[TheDreamthinker]

Mine don't change for some reason.......thats why i ask

 

[Uncle Erik]

TheDreamthinker, that's been done. I haven't seen anything that indicates that burn-in exists. The counterarguments, of course, are that the tests are biased and deliberately designed to fail and that there are mysterious and unmeasurable forces not known to science at play.

Interestingly, no one has ever suggested a motivation for deliberately designing tests to fail, which supposes a Grand Conspiracy to suppress certain forbidden knowledge. Why evidence of a valid phenomenon that improves sound would be suppressed is beyond comprehension. Lots of thing are done to improve sound, like equalizing for a room. Why isn't that suppressed as well?

Also, why don't manufacturers burn in? If their products are so desperately in need of hours before becoming usable, doesn't that mean they're selling defective products? Manufacturers claim to sell great-sounding products. But if the products aren't any good out of the box - needing hundreds of hours first - then that's a manufacturing defect. If anything, products should be burned-in at the factory. It doesn't cost much to set up a rack where several hundred pairs of headphones could be burned in for the "necessary" 300 or 400 hours.

Maybe it would be a good idea to contact the manufacturers of any gear that requires hundreds of hours of burn in. Let them know that their product is defective right out of the box and that they need to perform several hundred hours of burn in before shipping. It would probably be even better to ask to talk to their engineering staff - obviously, the engineers don't know what they're doing. The engineers must be either suppressing the reality of burn in or choosing materials/construction methods that are requiring hundreds of hours of burn in. Be sure to tell the engineers that they're doing their jobs wrong.

 

[InnerSpace]

Quote:

This meant that the hi fi dealers spent a lot of their time shuffling speakers in and out of the rooms.
 

Back in the day I met Ivor many times, and he was a lovely guy ... but at heart he was a hustler looking to make a buck, and the audition ritual he mandated was a big part of his act.  Unlike those who believe human psychology has no bearing on human life, he knew all that humping and sweating produced a small gratitude component in his customers ("But they've done so much work for me! I feel bad saying no!") and he knew that the breaks between speakers diminished short term audio memory.  So, ten minutes later the sweating clerk would fire up the big Isobariks and say, "See? Isn't that great?" and the suggestive power of the ritual was not negligible.

 

[InnerSpace]

Quote:

Why does nobody in a lab check it.......???

Labs check all kinds of things, and if they use severe enough protocols, then they find everything is different, which is logical.  My HD800 (for example) is different than my neighbor's - existentially, it's made up of physically different molecules - and at some level it will measure differently (e.g. there's a thread here somewhere about HD800 FR graphs, as supplied by the manufacturer.)
 
The question is not do these differences exist?   The question is do they matter?  Are they audible?
 
In principle, I'm prepared to say, yes, absolutely.  But then, logically, because of the relative orders of magnitude involved - as revealed by both experience and lab work - folks would gain a better reward if they ordered 200 pairs of HD800s from Amazon and spent the next 200 hours auditioning for the best-sounding pair, rather than buying a random sample and "burning it in" for 200 hours.  (Because new-sample variation is much, much larger than post-use variation.)
 
Same with cables, for instance.  I'm prepared to believe cables sound different - but a thousand times less different than the HD800 made last Thursday is from the HD800 made last Friday.
 
I'm tempted to politely say, "Just my two cents," but it's more than that - it's the reality of production engineering.

 

[autonomous]

Some audio manufactures do burn in components and cables too, or at least they say they do. I think you cannot completely write off burn in for audio anymore than you can break-in for autos. Anybody here drive their new car off the lot and redline it for a hundred miles? Dangerous, harmful to the car, and illegal in most places.
 
[size=13.0pt]The thread-topic mentions pink noise specifically and asks if there is scientific proof for changes in sound. I would change the scientific proof to objective proof and that I do not believe there is evidence of. Pink noise should not offer much difference in sound change as apposed to white or brown noise. Any sound should be suitable for so called burn in. [/size]
 
[size=13.0pt]This however is subjective and can be heard or not heard depending on whom you talk to. Unless you are an inanimate object everything we see, hear, smell, taste and feel are subjective. You will find the last number in Pi before you resolve this issue, but don't let me stop you all from trying! [/size]
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[/size]

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

did your cans change with burn-in, or did some simply stay the same?

