Have I overstretched my headphone drivers?

[gaming]

I need some help with a newish Focal Elegia

I've been running it in for a month now using a music source with an inbuilt amp

Volume level 14% is my normal listening volume and running in volume. It may be slightly loud for some people with some music tracks. While I was running it in at that level, electronic music sounded okay

The day after I started running in at 15%, electronic music sounded worse on any volume level I heard it at. It had less imaging and definition (if I'm using the right word) and wasn't enjoyable. Maybe it was also missing some detail and soundstage. And when I started running in at 16% volume 2 days ago, it sounded even worse

Have I overstretched the fabric (?) or any other part of the drivers, or partially melted the voice coils inside?

If it's the former, is it reversible in any way? Or is it permanent?

Is this kind of change in sound normal when running in a headphone at loud volume for a long time?

 

[HipHopScribe]

lol no, you definitely didn't. If headphone drivers "stretched" or "melted" by playing them a little loud everybody's headphones would be unusable in a matter of months. Any changes in how you're perceiving the sound are probably down to your listening situation honestly and not changes in the headphones.

 

[Paul Mohr]

If you physically harmed them it would most likely be very obvious. It would not be minor sound changes like lack of staging, detail or whatever. They would distort or buzz or one of the drivers would just fail to work. Or it may work on and off depending on the amount of power it was getting. In short they would sound like crap. Do you have any other devices, like amps and other headphones you can compare them too? Even if its your computer, phone or a receiver or something. I would listend to them on something else and then try a different set of headphones on that amp to see what the differences are.

You said you started at 14% then moved up to 15 and then 16. Maybe you are just overpowering them? It could possibly be an issue with the cable or a connection but normally that usually ends up as cutting out or hearing some static. And nothing you could have done would have effected the cable. Short of abusing it. Turning the volume up by 2% would not create an issue.

I agree with Hiphop, it probably has something to do with you. Possibly your hearing changed (from listening to them too loud lol). Or you are getting used to listening to them and just don't like the sound of them. Or maybe they are breaking in and that is just how they sound. Not sure about that one personally. I have never noticed break in periods on audio gear. Some say it makes a difference but I have never noticed it. My headphones and amps sound just the same as the day I turned them on or plugged them in to me. I am also assuming you are using the same sources. Same music and same device to drive the amp. These could have an effect on sound. Some recordings just suck compared to others. And some devices are better than others. And a good set of headphones and amp can really bring out the suck on some stuff. That is the downside to better gear and more revealing systems. They not only reveal the good stuff, they can show you the bad too.

Or it could all be in your head. This is a real thing. It happens to me. Sometimes my system just doesn't sound as good to me for whatever reason. And you can get used to things. When I first got my Asgard 3 and Modi 3+ and compared different headphones and different devices I heard a big difference in the sound quality. Probably because I was listening for it. As time goes on I don't notice that much of a difference anymore especially with casual listening. I just did a little test last night because I was going to show my brother the difference between an average system and my new one. I picked a song that had some characteristics I thought would show off the differences. I listened to it off Tidal with a master quality track on my Asgard 3 system with my sundara's. Then I listened to the same song off from youtube, driven by my computers onboard audio with a cheap pair of headphones. Same kind of tests I did when I got it all and wrote that article I put up here. Except last night I didn't hear a big difference between the two. Not enough that I thought it would blow away my brother anyway. The differences were so subtle I doubt he would hear them unless I told him what to listen for. And if he did I bet his response would be "Big deal, who cares?". And he would think I was nuts for spending close to 800 bucks on a headphone system. Perceptions do change over time and many things effect it.

 

[megabigeye]

HipHopScribe and Paul Mohr are probably right, but I’d need to know more before really offering any advice or assurances.

