[jaddie]

Quote:

Nah, when the experience turns sour, it's because you don't really like the sound after all.
 
When the experience improves—now that's burn in!

 ...only because I couldn't find a "knee slap" emoticon.

 

[xnor]

Quote:

You have now. I have a set of headphones that have been burned in for hundreds of hours. And I don't like them nearly as well as when they were brand new. Still great phones, still like them, but they aren't knocking me over anymore.

 
Sorry, but this was too hard to resist.

 

[mjrussell91]

If burn in were a thing, I feel that the engineers designing audio products would design them to be optimal once they have reached the 'burnt in' stage. Therefore to sell the best sounding product, it would need to pre-burned in by the manufacturer to sound as it was intended. And yet, you don't see anyone doing this. Maybe it's because it's uneconomical, or because consumers relish the opportunity to burn in their expensive new toy themselves (because clearly, the first thing you want to listen to on your new cans is sine wave sweeps and pink noise).
 
When I first burnt in a pair of headphones I didn't really notice a different until I started listening to them for long periods as opposed to just leaving them run overnight. And in retrospect the change I perceived was more than likely placebo/grounding (in which I expected there to be a change, and therefore experienced that change), implying that the change was psychosomatic. And even then the change was subtle, more a slight shift in balance of bass and treble. Perception is a funny thing...

 

[migasson]

@ferday....Nope. Not what I'm saying. My suggestion would involve the burn-in whilst not listening.. i.e. continuously play tracks over 2 weeks, then come back with fresh ears. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

 

[upstateguy]

I don't believe in burn in.
 
But..........
 
My 650s were muddy when I first got them and they are not any longer.
 
Nothing seemed to happen to my 701s.
 
My '03 880s, on the bright side when I got them, developed a marvelous treble.
 
This is an over simplification,  but out of the box, my T-1s sounded like 650s when I first got them and became much more 880 like in a short period of time. (there's an old post somewhere about this)
 
Go figure !!!!
 

 

[xnor]

Many K701/Q701 owners would disagree vehemently with you, at least before they saw Tyll's measurements.

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

Many K701/Q701 owners would disagree vehemently with you, at least before they saw Tyll's measurements.

 
I know, but all I can report is a subjective experience regarding a phenomena I don't believe in.

 

[ferday]

Quote:

@ferday....Nope. Not what I'm saying. My suggestion would involve the burn-in whilst not listening.. i.e. continuously play tracks over 2 weeks, then come back with fresh ears. Apologies if that wasn't clear.

 
doesn't change my point.  no one is capable of remembering the sound nearly any amount of hours later, much less hundreds.  audio memory is short, when you came back after all those hours the best you could do is compare notes from before....which may be personally meaningful but has zero application to "sound science"
 
tyall tried to get around this by using 2 sets of cans, with one broken in and the other not.  but...were they hearing "burn in" or just slight FR/channel balance/etc differences between the cans?  QC can be good but can't be perfect!

 

[Yazen]

The experience is subjective, but change has occurred.
 

 

[xnor]

At the risk of repeating myself: placement changes, even if just a few millimeters, will cause different sound.
 
On some headphones the effect is only at high frequencies, on other's it can cause even substantial differences at bass frequencies.
 
I believe this not only to be a source of hearing "differences" attributed to break-in, but also sometimes wildly varying impressions by different people. Some get a good seal, others do not and say the headphone is bass light, etc.

 

[UmustBKidn]

Quote:

I don't believe in burn in.
 
...

 
Agreed, for everything but tubes. As previously posted, I believe burn-in is quite real for tubes. I spent nearly 15 years of my life making vacuum tubes, and yes, we spent time burning them in. That's a part of the manufacturing process for those devices.
 
Solid state? No. Solid state stuff (amps, dacs) either works or it doesn't, because something got whacked during manufacture or assembly. There is no burn in for solid state devices.
 
Headphones? Well now, that is a curious matter. They are indeed mechanical devices with moving parts. Any device with moving parts can "wear" as a part of it's normal life. Like the engine in a car for example. If the "wear" in a headphone can alter it's sound quality, well, then you might hear a slight difference over time.
 
After spending some time recently swapping around 2 different amps, 2 dacs, and 2 headphones for an informal review in another thread, I witnessed some unexpected changes in sound quality, in the same pieces of gear, which I could not attribute to the "wear" of any device or any sort of burn in. The more I play around with this stuff, the more I tend to believe there is something in our brains, our ears, our perceptions of sound quality, that has nothing at all to do with the devices themselves. I am both amazed and disappointed, because in the end one of my favorite audio setups sounded worse (and one sounded better). The more expensive one sounded worse, lol, and the cheaper one sounded better. Had I not gone futzing around with the setups, I probably would have been blissfully ignorant... now, I want to go shopping for new gear hahaha.
 
I guess some people think these perceived changes are burn in... perhaps because it is a convenient way to describe a change they heard. But it isn't burn in, per se.

 

[milosz]

I measured more low frequency output from a pair of AKG K701's that I had, level came up about 3~4 dB in the area around 100 Hz, where before there had been something of a dip between about 200 and 80 Hz, it came up in level closer to midband level, after about 80~120 hours of playing loud music through them.  I don't think my measuring set-up is susceptible to placebo effect.
 
By the way, it's a bit inaccurate to say "real or placebo" -  placebo effect is a REAL effect.  A real mental effect. It's not OBJECTIVE but it's real.  People's minds are effected by placebo, their perception is changed.  People with REAL pain can often be given some relief if they are given tablets that they are told will help the pain, even if the tablets contain only sugar.  While it's true that the sugar has no biological analgesic effect on pain nerves, pain (like sound) is perceived in the BRAIN and placebo  can effect what the brain is doing.
 
But anyway, I know what was meant by the title of the thread, and that's why in my post I mention an objective measurement, not a subjective impression or opinion.
 
I have not seen such a significant change in any other headphone over time.  The AKG 701's must have a driver suspension that needs some flexing to soften it a bit before it reaches it's final performance.
 
I've experienced a similar effect with certain (speaker) woofers and subwoofers. The suspension of some drivers seems to "loosen up" after a period of being driven fairly hard as a break-in procedure.
 
I've seen tube measurements showing that plate curves, overall gain and so on can change a little with tube aging, but these changes tend be rather slow. And of course, I've experienced tubes that have died over a period of time, too- some Chinese 6H2's I had in an integrated amp slowly dropped in gain as they aged, and after a year I had to replace them. But I don't think of that as "break in."

 

[stv014]

Quote:

I don't think my measuring set-up is susceptible to placebo effect.

 
It may be susceptible to random variation due to factors like different placement/seal/etc., though.

 

[noxa]

I always listen to my headphone straight out of the box for a couple of hours then burn them in for a week without listening again and in almost all cases have noticed a difference, by doing it this way i eliminate the brain burn in theory. I definately believe in it because i've expierienced it too many times to be a coincidence. Saying that i said changes not always improvement like is always suggested.

 

[audionewbi]

For dynamic driver it helps but long term it is really your ears getting used to the sound. There is way to test this, use one pair of headphone for a week and than one day immediately change to something else and than after a while got back to the first one again .