[Dept_of_Alchemy]

Am I the only one or have you guys noticed the break-in creep phenomonon too?

Back in the good 'ol days headphone break-in took about, oh, a night of continuous playing. Along came some amps with unnecessarily large capacitors and people started arbitrarily throwing out 100, 200, 300 hours for break in time as if this was an ebay auction. Then the ridiculously long break-in period somehow creeped into the headphone forums and now if you want your headphone to appear more bad-ass than another brand/model of headphone, simply claim a higher 'required' break-in period and your headphone is suddenly awesome. I think this is a load of BS and it gives people false hope and confuses the heck out of all the new people.

By the way, a week of continuous playing is 168 hours. That's day and night, nonstop, for a week. 400? C'mon.

 

[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dept_of_Alchemy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Am I the only one or have you guys noticed the break-in creep phenomonon too? Back in the good 'ol days headphone break-in took about, oh, a night of continuous playing. Along came some amps with unnecessarily large capacitors and people started arbitrarily throwing out 100, 200, 300 hours for break in time as if this was an ebay auction. Then the ridiculously long break-in period somehow creeped into the headphone forums and now if you want your headphone to appear more bad-ass than another brand/model of headphone, simply claim a higher 'required' break-in period and your headphone is suddenly awesome. I think this is a load of BS and it gives people false hope and confuses the heck out of all the new people. By the way, a week of continuous playing is 168 hours. That's day and night, nonstop, for a week. 400? C'mon.

I definitely noticed a huge difference in my HD650S over a period of a few weeks. That being said, the majority of the difference was in the first few days. So I'm undecided on this issue.

 

[vcoheda]

16.6 days of continuous play for 400 hours of burn in. sounds a bit off. should/does any headphone really need that much unattended use to sound decent. what's funny is that there is probably a large number of people on head-fi who have headphones that have been burned in more than actually listened to. it amuses me when i see a FS ad where the seller says that the headphones are barely used, about 20-50 hours of use and 200 hours of burn in. but who hasn't succumb to the vague although somewhat substantiated claims of the benefits of a long burn in. i know i have. sometimes when i am home, for no reason at all, i'll turn on my rig and just let it run, even though i have no intention of listening to it for a few hours if at all that day, merely for the purposes of that extra burn in and extracting whatever benefits - if any - result from it.

 

[b0dhi]

Dept, I don't make the drivers, I just listen to them. My Toyota manual recommends the first 1000km of driving under 60km/h. What do you think was the recommended break-in time of a horse wagon? What about a wheelbarrow?

Who knows what they do to the drivers these days that they didn't do in the 80s. My GS kept improving for over 2 months of daily use.

 

[splawren]

Ditto. I can understand the idea (mechanical drivers need some leg stretching in headphones, capacitors need some "chemical?" stretching and burn-in in amps). However, the "burn-in" times have gotten absurdly high, almost to the point where you won't have a "good" or "proper" product until weeks, if not months after having bought it. I cannot believe any manufacturers build consumer/prosumer head-fi products that require this long to reach their optimal performance and not say a word about it in their documentation or promotions.

A bit OT, but the ibasso D1 amp thread is particularly demonstrative on this point - I'm as interested as anyone in the stock, new amp. But multiple users said upon initial listening "ugg, this needs x hours of burn in." Then that increased to "x+10" hours, then it broke 100 hours, then it completely sidetracked into "opamp rolling" leaving stock item performance and "burn-in" question utterly unresolved. Newbies (including me) have no idea what the thing will sound like out of the box, and waiting weeks/months does not inspire a favorable purchase decision . . . sorry about the rant. Back to the GS1000's. . .

 

[b0dhi]

Whether or not one believes in burn-in, I think it's still important to give the brain some time to acclimatise to the new sound, and for personal experience to start building it's own impression of the phones instead of playing on what's been said about them.

 

[holland]

I agree, burn in times seem to have grown and grown. Physical break in should be fairly quick, drivers aren't extremely rigid and inflexible to begin with. I think the rest of it is psychoacoustics. I tend to do it more for peace of mind, or I'm just busy and might as well throw something on.

Regarding cars, that's to seat the rings to the piston walls. It's a high friction environment that should be done carefully with repeated heat and cool cycles. 1000 is stretching it, for safety purposes for the avg joe. FWIW, the cylinder walls are not supposed to be glass smooth, that's called glazing. Honing leaves ridges and the peaks must be worn down to mate with the rings for a proper oil seal. If you ever rebuild your engine, the walls must be rehoned and new rings put in.

The possible reason why 60km/h is so the transmission doesn't shift to a higher gear, which is bad for break-in. You want higher revs in shorter bursts. Low revs doesn't generate enough heat and tends to keep the temperature relatively constant.

 

[robm321]

It's funny how people just assume breakin is too long or doesn't exist not because of any logic or scientific theory, but becuase it just "seems" too long or doesn't "seem" to make sense.

This is from the manual for my speakers which sounded bright and harsh out of the box.

