Thank you, Nuance! I do that with most all my gear, especially when it’s got moving parts like speakers and headphones; some need it more than others, but for me, I’ve found that at least 20 or 30 hours is of benefit to all of these. It’s no problem with headphones, 'cause I can just leave those run and listen to my new 2-channel speakers, which I’m also breaking in! 
Is there no end to this madness? 
It seems ironic that the 1266 is so good for head-banging music, yet you can’t head-bang while wearing them or they’ll fly off!
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FYI I think the common burn-in is a combination of ear pads softening and brain adjustment, so playing music without them on your head may not help much. It’s possible you won’t really know what they’ll sound like to you after a couple of days of actually wearing them.
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Hi there! Appreciate the suggestion, but when I listen to it for a few hours, put it away and let it play for a few days without listening to it, and then listen to it again, brain adjustment and pad softening do not enter into the equation. There is a huge difference between ‘no bass’ and ‘bass’, for example, which has happened to me ‘before and after’ with both headphones and speakers out of the box. I don’t understand burn-in being controversial; very surprised by that. For some gear, especially headphones and speakers, it makes perfect sense that they would need to be worked out a bit as they might be a bit stiff straight out of the box. The difference can really be ‘night and day’. Happy Holidays!
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No you can’t listen at an angle effectively. It’s a good lesson in proper posture. 
I did talk to the Abyss guys about how to use the 1266 after watching their Youtube stuff. Said it was a learning curve and took about a month of every day listening. I haven’t dedicated that time yet.
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Maybe that’s their aim, the clever guys over at Abyss! In addition to expensive cables, owners should also shell out $$$ for training sessions on how to properly place the 1266s… even certification programs kind of like Microsoft’s MCSE - Abyss Certified Audiophile.
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For those waiting for their LCD-5 to ship from Audeze, I got this message from them today “There was a small hiccup with production as some of the parts that came in from one of our vendors did not meet our standards and needed to be replaced. From my understanding, we should have more in this week to resume production and your headphones will likely be on their way in the next 8-10 days.”
So New Year for me.
Anyone tried the LCD-5 through a Benchmark AHB2?
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OneEyedHito and PcChip on Headfi have.
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Thanks, haven’t been following the headfi threads recently
Yep, it’s a pretty good combo. Punchy bass and plenty of power delivery for the LCD-5. I’d recommend just making sure your dac is up to snuff though. Any wonky timbre from a lower DS dac will be apparent. AHB2 is already “transparent” and dry so you don’t want to add onto that.
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Thanks for AHB2 impressions, I loved what it did for my LCD-4.
Because it has been studied by literally the best in the industry, and the results found are that burn-in occurs basically within the first hour of usage, but even then results may not be audible to the human ear; it has also never been reliably proven that the sound gets better after burn-in. Psychoacoustics play a large roll in one’s perception. Check out Floyd Toole’s book “Sound Reproduction” and also some of Sean Olive’s research on the subject. It’s quite the controversial topic, which is probably best left debated in a different thread than this one. 
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Thank you, Nuance! Happy Holidays to you!
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Thank you, you too! And enjoy those wickedly awesome headphones!
The LCD-5 is perhaps a bit different because the ear pads are known to soften over time, and this impacts the sound; Audeze has openly stated that they make their drivers to be flat, and tune their house sound using the pads.
Unfortunately they haven’t really said much on how long it takes for the pads to soften and for the sound to thus “settle”, but even if you only look at how long it takes for people to stop feeling too much clamp, it’s clearly more than a few hours. I’m sure this varies for each person, their head size, and how/when their brain responds to the subtle changes in sound signature.
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Yep, I mentioned that above, and my subsequent comments were about burning in headphones by just letting them play while not listening to them. I’m sure Audeze’s pads do “break in” and take longer than an hour to do so; that’s why I recommended breaking them in by actually listening to them (again, see above).
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So I have the 30% less clamp headband too. It was a lot looser than the stock one with regards to the clamp to the rods, so they moved very easily, and the cups spun easily too. I went ahead and tightened those grub screws right up. Quite stiff.
Much better. I can still move rods, but it is stiffer. And the cup swivel at those point is mostly gone. Just give them a turn or two.
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How did you get this headband?
The original clamp force didn’t bother me overall, just that my right ear sticks out more than the left and could feel occasional pressure from pad/mesh. The alternate headband is definitely better for me only in the sense that it relieves the right side of my ear contacting the pad/mesh better as the higher force clamp exasperated this feeling.