[chibicas]

I guess the idea is your brain is acclimatising to and adapting its response to the specific sound signature of that IEM. Our senses are fallible, particularly because of the adaptive way our brains process information from them. Our brains are constantly filtering out inputs and altering our processing of what they receive through our senses. There are so many real-life examples of this: that image of the dress that went viral because of the vastly different way people saw colour (which could change frequently even for individuals), that animated gifs of the woman spinning where your brain switches between whether it's clockwise or counter-clockwise, and countless more.

Those examples both refer to visual stimuli, but the same applies to audio as well. If our brains didn't filter out certain sounds, life would be overwhelming, hearing every little frequency at any given moment. Some of this can be altered by our selective use of attention, or through training our sensory acuity, but a lot still happens subconsciously without us having a clue, and changes frequently. I make a lot of EQ profiles for my IEMs, and I know that for the same song, with the same gear, sometimes one EQ profile sounds great, the next day I wonder what I was thinking, and hours later I can think it's great, resolving extra detail, etc. all over again. It's as much due to selective processing as it is just your mood and how you feel. And thinking we know something absolutely alters our perceptions, just how food/drink tastes better, richer etc when it's more expensive, better presented, we're told the ingredients are better quality, etc.

Not that I'm saying cable believers, burn-in believers etc. are wrong - I honestly don't know if they objectively alter sound, and I'm certainly not experienced enough in this hobby to make any claims. I've found the claims interesting enough to buy some non-budget cables and DACs to explore this, most of which I'm still waiting to arrive. My feeling is that even if I do hear differences, I still won't become a full "cable believer" in that I'll be convinced it's objectively altering the sound produced, because I'm aware of the tricks our brain is always playing on us. I know for sure however that I'll never disbelieve anyone who does hear a difference, purely because perception = sensory input + mental processing. People are 100% right that they are hearing a difference, and anyone who doesn't believe it is ignoring a very important part of that equation. Everything we experience is an illusion of some description.

I do understand what you're saying. To build upon it, the whole concept of money is how much can make someone believe that this is worth x amount of money. That feelings, our mood and what we believe do affect the perception on what is and what isn't. To summarize are you saying that despite hearing these frequencies from other IEMs if our brain perceives the sound signature as something it agrees with, it increases the enjoyment and therefore fine tunes the way we listen to it?

It makes me ask more questions. Does that mean no matter how bad an IEM sounds out of the box, it can sound better the more we listen to it? When it comes to songs, I've heard that no matter how much you hate the song the more you listen to it the more you like it.

How about the way our brain knows what frequencies to focus on the make it sound better? If I start to listen to something straight of the box and it sounds bloated, how does my brain decide what frequencies to focus on to make it sound good? Or do my feelings of hating how it sounds make it sound worse the more I listen to it?

I ask these questions not for only curiosity but now it's to understand that if buying higher priced IEMs becomes a trap that lifts up the benchmarks on what we think is good and what we think is bad instead of just sticking to one or a few IEMs that we truly enjoy. For me, listening to the same song through high quality IEMs and going one step higher continuously with better gear is a journey. It makes that same song sound better, different and more unique with different IEMs. It makes me wonder when this journey ends because more stuff keep releasing every year! As they say curiosity killed the cat but it can also eat your money aha.

 

[Sheeno101]

I do understand what you're saying. To build upon it, the whole concept of money is how much can make someone believe that this is worth x amount of money. That feelings, our mood and what we believe do affect the perception on what is and what isn't. To summarize are you saying that despite hearing these frequencies from other IEMs if our brain perceives the sound signature as something it agrees with, it increases the enjoyment and therefore fine tunes the way we listen to it?

It makes me ask more questions. Does that mean no matter how bad an IEM sounds out of the box, it can sound better the more we listen to it? When it comes to songs, I've heard that no matter how much you hate the song the more you listen to it the more you like it.

How about the way our brain knows what frequencies to focus on the make it sound better? If I start to listen to something straight of the box and it sounds bloated, how does my brain decide what frequencies to focus on to make it sound good? Or do my feelings of hating how it sounds make it sound worse the more I listen to it?

