[Gignac]

sorry I accidentally stumbled upon the geek thread...you guys sound like a bunch of scientists. Or try to sound like one

 
Uh...if that was intended to be insulting, you may have missed the mark. I, for one, would be very happy to be told I sound like a scientist.
 
Have you not heard? Nerds rule...I feel like putting on a Bill Nye bow tie just out of spite.
 
Long live science.

 

[proton007]

sorry I accidentally stumbled upon the geek thread...you guys sound like a bunch of scientists. Or try to sound like one

 
And precisely what do you intend to say here? That being a scientist or a geek is bad?
 
I'm offended!

 

[xnor]

Does anyone seriously believe that things like critical thinking, logic, rationality, skepticism ... are reserved for geeks and scientists? What a patently absurd idea.
 
We all employ these things in many areas in our lives. It's just that certain people seem to flip certain switches in their head when talking about their hobby.

 

[rommy]

you know you can be educated and still not be a smart individual.. When you are close minded that is exactly how you are acting. What makes up a high IQ is reasoning skills which most of you on here do not seem to have. BTW ,why don't you check out some of the threads on the AKG550..everyone on there swears that they change in time. Better yet why don't you buy a pair you can prove me wrong. I'll say it again geeks some headphones do change with play

 

[rommy]

Knor, you're not logical at all. In fact you are being close minded...I don't even think you own a pair of headphones. you just keep making statements that you really can't backup.I know for a fact that my headphones changed, and you can't say for sure that they didn't. Now can you?

 

[xnor]

 

[andrewberge]

  [IMAGE]

 
Don't feed the proboscis monkey?

 

[Brooko]

you know you can be educated and still not be a smart individual.. When you are close minded that is exactly how you are acting. What makes up a high IQ is reasoning skills which most of you on here do not seem to have. 

 
LMAO
 
So we are being unreasonable and not being smart because we are actually pointiing you toward empirical evidence which disproves your proposed anecdotal 'story'.  Yet you refuse to accept this ..... and we are the closed minded ones 

 
Take any AKG thread - but especially the K701 / K702 / Q701 threads.  A lot of people (past and sadly also present) claim burn-in changes that are "night and day" - much like you yourself have.  Yet when tested (brand new Q701's) under a controlled environment - the measurements actually prove that any changes are very small - and probably would not really be audible - and definitely not "night and day'.
 
Now - who is right Rommie - the closed minded naysayers who claim their headphones must have changed (despite all we know about the effects of placebo / expectation bias etc)?  Or the people who have purposely acknowledged our own human flaws/perception limitations - and relied on science to get the REAL answers.
 
There is only one person here who has closed their mind to the fact that they could actually be wrong ........
 
Why not allow yourself to be enlightened.  BTW - I'd bet you STILL haven't taken the time to read through the articles from Tyll yet - have you?

 

[proton007]

   
Don't feed the proboscis monkey?

 
Poor proboscis monkeys. What did they ever do to you?

 
 
as for rommy:

 

[rommy]

you guys all sound nuts. I'm done..you can all sit around and pat yourselves on the back.

 

[castleofargh]

if a microphone doesn't pick a difference, we tend to accept the fact that it might be in our head. if changing pads is the main measurable difference, we attribute the change to those pads. I guess that's narrow minded in a way...
but it's measurable, and the results can be reproduced. points I tend to favor as a reason to make a general statement. at least more than the fact that I felt something once.
you decide you're better than a microphone, well good for you.

 

[Lostinspace]

Aside from anything else, surely burn in rituals are bad for the environment?

 

[Lostinspace]

I take my new headphones, place them in a circuit with a solid state amplifier, and let them burn in for a week or more. Usually Classical, Romantic and other similar music. One burn-in is all Mozart. The amp is fed a separate feed and another feed goes to my listening setup and the hps I am currently using.

 



If it helps you sleep at night, go for it. But what about your electric bill and the impact on limited global resources?

 

[xnor]

  you decide you're better than a microphone, well good for you.

Of course he's gonna say yes to that, because the microphone is "dumb" and he is "smart", but let me clarify:
 
a) being more consistent
This seems pretty much impossible. While a calibrated microphone can tell you how loud a tone is down to a fraction of a dB of error even after years, our hearing is nonlinear and our auditory memory is short. You wouldn't notice a small in- or decrease in SPL after a few minutes.
Additionally, our hearing can be influenced to change what we're hearing, when in reality it didn't change.
 
b) being more accurate and precise
Our hearing is not absolute. I've never seen anyone say: "that's 75 dB SPL". Sure, you can probably estimate the SPL roughly if you're a trained listener, but not down to a fraction of a dB.
It is pretty much impossible to hear small changes in frequency response as shown by ABX tests. A narrow peak or (even worse) a dip of 0.5 dB here or there will go unnoticed to a human, but not to a microphone.
 
c) with a microphone, you don't have to change the placement of the headphones for days

 

[Subsequence]

I wouldn't be surprised if burn-in is something manufacturer's came up with to keep people from returning stuff straight away. And then they either adjust to the sound or are past their return date.