick, thin, absent....mids were recessed, forward, wrong timbre... treble was too sharp, dull, boring, sibilant.... soundstage was too narrow, shallow, dispersed.

Zero pattern other than whatever that particular reviewer / product owner wished was better, improved with burn in.

For sure, and - to some degree - the same can be applied to stuff like cables as well. My belief in cables affecting sound is stronger than my faith in physical burn-in (or, at least, the notion that it's universal), because those patterns you're talking about do exist when it comes to the latter. I'd discuss the changes a cable brings with other reviewers or peers without any prior talks, and we'd come to the same conclusions a lot of the time; specific impressions, too.

So many threads about this...never going to change anyone's mind. Not really any reason to try, because it isn't important. We can poke holes in anyone's statement's time and time again. This won't be the last thread it will appear on. Everyone is right, great move on. Whether burn-in exists or not doesn't appear to be the most important thing. It is whether you are right or wrong, or your clique is.

This is sort-of where I stand on the whole burn-in thing most of the time: It rarely matters and it's gonna happen eventually anyway, so I don't mind it. 'Just wanted to pass along my two-cents and be done with it.

SD cards affecting sound is new for me.

You should try talking to the extreme tweakers in the Singapore audiophile community: From SD cards, to contact-cleaning oils and quantum stickers. Not only do they burn-in their gear, they also use specific tracks/noises and specific volume levels for certain frequency tweaks too. A minute with them would make the Sound Science thread implode.

 

[mvvRAZ]

To me, it seemed physical. I very rarely mention if something's changed because of mental "burn-in", because it's a very subjective experience. The only in-ears I've heard change after run-in were the XLS, Phantom and one or two others that I can't recall at the moment. The Phantom's low-treble harshness died down a fair bit after some use. Unfortunately, the sub-bass toned down a tad as well, which made it a hair less fun. But, yeah, those are instances of perceivable burn-in that stuck out to me as more than the typical mental kind.



For sure, and - to some degree - the same can be applied to stuff like cables as well. My belief in cables affecting sound is stronger than my faith in physical burn-in (or, at least, the notion that it's universal), because those patterns you're talking about do exist when it comes to the latter. I'd discuss the changes a cable brings with other reviewers or peers without any prior talks, and we'd come to the same conclusions a lot of the time; specific impressions, too.



This is sort-of where I stand on the whole burn-in thing most of the time: It rarely matters and it's gonna happen eventually anyway, so I don't mind it. 'Just wanted to pass along my two-cents and be done with it.



You should try talking to the extreme tweakers in the Singapore audiophile community: From SD cards, to contact-cleaning oils and quantum stickers. Not only do they burn-in their gear, they also use specific tracks/noises and specific volume levels for certain frequency tweaks too. A minute with them would make the Sound Science thread implode.

Lmao I’ve heard about those “recordings” that were made to burn in gear, biiiiiig giggle

 

[Deezel177]

Though I would point out here that I don't believe in burn-in with all-BA IEMs. I just don't get how that would even work given the tech and almost complete lack of moving parts.

The common belief is that the burn-in would be directed towards the caps in the crossovers. Again, refer to the tweakers I mentioned in my previous post.

 

[Deezel177]

Lmao I’ve heard about those “recordings” that were made to burn in gear, biiiiiig giggle

I personally don't feel any type of way about it. This is a weirdly-obsessive hobby as it is. Any step further makes no difference to me.

 

[gLer]

The common belief is that the burn-in would be directed towards the caps in the crossovers. Again, refer to the tweakers I mentioned in my previous post.

Assuming your IEM has crossovers...

 

[gLer]

Lmao I’ve heard about those “recordings” that were made to burn in gear, biiiiiig giggle

Yeah, I bought into that once. Until someone suggested I just play music through them, does the same thing. Turns out it did...

 

[Deezel177]

Assuming your IEM has crossovers...

Yeah, I was referring to multi-BA IEMs. Single-BA's are rarer than ever nowadays.

 

[MrLocoLuciano]

From my own experience with the Odin, the double W9+ do need some time to settle down correctly. Also had that once before with DD for bass.
Appart from saying that, I have nothing to proove it...
And I would not make a generality of it.

 

[reeltime]

And all the while time passes and the drivers season more....hmmm just coincidence?

No, because when I go back to the old setup the harshness is still there. I'm only 10-15 hours, at most, into the headphone.

So if you buy a brand new car for much more money than Odin, you think it should already have several thousand miles on it so it is already broken in for you? If you say that is why you buy used, then you need to apply that logic to IEMs too.

I thought about that analogy earlier-- I don't know that it's fair or comparable. Do you leave the car idling in the garage overnight or running up on jack stands to get the first 500 miles on it? Does the car not handle well during the first 500 miles? Does the air conditioning not work? Some differences maybe make this a false equivalence.

Sell it...take your loss. Move on. You have a Tia Fourte which doesn't have peaky treble??? I did notice from your the video the very first thing you did was switch to your go to tips. Maybe for this IEM there is another go to, just saying.

I've tried a lot of different pairings with the Odin, and I've shared a bunch of them here. We're here to discuss and share experiences. If you're having a different journey with the Odin, or found something that sounds great with them, I'd enjoy reading about it. So far my 2 big changes have been ear placement (depth of the headphone) in the ear canal and a switch in amplification from solid state to tube. That move produced a result I did not expect, in a pleasant way.

 

[mwhals]

I thought about that analogy earlier-- I don't know that it's fair or comparable. Do you leave the car idling in the garage overnight or running up on jack stands to get the first 500 miles on it? Does the car not handle well during the first 500 miles? Does the air conditioning not work? Some differences maybe make this a false equivalence.

I would not call it false, because you drive the car to break in and can listen to an IEM to break it in. My current car got better gas mileage after the first 1500 miles, so that is a benefit (money savings) even better than better sound from an IEM that is broken in.

 

[Tristy]

This is all getting a little off topic now and probably should be moved to the ‘sound science’ part of the forums...

 

[mashuto]

This is all getting a little off topic now and probably should be moved to the ‘sound science’ part of the forums...

The sound science guys would shut this whole discussion down in 2 seconds and tell you that without two units (one new and one burned in) and a completely blind abx test, that everyone is spewing nonsense.

But it is a bit off topic and it's just gonna go in circles as this discussion always does. There's never any real hard evidence on either side. So nobody is ever gonna budge.

 

[proedros]

get back on odin/hero impressions , guys

 

[CL14715]

Here is something about the Odin... the guy who designed it said it needed to be broken in a bit to sound its best. Everyone can go into debate about it but I’ll trust the creator who possesses more direct knowledge about in ear devices than anyone here currently.