[Dimitris]

I have noticed improvements while breaking in both on my HD590 and Shure E4c. Break in period on the Shures was much shorter. I am a believer myself.

 

[allenf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cotdt you can break in headphones very quickly by playing bass very loud. it loosens the drivers. never tried this, but i think playing a 5Hz since wave at very loud volumes for 5 minutes is enough for a full break-in, so that way you can compare before and after. it eliminates day to day fluctuations in hearing.

Whoah - easy on the volume!
The problem with using such a low (inaudible) frequency is that you won't be able to judge a safe volume - if you can hear clicking over the chuffing you are driving the units past their limits of excursion

 

[cheechoz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdipisReks don't flatter yourself, it's still merely anecdote.

I don't get it, what's your point, in regards to this thread, a vocabulary lesson!!

, now that's funny!!

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ant1 One thing I've noticed in this forum is that - as headphone lovers - the higher quality the headphone, the more "burn-in" seems to be the accepted rule. Virtually everyone, after having bought, say, a Grado, is advised to burn them in to get the best from them. Same thing for Sennheiser - especially of a certain calibre like the 600 or the 880,.or AT, etc... However, I don't remember anyone advising to burn-in those dreadful Apple earbuds for example!

True, but iBuds sound crap originally, I wouldn't care about making a marginal improvement in them. I have also found burning in cheaper 'phones (ex71s,
PX200s) had little or no effect. Burning in HD-580s and A900s made a big difference.
I've not noticed a great change in my SM3, which is on about 175 hours.

 

[cheechoz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ant1 One thing I've noticed in this forum is that - as headphone lovers - the higher quality the headphone, the more "burn-in" seems to be the accepted rule. Virtually everyone, after having bought, say, a Grado, is advised to burn them in to get the best from them. Same thing for Sennheiser - especially of a certain calibre like the 600 or the 880,.or AT, etc... However, I don't remember anyone advising to burn-in those dreadful Apple earbuds for example! I don't dispute that there might be a difference in sound after whatever amount of burn-in, but is there not a certain amount of snobbery involved here? Same thing for headphone amps, I've noticed...Definitely burn-in a Hornet or a SR-71. A Go-Vibe or a mint?...Ehhh...sure, why not?... A.

This statement makes no sense, to me anyway, because I would burn-in any set of cans that I would consider worth buying. How can you use the iPod buds as an example, when you know most people, me included, know they suck A.. Know matter what you do to them, they are not going to sound like a decent set of buds. Also, when you get a higher set of cans, you are more critical of the way it sounds, as compared to a lower level pair.

 

[Sovkiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ant1 One thing I've noticed in this forum is that - as headphone lovers - the higher quality the headphone, the more "burn-in" seems to be the accepted rule. Virtually everyone, after having bought, say, a Grado, is advised to burn them in to get the best from them. Same thing for Sennheiser - especially of a certain calibre like the 600 or the 880,.or AT, etc... However, I don't remember anyone advising to burn-in those dreadful Apple earbuds for example! I don't dispute that there might be a difference in sound after whatever amount of burn-in, but is there not a certain amount of snobbery involved here? Same thing for headphone amps, I've noticed...Definitely burn-in a Hornet or a SR-71. A Go-Vibe or a mint?...Ehhh...sure, why not?... A.

It seems thath the better the drivers are, the more noticeable the changes will be, but it is true that ones need more time than others, the CD3000 is not one of the ones that need a long time, average usually is coonsidered as 200h, and that is all that it needs, in particualr after have owning a few of them all of them brand new from the box, all I cna tell you is that they need about 200 hours more or less to offer the definitive performance, at the beginning they are brighter, and the soundstage is collapsed....once you use them the bass begin to show up, and the highs begin to refine and smooth out....and yes I have done a lot of AB between them, and they do not sound alike, regarding this part of the voodoo, snake oil or whatever people may call it, I do believe on it, as i ahve noticed it, comparing two pairs one new, and one old...

About amps I was discussing that with Ray in the last NYC meet and he, smae as me believe in burn in of the amp, he ships his amps almost fully burned in, same as others manufacturers (Rudistor also does that) for that same reason, they change sound overtime, specially PSU filters need time to offer their best performance and fully charge while new.

 

[asmox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaZZ Whether or not they're new beasts is up to personal interpretation, but break-in phenomena -- notabene extending over more than 100 hours -- can easily be measured, at least with speaker drivers (in the form of significant TSP changes). Nothing special for a speaker builder like me and posted several times on Head-Fi. So you can save your DBT. .

i just got done reading through this thread over at AVSforum. i'm not an expert, and i don't know how similar headphone and speaker drivers are, but i found it pretty informative.

it gets interesting about halfway down the first page.. the basic premise is that "burn-in" isn't so much an improvement of the actual driver as it is the person adapting to the sound and accepting whatever flaws it may have (and any actual changes that the driver does go through tend to happen very, very quickly.. and these changes are generally inaudible and/or have little to no effect on sound quality). the whole thing is presented rather well.