My questions:
1) what source are you using? A) The difference between 14% to 16% on a phone might be small, but much larger on a more powerful amp. B) The Elegia are easy to drive, but if you are using a particularly weak source you could potentially damage the drivers by under-driving them (but, as has been said, that should be immediately obvious).
2) You said you’ve been running them in for a month— do you mean a month straight without pause? If so, that could potentially be bad for the source, or maybe the headphones depending on how loud, how powerful the source is, etc. If you have been running it continually for a month, is the source warm or hot to the touch? Overheating is bad for electronics and might cause distortions.

Otherwise I think the others are probably right and that it could be anything from you misremembering how they sound, to your preferences changing, to having more ambient noise now than you did before, to seasonal allergies, to…

 

[ProtegeManiac]

The day after I started running in at 15%, electronic music sounded worse on any volume level I heard it at. It had less imaging and definition (if I'm using the right word) and wasn't enjoyable. Maybe it was also missing some detail and soundstage. And when I started running in at 16% volume 2 days ago, it sounded even worse
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Is this kind of change in sound normal when running in a headphone at loud volume for a long time?

To add to megabigeye's post:

1. Is there even obviously bad sound output like crackling etc?

2. By "running" do you mean you just left them running with some listening? How much of that was actual listening?

Because if the drivers are damaged either you get zero sound or you get undebatably bad sound, not something that can be perceived as minor changes. For example if you modify a car's engine and the exhaust note sounds different, does it actually sound like it's backfiring or the RPM drops too far down when off-throttle, etc, because otherwise regardless of your tone preferences forced induction on an engine can make the resonant frequency on-throttle higher or lower depending on the engine and forced induction type used. Your screaming banshee of a Honda or Ferrari having a kompressor whine in the background while getting throatier doesn't mean it's malfunctioning, nor is a deep gurgling BMW that moves a bit from a growl to a scream even more once you're past 5000rpm.

Without "obviously something's wrong" kind of sounds what you described there so far sounds more like break-in, and on headphones, two things break in: the transducer mechanical parts and your earpads, as there are several ways to interpret those descriptions. "Less definition" and "missing detail" in what, exactly? If you're referring to higher frequencies then a broken-in driver and maybe compressed earpads can have more bass performance. The same sounds are still there, you're just getting more of other frequencies, either right out of the driver or how the sound interacts with the environment past the diaphragm.

Similarly, "imaging" and "soundstage" are already understood erroneously by many from the start. For example many just notice the HD600 has a small soundstage, but then some of such people exalt Grados having a "wide soundstage" with "3D sound" when these are actually "why are the cymbals set forward where the vocals are and to the flanks past where the guitars are? is Mr Fantastic a drummer now?" and "why does the bass drum sound like it's coming from the vocalist? does Iron Man have a robo drum in his armor when he sings?" respectively (and I'm saying that as somebody that enjoys both an HD600 and an SR80e, and used to have an SR225). So we have to flesh out more details about what you're actually hearing as well. Do the vocals sound deeply buried in the rest of the mix? That could just be the low end going; also this gets worse if you're running bass restoration software on compressed files (like Alpine's Bass X-Pander) where they just blanket boost everything based on how compression can trim bass regardless of how much should be there in the original mix. Similarly "lower detail" can just be auditory masking or even just "more balanced, at least as intended by and achievable to the engineers" as the low end catches up, kind of like (but not the exact same dynamic as) a cold tube amp that sounds like a cheap radio (very generally though if you need an hour to warm it up it's either your room is cold AF or the circuit sucks in getting the tubes ready).

If you use it a lot in that period, it will accelerate the latter, and you have both variables kicking in together; however it shouldn't seem this drastic a change if you've been using it enough as the changes due to the earpads getting more compressed will build up gradually, so you'd be less likely to notice the change as drastic even if driver break in tends to have a more drastic kick-in. If you haven't been using it much, you might not have earpad wear as enough of a factor, but then any changes can be more sudden to you when they kick in and you think your damaged something, unlike one speaker and amp (new and NOS) I was breaking in and mid-song sounded different (went back to the start, sound really was different) as it went from "is this it?" tin can to "oh finally it sounds like a concert," but cleaner ie low noise and not standing in spot with bloated bass or chest beating bass drums.