Look, its not hard to find out for yourself.  Take your new bought phone or IEM out of the box and have a quick listen.  Make notes and observations.  Let it burn in.  Then listen again and note any changes if you hear any.  You observations will hold true for you and the specific phone in question.  That's all that matters.  Waiting for some lab or someone else to verify the phenomena for you is like waiting for exit polls before you decide how to vote.  Even if you don't believe in hearing audible changes I think its still a good idea from a mechanical longevity perspective and safety buffer for the physical operation of the drivers.  Caveat when using normal music for burn-in,  I think pink noise can be damaging and is unnecessary unless time is some constraint or there is a special circumstance.  IMO and IME, I can say two things.
 
1-Burn-in does exist as a physical phenomena relating to drivers and Xovers.
 
2-Audible change as a result of burn-in has only been apparent to me in about 20% of my used phones, give or take.  Even if it were only .01%, if the .01% were repeatable then the phenomena exists.
 
Hopefully this proves useful to you in clarifying a few things.

 

[InnerSpace]

Quote:

Some audio manufactures do burn in components and cables too, or at least they say they do. I think you cannot completely write off burn in for audio anymore than you can break-in for autos. Anybody here drive their new car off the lot and redline it for a hundred miles? Dangerous, harmful to the car, and illegal in most places.
 
[size=13.0pt]The thread-topic mentions pink noise specifically and asks if there is scientific proof for changes in sound. I would change the scientific proof to objective proof and that I do not believe there is evidence of. Pink noise should not offer much difference in sound change as apposed to white or brown noise. Any sound should be suitable for so called burn in. [/size]
 
[size=13.0pt]This however is subjective and can be heard or not heard depending on whom you talk to. Unless you are an inanimate object everything we see, hear, smell, taste and feel are subjective. You will find the last number in Pi before you resolve this issue, but don't let me stop you all from trying! [/size]
[size=13.0pt] 

[/size]

 
The running-in of automobiles is a little old-school now, but it used to be vital, because of relatively poor materials and manufacturing tolerances - and I totally see the comparison in this context, in that autos were - are - the same kind of emotional and reverential purchase as audio gear is for some of us.
 
But a headphone is an electric motor at heart - do you run in your other new electric motors?  Your vacuum cleaner?  Your washing machine?
 
More pertinently, perhaps, does anyone "burn in" a digital camera?  Have you ever heard anyone say they won't trust the color fidelity on their new Canon until they have "put" a couple hundred hours on it?  And if not, why not?

 

[TheDreamthinker]

So even the manufacturers burn-in their stuff?

 

[InnerSpace]

Quote:

So even the manufacturers burn-in their stuff?

Some manufacturers say they do, but IME it's really "soak testing" or "bench testing" - i.e. they plug it in, turn it on, and wait an hour or two to see if there's immediate failure, purely for reputation and warranty purposes.  I don't know of any manufacturer who "burns in" in the sense we mean it in this thread.  Hard to see how they would - most small concerns outsource to China, and I doubt if any of them include an instruction to play 200 hours of pink, white or Abba noise before packing and shipping.  If they did, we'd probably hear the laughter from here.

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

The running-in of automobiles is a little old-school now, but it used to be vital, because of relatively poor materials and manufacturing tolerances - and I totally see the comparison in this context, in that autos were - are - the same kind of emotional and reverential purchase as audio gear is for some of us.
 
Not old school at all.  Still done by racing bikes, F1 cars and auto makers.  Racers use the more immediate 'pink noise' method nowadays of short interval, high revs.  BMW and others still take every new car on a high speed shakedown lap around their track before shipment.  You would never take a 1 million dollar F1 engine freshly built, put it in a car and line it up on the grid right before the start of a race.  Just as you shouldn't blast speakers out of the box.
 