I really like the inquisitive way your mind works! Unfortunately, I also have a lot more questions than answers on this topic, which may always be intrinsic to the nature of the subject of how our senses are fallible. My only real points are that a) we should be hesitant to declare any absolutes about the original stimuli that produce what we experience; b) we should never make absolute judgements about what others experience; and c) the topic of perception is very, very complicated, with many factors influencing it that we realise and many more that we don't realise! On that last point, there seem to be so many things that affect how we perceive things, which includes but I'm sure is not limited to:

• What we think we know about the stimulus - e.g., expensive things seeming not just "better", but also more nuanced, more complex, higher fidelity etc.
• Our mood and feelings at the time - for example, things often seem better when we feel better, but I think there's more to it than that; confidence seems like it can improve sensory awareness, for example, although it can also lead to us trusting our senses too much and fabricating perceptions, etc.
• Our previous exposure to the stimulus - we can "get used" to initially negative sounds, we can learn to love and also perceive more detail in something we experience a lot, initially enjoyable treble can get "fatiguing" after a while, when certain sounds reveal themselves and start to grate, etc.
• A trained ability to focus on the stimulus - no doubt, we can improve of our sensory performance through practice, and this can be transferrable (not only improving our awareness of one particular stimulus)
• Whatever other stimuli we're receiving at the same time - obviously it's harder to hear certain sounds if there are other sounds, but it also seems like inputs through other senses can get overwhelm us, distract attention and alter perceptions of each stimulus
• Whatever we have recently experienced - our brains are very aware of contrast, so differences between what you are experiencing and what you were most recently experiencing tend to be heightened
• Our brains' subconscious adjustments to processing which aren't covered above - why does my brain seemingly randomly switch between seeing that gif rotate counter clockwise and clockwise when nothing else appears to have changed? What's for sure is that our brains evolutionarily do a lot of proactive anticipating and early adjusting, and then make reactive corrections after more sensory information comes in.

That list may seem unnecessary, but I'm just trying to show why it's very hard to say something absolute like, "yes, the more you listen a bad IEM, the more you'll like it". Any one of the above could play a role which may make you like it more over time, less over time, or constantly change your opinion about it. And I think all of this isn't just about positive/negative opinions, but also the amount of information you perceive in it and what your brain ends up discarding before you can even experience it.

I ask these questions not for only curiosity but now it's to understand that if buying higher priced IEMs becomes a trap that lifts up the benchmarks on what we think is good and what we think is bad instead of just sticking to one or a few IEMs that we truly enjoy. For me, listening to the same song through high quality IEMs and going one step higher continuously with better gear is a journey. It makes that same song sound better, different and more unique with different IEMs. It makes me wonder when this journey ends because more stuff keep releasing every year! As they say curiosity killed the cat but it can also eat your money aha.

This is something I feel more comfortable offering an opinion on, but it is only an opinion. I do think of it as a trap, and it doesn't have an end until you put your foot down and decide it's time for it to end. If your enjoyment of what you perceive is linked to the gear you perceive it through, it's highly likely you will always desire more gear. The gear out there will keep getting better - not nearly as much as the marketing and hype has you believe, but the tech will nevertheless keep improving as long as society keeps growing (although it's not a given society will always be on the upwards trend of growth we've known - but that's a digression!).

Not that I'm in any way better in this regard - I'm hooked just like we all are here to some extent or another! But if there's one valuable and tangible thing I've learned in my short amount of time in this hobby as an antidote against the money-draining system (outside of intangible things we can do in our lives to reduce the importance we attach to all this gear, on a philosophical and lifestyle level), it's how fantastic EQ is. I am very grateful to have 5+ different EQ profiles for all my IEMs. Being able to change an IEM's sound at a touch of a button, using profiles you've tweaked to your personal tastes, really reduces the urge to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a new set to fulfil a similar purpose. EQ is never perfect at first and always requires tweaking, and there is still something to be said for having different hardware (which is why I continue to buy some IEMs), but I would be a lot poorer and I think overall less satisfied if I had bought different IEMs for all the things I use EQ for now. And being able to change sounds on-the-fly depending on what you are feeling or are listening to is much more convenient than having to go and change sets!

 

[szore]

I’m still hugely sceptical of burn-in, especially when people throw out what appears to be random numbers. “Must be burnt in for 50 hours”, “100 hours!”, “200 hours!!”

No idea where one person gets one number from and then someone else gets a wildly different number. Where are they getting these numbers? Why 50 hours and not 20? Who’s measuring to see if there’s a difference every 10 hours and at what point it stops changing and has finally burnt in?

Experience. I burned in my Arya for 400 hours before it settled....

 

[cobrabucket]

In addition to using amps/DACs

Experience. I burned in my Arya for 400 hours

@szore, is the Penon Orb still your favorite Penon IEM and if so, why?
I have the Globe and the Dome but have not heard the Orb and am curious how it compares. Thanks!

 

[szore]

In addition to using amps/DACs

@szore, is the Penon Orb still your favorite Penon IEM and if so, why?
I have the Globe and the Dome but have not heard the Orb and am curious how it compares. Thanks!