EDIT: this is a particularly amusing post from there -

Quote:

The question that always pops into my mind is, if a speaker "breaks in," i.e, there is a change in the speaker, and this change is audible, how come the speaker always sounds better after it changes? Has anyone ever heard someone say "Man, I LOVED the sound of my speakers at the dealer, and they sounded great when I first cranked them up at home, but after 50 hours of break in they really sounded awful"? How can the manufacturer ensure that the change is going to make the speaker sound better, rather than worse?

or -

Quote:

As Kal pointed out it's peculiar that the vast majority of people feel that speakers improve with time and not the other way around. This in itself suggests that what's at play here is more human perception related than anything else. The ear, being connected to the brain, is an enormously complex organ. Over time, we become adapted to the characteristics of a new speaker (actually the speaker + room) and tend to maximize its strengths while somehow minimizing whatever imperfections or shortcomings it may have. Its kind of like being in a room full of people, all of whom are talking, but our attention turns to one particular person and we find that we can understand that person while the others almost seem to become a uniform background noise. During this process of adaptation, we are literally training our ears to adapt to this new sound and may find that things like soundstage, imaging, and a host of other subjective characteristics seem to improve even though the speaker's FR, dispersion characteristics, distortion, or resonances haven't changed

:O

 

[coolbluewater]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cotdt you can break in headphones very quickly by playing bass very loud. it loosens the drivers. never tried this, but i think playing a 5Hz since wave at very loud volumes for 5 minutes is enough for a full break-in, so that way you can compare before and after. it eliminates day to day fluctuations in hearing.

Remind me to never buy your used headphones

 

[mattg3]

Last november i bought a panasonic xr50 digital receiver for under 200 that was recommended on avs forum.It sounded brittle and too bright with no soundstage to speak of.the forum recommended 100 hour burn in and i did this before throwing in towel on this receiver.The results were a night and day comparison.Details increased and brightness was tamed and bass and sounstage were amazing.I would never get rid of this receiver which contiues to amaze me a year later and friends have said it sounds better than audiophile units that cost 10 times as much.
i just bought a grado sr60 and it is now connected to my boombox radio where it is burning in for 100(maybe i will go with 200) hours before i use it again.Burn in may be in the ears of the beholder but i know it sure worked on my receiver.

 

[milesbeyondjazz]

I wasn't a big believer in break in untill I bought my 325is.They sounded so bad out of the box that I allmost returned them.But after about a 100 hours on them the sound changed from overly bright and shrill to smooth and warm.I don't think that can all be my ears just adjusting to the sound.

 

[falcogreg]

If you go back to my original post and re-read it, I made a point of stating that I didn't listen to the headphones after my initial listening out of the box for a couple of hours until they had over 200 hours on them. So, I did not get "used to the sound of them". I did that intentionally just for that very reason. Believe me, I was quite surprised. I was ready to send them back when I first heard them but I figured, I've got 30 days so why not? Let them burn in for a while and listen again. I will state once again, much to my surpirse the difference was astounding. Instead of wanting to send them back, I definitely enjoyed what I was hearing and kept them. I will also tell you I was in the camp of burn in being BS. So, not only was I not expecting this, I was of the mindset that it doesn't really happen so it took quite an "epiphany" to convince me. That'a all I can tell you. I must admit I am still surprised by the result.

I have now done the same thing with 2 different cans and the results were the same. Matter of fact, the 701's sounded unbelievable last night listening to Gentl Giant's "Octopus". The vocal harmonies were truly amazing. You could really hear each individual voice and distinguish each nuance. Very satisfying. I listened to this same cd when I first got the headphones and all the voices blended together. What was really wild was that there is a song that uses a tambourine. When I first listened to it with the phones brand new, it was not very noticeable. Last night, the sound was so realistic I honestly thought someone was standing several feet behind my left hand shoulder striking the tambourine. When it first happened in the song, I actually turned my head to look reflxively as it was so real. This did not happen when the phones came out of the box!!! AND AGAIN (yeah, I know; bad grammar), I did not listen to them any time in between my intial lsitening until they were burned in. I have no good scientific explanation (and I am an engineer) but these are my emperical observations.

 

[markl]

Quote:

The question that always pops into my mind is, if a speaker "breaks in," i.e, there is a change in the speaker, and this change is audible, how come the speaker always sounds better after it changes? Has anyone ever heard someone say "Man, I LOVED the sound of my speakers at the dealer, and they sounded great when I first cranked them up at home, but after 50 hours of break in they really sounded awful"? How can the manufacturer ensure that the change is going to make the speaker sound better, rather than worse?

I think this is a really bogus argument. People put new speakers (or headphones) in their system all the time and decide over a period of listening that they just don't like them, reject them, remove them from their system and try something new. The effect is *not* always positive as one acclimatizes to the sound. Silly argument.

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by falcogreg ...I was of the mindset that it doesn't really happen so it took quite an "epiphany" to convince me. Matter of fact, the 701's sounded unbelievable last night listening to Gentle Giant's "Octopus".

So congrats on your epiphany and your musical taste!

I've been a die-hard Gentle Giant fan since the early days.
.

 

[FeetAsleep]

This coming from a guy that claims theres a night and day difference between flac and high quality encoded mp3s on a DAP

Sorry theres members on this forum I just can't take seriously and cheechoz you're one of them.

 

[mattg3]

Silly newbie question but here goes.Can you burn out your source keeping something in play for 200 hours?My new sr60 is hitched up to my boombox radio for the recommended 200hours and i hope that eight straight days of use doesnt burn out the box or worse.