[yomomma1]

Sorry, I know it's a double type post but I can't help it if someone is mentioning brown noise

 

[Zelcroft]

Can the drivers in headphones be worn out in the long run? Does burning-in really shorten the life-span of headphones?

 

[yomomma1]

Quote:

Can the drivers in headphones be worn out in the long run? Does burning-in really shorten the life-span of headphones?

I would have to say yes to the first question, anything and everything can be worn out realistically can't it? That is why you see replacement drivers for speakers on the market. I would imagine headphone drivers to be similar but possibly less likely to "bust" due to the fact that they are typically not ran by big amps (i.e phones/mp3 players) or have idiots turning volume knobs up at party's. The life shortening that pink noise may create would be so negligable that I would not consider it worth thinking about. Though I may get shot down for my opinionion?

 

[J Bones]

I used the BurnInWavGen and it so far has worked wonders. I only used it to break in my Q701's (at about 150-175 hours worth) by using mostly pink noise but also the frequency sweep. While they still tend to sound better with more and more listening, the break-in of 150 hours had tremendous impact on the performance of these cans. Of course (and every day I feel more and more sided with this point) these Q701's are considered to be of a few that take quite a long, long time to break-in so the app was more helpful in this instance than others but it surely will help any of those that you just don't have the time to break-in right away.

 

[badugi]

I think the website burninwavegen.com is completely gone.  Or is that software the exact same software as the cnet download one? the burninwave generator 0.9 version?

 

[J Bones]

Quote:

I think the website burninwavegen.com is completely gone.  Or is that software the exact same software as the cnet download one? the burninwave generator 0.9 version?

 
http://www.brothersoft.com/burninwave-generator-160309.html

 

[rollinoswald]

I have been in contact with a Sennheiser tech rep, asking if the earpads of their HD 800s that I just returned because of painrully stiff earpads, would become softer with use. He said they would and that i could have hastened the softening if I massaged them. (I didn't ask for how long.)
 
I also asked about the burn-in time required for the HD 800s. He said that Sennheiser recommended 200 hours and recommended head-fi as a source of pink noise.
 
I then asked if there is a recommended a burn-in period for the ie800 IEMs that I just ordered and am awaiting a reply.
 
Rollin

 

[formula1]

Quote:

 
 
I then asked if there is a recommended a burn-in period for the ie800 IEMs that I just ordered and am awaiting a reply.
 
Rollin

 
The more hours the better, i say 150 hours and up. 

 

[ampair]

Quote:

Nice tip I remember seeing in a number of threads. Get the pink noise track (from a site like binkster.net), use any audio tool to setup a single track, just over an hour long, consisting of:
- 20 minutes pink noise
- 2 minutes silence
- 20 minutes pink noise
- 2 minutes silence
- 20 minutes pink noise
- 2 minutes silence

Save it as a single track and either burn in to CD (if that is your source); use the raw WAV file or encode to FLAC if the PC is your source. Put on the track and leave it on repeat.

Apparently the drivers and other components can get quite hot so continuous pink noise for hours on end may not be ideal, so the 2 minutes silence in between gives a little bit of a respite.

 
Quote:

Hmm, by the way, ALSA (the newer de-facto sound system of Linux) has a tool called 'speaker-test' which generates pink noise for free, without any looping flacs.

I'm gonna do some 'speaker-test -l 0' tonight, thanks for the tip.

to 'merge' these 2 methods, you can use the sox package (http://sox.sf.net), which is available for linux, win and mac.
after installation, paste (and edit) one of the following commands into a terminal.
 
this plays 20 minutes of pink noise, followed by 2 minutes of silence, and repeats it X times (set X as you like):
 

 play -n synth 20:00 pinknoise pad 0 2:00 repeat X

 
you can also add frequency sweep(s), the following command does this sequence:

1. play 20min of pink noise, followed by 2min of silence
2. do a linear frequency sweep from 10 to 20000 hz over 1min, followed by 1sec of silence, repeat Y times
3. repeat the whole loop X times

 

 play "|sox -n -p synth 20:00 pinknoise pad 0 2:00" "|sox -n -p synth 1:00 sine 10-20000 pad 0 1 repeat Y" repeat X

 
btw: by default, the sampling rate is set to 48khz. if you want a different fs like 96khz you have to add
 

 -r 96000

 
in front of every "-n".

 

[BluePhase]

I'm also big fan of using pink noise for burn-in. Although I'm quite new to the world of quality headphones, I have been a Hi-fi audiophile for the last 15 years or so. I heard about pink noise roughly 10 years ago and have been using it for burn-in ever since.

I currently use two Behringer DEQ2496's (a EQ/RTA mastering processor) which have a built in pink noise generator. Although it was intended for the automatic EQ (the processors set the EQ automatically for each pair of speakers using a measurement microphone), it is great for burning in speakers and headphones as well. I generally play pink noise for about 80 - 100 hours with every new set of speakers I get and it generally turns a very good set of speakers into a great set of speakers. It probably shouldn't be different for headphones.

 

[mfaoro]

This thread has intrigued me for a while now. I am burning in some LCD3s and some wires so...after downloading the Mac app 'Noisy,' I just taught myself a little Applescript  to play pink noise for 10 minutes and then silence for 2 minutes. I have it set to quite after 10 hours. Here is the script in case you want to try it:
 
set countDown to 0
 
repeat until countDown = 40 --each loop is 15 minutes long, 40 loops equals 10 hours
 
 
tell application "Noisy"
activate
set noise type to pink
end tell
 
delay 780 --this is seconds. 780 seconds equals 13 minutes
 
tell application "Noisy"
activate
set noise type to none
end tell
 
delay 120 -- two minutes
 
set countDown to countDown + 1
 
end repeat

 

[Beagle]

I mixed some pink noise with white noise and got beige noise.

 

[PETEREK]

You could make your own track using Audacity too. Just set the microphone to the same thing you're using as your computers output and play the track you want while recoding on Audacity. You could set yourself a timer and make a gap in sound whenever you want. Then, obviously, stop recording and export the track. 

 

[PETEREK]

Here's a download link to the Pink Noise - Niagra w/ 1.5 minute silence track I made. It's 195 MB and 19:22 long. It has volume changes also, so keep it at moderate listening levels before playing the track. 
 
http://www.mediafire.com/download/c7zp4qkeqdjaan0/Pink_Noise.wav

 

[mfaoro]

Thanks! I will try this out.