[PanamaRed]

http://www.head-fi.org/t/555656/poll-a-consensus-on-head-fi-does-headphone-break-in-exist
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/570795/very-interesting-article-by-tyll-with-regards-to-headphone-burn-in
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/569700/burn-in-two-sides
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/567389/easy-solution-to-test-if-burn-in-is-real-or-not
 
Alternatively:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/search.php?action=advanced&search=
 
 

 

[fatcat28037]

 

[thelostMIDrange]

.......

 

[PanamaRed]

 

[Head Injury]

Burn-in, no matter how real it is, is incredibly biased and overexaggerated. You're attempting to compare the headphone to what it sounded like one hundred hours ago. Aural memory is terrible. You can listen to the same song every half hour and it'll sound different each time. How can you expect to remember what a headphone sounded like 100 hours ago, and make a fair comparison? While that headphone cooks, your brain is mulling over what it heard, what it thought it heard, and what it expects to hear. The result isn't the differences between headphones, but a soup of cognitive biases.
 
It's easy to conclude that drivers will change a little over time. It's silly to assume that those differences are significant compared to the power of the mind itself.

 

[thelostMIDrange]

......

 

[SobbingWallet]

Tyll's experiment provides helpful preliminary evidence, but as Uncle Erik said, it didn't account for product variations.  A more complete experiment (which includes overkill) would probably be something like this:

• Conduct a double blind test between two new headphones of the same model, and see if they can be ABX'ed right out of the box.
• Break one in for a few hundred hours, and conduct another double-blind test.
• Break the other in for a few hundred hours, and conduct a third double-blind test.

 
That would account for product variations both before and after break-in.
 
For what it's worth, I've read that break-in is much less controversial in the speaker world, where the drivers are bigger.  I even heard about an objective study on four 10" speakers, where the treble was measured 20% lower after break-in.  That's quite significant, but it's nowhere near the 18-64% difference measured with a pair of Audax speakers.  I don't have any citations, but you may be able to find the studies with a search.  The big question seems to be how much lower the difference would be with smaller headphone drivers.

 

[thelostMIDrange]

.......

 

[SobbingWallet]

Quote:

this has me thinking. If there is no agreement on break-in, how productive is any discussion regarding the minute details fo headphone tone. It could all be each's mind-trip. One man's 'bass heavy' is another's 'lean bass'. One man's harsh treble is another's 'clarity'. Discussing tone is very tricky.

I agree.  Once you find your own preferences in headphones, it's probably best to put more stock in reviews and impressions by other posters with similar preferences.  Until then, it's probably a good idea to take many opinions into account and roughly average them.  I tend to place less value on comments like "too bassy," or "too harsh," and more value on comments like "bassier than the DT880 but not as much as the DT990."  Once you get a sense for where the major reference points stand relative to each other, additional relative comparisons can often help you place a headphone's sound signature better than absolute value judgments by someone else.  In the same vein, objective measurements like frequency response graphs and waterfalls can help you compare the rough signature of different headphones relative to each other.

 

[thelostMIDrange]

........

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

but what if you were annoyed with listening to a certain set of phones at first and then later, you were enjoying yourself, and then never annoyed with them again......... I have several sets of phones , I have no vested interest in enjoying one after a burn in period. If it's still not for me, I sell it. It's not like I'm trying to convince myself of anything. But I see how it could be a mind-trip as well. I guess it's one of the mysteries and never ending debates liek g-warming, ab#$tion, race relations, religion etc.

You just compared headphone burn-in to abortion, didn't you?

 

[thelostMIDrange]

........

 

[soundstige]

Contention from ignorance is not the same as contention from viewpoints of equal worth.
 
Quote:

absolutely, it's a debate that will never find harmonious resolution. The comparison ends there though !

 

 

[thelostMIDrange]

.....

 

[soundstige]

Now I can agree with you.
 
Quote:

I agree believe me, but try and convince the other side they are ignorant. Not going to happen. But I see you're point, the two situations are un-resovalbe for different reasons, but un-resolveable none-the-less.