Von Schweikert Audio

World Class Reference Speaker Systems for Music and Film

BREAK-IN
The VRs use proprietary drivers custom made for this system. Raw drivers are broken in for roughly 200 hours at considerable volume to reach suspension behavior’s “steady state” prior to actual loudspeaker development. By contrast, production units receive 12 to 24 hours of break-in. Since the fluidity and dynamic range of the speaker depends on free movement, you may notice a slight “brightness” or mechanical “heaviness” to the sound for the first 20 hours. The sound engineered into the VRs will take approximately 300-400 hours to achieve, so we recommend that you not make critical judgement of their sound until break-in is accomplished. Break-in is best done by playing loud music or a break-in disc for several days straight. If noise is a problem, place the speakers face to face, with one speaker system wired out of phase. Quilts may be placed over the speakers to reduce the radiated sound. This trick will cancel a lot of the sound that may disturb others. However, please make sure that you are not driving the amplifier into clipping or distorting the speaker— it is difficult to hear distortion when quilts are used. Adjust the volume in advance!
Note that it may take several months or longer to break the speakers in if only quiet music is played at background levels.
Classical music played quietly does not contain enough bass or dynamics (in most cases) to do a proper job, so we suggest using a CD player on repeat, using a loud rock album or break-in CD as the source. Please make sure that the amplifier does not go into clipping, though, as the heat generated may damage the drivers over a period of time. (Clipping sounds like buzzing or harshness). If the sound is “clean”, however, you can put 200 watts of music power into the VR-4's over a long period of time without any damage.

 

[vcoheda]

that's really interesting. that's probably one of the best pieces of literature i've read on the topic. my only question is how comparable is burn in (break in) of speakers to headphones.

 

[splawren]

I'm sorry for going with the OT thread and ranting again . .. The car analogy has already been explained and distinguished, but I'll add that they "tell" you about the burn-in. With documentation like that for the speakers listed above, break-in is a known factor in the purchase and performance of the product (and is really well explained in that manual, I might add). For numerous headphones and amps on this site and others, no such explicit "burn-in" requirement is listed or described, except what is reported by users. When users claim that 100-200 to 500 or more (yup, saw 1000) hours of burn in is required for these products, there's an information problem or a performance problem. I'll totally admit I'm impatient, but I'm willing to let my monitor audio speakers "burn-in" because the dealer and mfgr say its the thing to do and explain why (like above) - I expect it and know how long it takes. When I buy a pair of HD650s, I've heard so many varying "burn-in" times for those phones that I have no idea if I've ever given them a chance to reach "peak", even with several hundred hours on them (and now, having tried them with an Opera, DAC1, HR Desktop, some selling decisions are apparent). If the HD650s are still not burned in by now, then the product is not useful to me, since I don't want to wait several more weeks/months to get them to sound "right," and I would never have bought them in the first place. A day, sure. A week, maybe. 50 hours or more - only if you tell me about it first. I'm sure people's "disappointment" in their new gear (like the OP and the GS1000) would be tempered if they expected the burn-in and knew it was a valid (and real) expectation that the product would improve with time and use. That information has got to come from the sellers and in much greater frequency, IMO.

 

[Mindless]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif that's really interesting. that's probably one of the best pieces of literature i've read on the topic. my only question is how comparable is burn in (break in) of speakers to headphones.

I'm not a speaker expert but I definately believe there is a difference between the two. Judging from the size of headphone drivers and amount of complexe and fast movements that single driver does to preform the same music a two or three-way speaker does, I believe it should take significantly less time for a headphone to "settle down".

On topic...

 

[robm321]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif that's really interesting. that's probably one of the best pieces of literature i've read on the topic. my only question is how comparable is burn in (break in) of speakers to headphones.

Well, they both use dynamic drivers. Size shouldn't matter. Material does, and that's why break in may very between different headphones. Also, 1 way or 3 way shouldn't matter since each driver would be moving about the same amount during break in. It's not like 1 driver moves for an hour and then the second one moves, if you KWIM?

splawren - I agree, manuals for Grado headphones lack to say the least (do they come with manuals?). There are many things they could mention. Breakin, how to take care of, re cabling options, etc. But all I remember is seeing something about not listening too loud.

My VR manual tells about biamping, biwiring, what kind of amp gives you what sound, what kind of wire sounds best, how to position the speaker, etc. Some headphone manuals just tell you how to put them on, its sad considering what they are being sold for.

 

[vcoheda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by robm321 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Size shouldn't matter.

i suspect that is a very debatable issue.

but i agree that headphone manufacturers are not doing nearly enough in this area and we consumers are very much in the dark, left only to our own imperfect experimentations and impressions. they make, design, engineer, and test the headphone. they should know and be able to tell us how much burn in is required (if any) before the product reaches optimal performance.

 

[Mindless]

Quote:

Originally Posted by robm321 /img/forum/go_quote.gif splawren - I agree, manuals for Grado headphones lack to say the least (do they come with manuals?). There are many things they could mention. Breakin, how to take care of, re cabling options, etc. But all I remember is seeing something about not listening too loud.

Lack? More like inexsistant.

You get a warranty paper. That's it.

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by b0dhi /img/forum/go_quote.gif Whether or not one believes in burn-in, I think it's still important to give the brain some time to acclimatise to the new sound, and for personal experience to start building it's own impression of the phones instead of playing on what's been said about them.

The acclimation is what it's really all about. Sonic signatures won't drastically change from break in. However, as your ears adjust to the sonic signature you can start to appreciate the headphones in more solidified ways (either positive or negative).