Otto Motor
Headphoneus Supremus
Sennheiser claim their stuff works perfectly right out of the box. The Grado guy says anything mechanical needs break-in [BAs are not mechanical, DDs are]. @james444 once "calculated" that, at 10,000 Hz, a diaphragm has swung 50,000 times in 5 seconds...which should be enough break-in. I did A/B-ing in a couple of models, one set broken in for 50 hrs and the other set right out of the box. No difference found. In terms of sound quantity (frequency response), there is zero change even after xxx hours (I cannot comment on the relationship of quantity and quality).feel free to share all the objective evidence that helped you be so confident about this. I would really appreciate.
how many measurements of small DD in IEMs changing significantly over time while not moving the IEM, not adding ear wax and dust, not dropping it on the floor, etc, do you have? my personal score so far is zero. I'm still waiting to catch any sort of change bigger than what is measured by inserting the IEM half a millimeter deeper in my coupler, by laying the cable a certain way, by any big change in temperature, humidity, or any change in ambient noise in my room while still quiet for me subjectively. if I had that or supporting evidence of that from someone else, I would at last have a reason to perhaps try and get more pairs of that IEM to see if I can repeat the results. and then discuss with other people so they can also check my method and try to reproduce my results. then I would start to trust that there is a specific thing going on with this specific model of driver that may or may not be noticeable. I'd believe it because the evidence would demonstrate it. the way facts become facts. other tests would handle the question of audibility, and even more tests would try to determine if the impact is consistent on more DD drivers, to the point where we could suspect that it concerns all of them. although I already have enough counter examples to reject that last hypothesis. which is IMO more than enough to reject your statement.
One thing that is hard to believe is that break-in/burn-in is believed/reported to always to improve sound (as opposed to deteriorate sound). Physics appears to know what our personal sound preferences are.
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