That's funny I have the Globe on loan to compare to the Orb...the Orb has a clean sound with great bass and good soundstage. Just wish it had better resolution....compared to the Orb the Globe has better resolution...fuller mids and a little bit more sparkle up top....both are Amazing to me.

 

[RunWithOne]

IMR recommend burning in many of their IEMs for 400 hours. From buying many of them I think it has some validity. As Norbu, the room sweeper, said to the Dalai Lama.....Things change Kundun. They are always changing.

I also had some IMR from R2 Red to Dark Matter. We discussed this in a forum and agreed that, except for the R2's Piezo driver, there were no burn-in effects. For me, there are many other factors that, in my opinion, have much more influence:
- daily condition
- perfect to poor fit of the ear tips
- shape of the ear tips
- materials of the ear tips
-volume
Who can exactly remember how an In-Ear sounded four days ago (100 hours) after it has run continuously during that time? I'm curious about what companies mark up the price to burn in an In-Ear for the customer. Surely, no one does that without charging for it.

 

[dharmasteve]

I also had some IMR from R2 Red to Dark Matter. We discussed this in a forum and agreed that, except for the R2's Piezo driver, there were no burn-in effects. For me, there are many other factors that, in my opinion, have much more influence:
- daily condition
- perfect to poor fit of the ear tips
- shape of the ear tips
- materials of the ear tips
-volume
Who can exactly remember how an In-Ear sounded four days ago (100 hours) after it has run continuously during that time? I'm curious about what companies mark up the price to burn in an In-Ear for the customer. Surely, no one does that without charging for it.

Personally I think earphones constantly change over time. I would never burn in for hundreds of hours. I'd rather burn in/break in for a day or two and then burn in through use. There is no doubt, to me, that DD drivers break in over the first few hours or more. The Dark Matter I had took a few days for the bass to open up... definitely. I think that burn in and brain burn in meet at some point as we get used to our IEM and it's sound. For me my measuring stick is my enjoyment.

 

[theintention]

Personally I think earphones constantly change over time. I would never burn in for hundreds of hours. I'd rather burn in/break in for a day or two and then burn in through use. There is no doubt, to me, that DD drivers break in over the first few hours or more. The Dark Matter I had took a few days for the bass to open up... definitely. I think that burn in and brain burn in meet at some point as we get used to our IEM and it's sound. For me my measuring stick is my enjoyment.

this is well said, exactly my take on it. tho i dont have the patience for burning in the first couple days, I'll just use em a lot haha.

 

[RunWithOne]

Since I'm from Germany, I once spoke with Beyerdynamic about this topic years ago. They also deny any burn-in effect for their drivers. But, as I mentioned, I don't want to overheat the topic and respect other people's experiences.

 

[Danx3k]

I’m happy with the Quattro straight out of the box, so if they do happen to improve with burn-in - bonus.

 

[sicnesse]

Will the Impact cable be sold separately someday?

 

[Echalon]

Will the Impact cable be sold separately someday?

Yes
https://penonaudio.com/penon-impact-cable.html

 

[sicnesse]

Yes
https://penonaudio.com/penon-impact-cable.html

Oh nice, completely missed it last time I browsed the Penon website

 

[Echalon]

Oh nice, completely missed it last time I browsed the Penon website

Nice to be able to give you good news about it

 

[jsmiller58]

To give context I bought the Quattros and I love them, they're a great addition to what I have. It's just that the website says 200 hours of burn in. I for one am a believer... The bass definition and texture is vastly different from out of the box compared to listening to them for 40+ hours. I understand the logic and I definitely agree that it makes sense but it definitely sounds different and if the website says 200hrs burn in I'd like the to meet that target to reach the full potential of the Quattro. When I first got my AE 10th, I was pretty skeptical. I've never had to burn in anything before. But the more I listened and burned in I understood what people meant. It sounded more defined and spacious to me.

As you may say it can be just me getting used to the IEM but doesn't that create the question on why my brain has to get used to hearing certain sounds when I hear similar sounds through other IEMs? I'm no audio engineer nor do I know much about sound waves so may not be using the right wording but I am curious. Or could it be that I've never heard such quality sound waves and it's probably me getting used to that? Because I've never had high quality IEMs other than the 10th AE.

Because the brain is an amazing organ that works very hard to adapt to the sensory inputs.

One way I experience this is to listen to iems or headphones and then apply EQ. Upon listening with EQ they sound off. But if after a while I disable EQ they sound... off. Brain became accustomed to the sound in both cases.

(P.S. I admit I do at least some burn in on audio gear because... well, like Pascal's Wager, just in case )