[DAnMaN15726]

Every time i get new headphones, the first song i listen to in them is terrifying!
I speculate on why i even spent this amount of money in the first place.
But then, after about 20-30 minutes of listening to them, or maybe a day or in rare cases, a week, they sound..amazing and/or much better than the first time.
Is this what y'all refer to as burn-in time? Has this ever happened to y'all?

 

[KamijoIsMyHero]

its either burn in or your ear getting used to the headphone's sound signature. I personally don't think burn-in can effect the sound that much for most headphones but some can change though.

 

[BillsonChang007]

For most AKG headphones, it does benefit from burn-in. BA driver does not, at least, not so to my experience! XD

 

[hodgjy]

Two things are going on:
 
Your brain does need to adjust.  If I spend a few hours with headphone X on my ears, then I switch to headphone Y, then headphone Y sounds weird for a bit before my brain adjusts.
 
I do believe slightly in headphone burn in.  The transducers needs to flex a little to mature.  It doesn't take the hundreds of hours, though, that some people think.  I think it's 50 hours or less.  Most likely much less.

 

[kramer5150]

I think its just your brain adjusting to the sound signature.

 

[DAnMaN15726]

Thanks for the replies! That makes alot of sense

 

[DAnMaN15726]

Why would the brain need to adjust though? I'd consider it as if i was changing presets in my equalizers. When i do that, i'm fine.

 

[kramer5150]

Probably the result of billions of years of human evolution.... carrying over from our monkey predecessors, where their brains/ears autonomically adjust to differing noise environments to better pick out threatening sounds from those that aren't.

 

[Tsujigiri]

You're used to hearing your other headphones, so a new headphone sounds different. But as you get more time in with the new headphones, you start to notice the things it does well.

 

[newphones]

Quote:

Every time i get new headphones, the first song i listen to in them is terrifying!
I speculate on why i even spent this amount of money in the first place.
But then, after about 20-30 minutes of listening to them, or maybe a day or in rare cases, a week, they sound..amazing and/or much better than the first time.
Is this what y'all refer to as burn-in time? Has this ever happened to y'all?

Care to mention which headphones you are referring to?
 
But yes, you have demonstrated that the phenomenon of burn-in is a very real psychological process.

I experience the same with koss dj100's. For the first minute or two, I'm disappointed by the sound quality. After a couple of minutes, I just start to forget about the headphones and just really start to dig the music. It seems like details start to stand out a bit more.
 
Now, if the headphones are absolute crapola, this does not happen. I guess they sound so bad, they don't make it past the two minute mark.

 

[TMRaven]

Humans are adaptive. Everything we do takes getting used to, and once we're used to a norm, a change is seen as unwelcome.

 

[Techno Kid]

I find its more your brain getting used to the sound signature more than anything with most IEM's and headphones but some really do change quite a bit after burn-in.  That's what I hear about the K701 which is the next set of HP's I want to get.  So is 40 or 50 hours a pretty good amount of time for the burn-in or do they need more to sound at their best?

 

[newphones]

And let's be honest here. Whatever headphones you got, they weren't all that. 
 
If my headphones don't sound good out of the box, they go back. Period. 

 

[Tsujigiri]

Except that's how you learn more about headphones. You like what you're familiar with, but if you stay with the same sound and never give other presentations a chance, you'll never learn more. You may not like a pair of headphones focused on soundstage if you're used to basshead cans, but if you give them a chance and some extended listening time you may find something about them that you like and learn about other things headphones can do outside of what you're familiar with.

 

[Deviver]

Quote:

And let's be honest here. Whatever headphones you got, they weren't all that. 
 
If my headphones don't sound good out of the box, they go back. Period. 

im so afraid of shipping times and dissapointment that i spend hours on this forum reading and thinking about my next purchase instead of just jumping for it... maybe ill take hte risk one day T_T shame not many canadian based companies with the money back guarantees that i know of