But a headphone is an electric motor at heart - do you run in your other new electric motors?  Your vacuum cleaner?  Your washing machine?  
 
Now that's just a false analogy.  Most people don't approach carpet care like high end audio.  If you approached audio the same way you approach laundry or vacuuming this forum would be pretty much empty.
 
More pertinently, perhaps, does anyone "burn in" a digital camera?  Have you ever heard anyone say they won't trust the color fidelity on their new Canon until they have "put" a couple hundred hours on it?  And if not, why not?
 
Are we comparing glass lenses to cone woofers w/ butyl rubber surrounds now?  You can do better.  

 

[Rip N' Burn]

Some manufacturers recommend a burn in period. For instance, when I had the Maximo IM-590 there was a tag that recommended 15 hours of burn on the cord. I believe it said to play regular music at normal listening levels. I recently found out that Grado recommends 25 hours of burn in on the GR8.
 
Quote:

So even the manufacturers burn-in their stuff?

 

[beeman458]

My audio shortcomings?
 
Oh crap, I just hit the back button and erased forty-five minutes worth of retort.  You win, I'm not going try to reconstruct the comments.
 
Okay, short version:
 
You don't know how to bake a cake.
 
I'm not delusional.
 
You have no citations regard Psycho Cook or Ford's re-engineering of the suspension system.
 
I think you're biased and that your closed mind is based on this bias and that's okay cause it don't matter regarding my listening pleasure.
 
And nobody makes, saves or otherwise, a dime when burning their rig in because just the act of listening to the system gets you there and this, whether or not you want to get there.
 
Oh, and you guys need to lighten up around here if you expect more to come here for you to play with.
 
The first version was much more colorful.
 
(Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!)
 

 
And lastly, you failed to make it to my notorious ignore list so that means, like me or not, you're a good guy.  Nothing wrong with that.

 

[beeman458]

Uncle Erik wrote:
 
Also, why don't manufacturers burn in? If their products are so desperately in need of hours before becoming usable, doesn't that mean they're selling defective products?
 
Now, now.  You know many manufactures do this.  Two I can think of who are supporters here would be Kingwa of Audio-gd who burns his gear in a hundred hours and if I recall correctly, they do the same over at HiFi Man.  Why aren't there many who do it, because it's timely and costs money so why not let the customer do it?
 
Selling an unburned in product is not selling a defective product.  You're aggrandizing.  How many times have you bought a product that says on the delivery box: "Some assembly required."?  And in this case, simply plugging in and using a product is going effectively, burn them in, with or without one's knowledge.
 
???

 

[InnerSpace]

Are we comparing glass lenses to cone woofers w/ butyl rubber surrounds now?
 
No, mostly I'm comparing digital circuits ... a little OT, perhaps, but we've mentioned burning in DACs and amps and cables, and I don't see a huge conceptual difference between them and cameras, which also have many precision moving parts that affect their performance.  Does an iris need 200 hours to be "put" on it before it's trustworthy?  Etc, etc.
 
Most people don't approach carpet care like high end audio.
 
If they "burned in" their new Electrolux, would their carpets get cleaner?  I guess they would.  Maybe if they recabled their Dyson, their carpets would get so clean you could eat your dinner off them.  Etc, etc.

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

Look, its not hard to find out for yourself.  Take your new bought phone or IEM out of the box and have a quick listen.  Make notes and observations.  Let it burn in.  Then listen again and note any changes if you hear any.

 
The problem with an approach such as this is auto-suggestion which I think plays an enormous role in hearing.
 
People, myself included, will believe they can hear all kinds of differences between one situation and another, but when this is tested in blind ABX tests sometimes we see that it is not the case.
 
 
Quote:

 
Waiting for some lab or someone else to verify the phenomena for you is like waiting for exit polls before you decide how to vote.
 

 
This is the Sound Science forum so it is reasonable to discuss scientific methods.
 
 
Quote:

 
 I think its still a good idea from a mechanical longevity perspective and safety buffer for the physical operation of the drivers.
 

 
Why?