Have you experienced burn-in?

General Headphone Discussion
43

I can understand everyone’s reaction but saying you haven’t experienced it, is a far cry from ever taking the stance it doesn’t exist. If you are a person with an open mind this is necessary to maintain your open mind. As we all age we all too frequently close our minds due to attitudes we adopt. It is a shame.

My Focal Clear’s were without a doubt one of the most obvious examples. Go and buy a pair of these and then come back to this thread. I am 100% certain that your attitude would change.

Different products have different requirements and it turns out that Focal’s Clears are one set of cans that require breakin. My Magnepan speakers also required breakin. Out of the box they were no where as impressive as after breakin.

My phono cartridge required about 65 hours of play before the suspension finally settled in and everything was static. It wasn’t terrible out of the box (Ortofon Windfeld Ti) but it improved after 10 hours and the optimum SRA changed slowly until the suspension got to 65 hours.

This is the nature of mechanical structures where the stiffness or compliance effects the performance. In the case of electro-magnetic transducers, like headphones, speakers and phono cartridges there are points in their construction where the materials used can have some degree of breakin required before final performance is achieved.

Its not hard to envision because we have all suffered from mechanical structures that failed to perform. An engine that required rebuild, a bike that requires periodic lubrication or a turntable where annual lubrication is frequently necessary to keep it running properly.

Electro-magnetic transducers also have those parts that need to freely move to perform. Sometimes the transducer is engineered with materials that require little breakin and the transducer performs well initially. Sometimes the transducer is engineered with materials that do require breakin and the people who engineer these things are the ones who choose the materials and setup the amount of breakin due to their efforts.

I have heard the Focal Elear and the Focal Utopia but I do not own them. I imagine that these two fine headphones are also examples of headphones that require some degree of breakin time. I do own the Focal Clears and these cans definitely need a breakin time.

I hooked up my headphone amp to my system and plugged in my Clears and let then play constantly for a week before they started to sound like a $1500 set of headphones. I heard them in the background all the while this was happening.

They required 100 hours of breakin before I heard the sound they were capable of. There was no imaginary anything at work here because I heard them when they came out of the box. They were beautiful and looked like a $1500 headphone but they didn’t sound that way.

Following a week of constant play they sound wonderful. I didn’t listen to them during this interim breakin period. They just hung on their headphone hanger and played while I did other things. They sounded like crap and that was bad enough after spending $1500. I was assured buy a trusted salesman they they required a long breakin.

It is over and the Clear’s are some of the finest dynamic headphones I have ever heard. I am glad the breakin is over but I can’t understand people who cannot believe this exists. Oh well.

Life is too short to worry about such things and I have much better things to do with my time.

Everyone, have a good day,
Ed

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44

I had two pairs of Phantoms in my possession over the last two weeks of July. One OOTB and the other with well over 1000 hours on them. Comparatively, the OOTB Phantoms sounded closed in, lacking depth, slightly loose mid-bass bleeding into lower-mids as well as a slightly nasally quality to the upper mids. No absolutes here, so I hope no one interprets my findings as claims that all Phantoms sound this way OOTB, that all Phantoms will transform into purer communicative tools within the first ~100 hours or even all iems will improve with burn-in, but SN#19EE1816 happened to. A/B comparison was done with DX200 w/Amp8 and the same Ares II cable and tips.

I’ve experienced burn-in with various cables, components and loudspeakers as most of us have. Most cables need burn-in purely due to dielectric absorption. Loudspeakers; the mechanical break-in alone should clear dismissers out of the way. With components; caps need to form. But, the naysayers will continue to debate as some folks prefer typing to testing.

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45

Great and thoughtful posting

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I’m a believer. As a music lover always on the lookout for the next big thing, whether it be headphones, amps, dacs, digital players, etc I’ve “heard” changes in all of my equipment in some form or another. Albeit some of the changes were greater than others with the various equipments but changes occurred none the less. As to why it happens, I couldn’t tell ya. And I don’t beleive the changes are attributed to my brain being “burned” in as I tend to listen to new equipment for a very short period of time, just to hear how they sound brand new out of the box, before setting them down for what is now my obligatory session of burn in time; which is usually at least a weak long. During this time I stick to my daily driver system and only take short listens (approximately 3-5 minutes) to the equipment being burned in just to see if they are at a point where I find them acceptable for everyday use. This is usually done at specific time intervals (i.e 50, 100, 200 hr marks). I beleive this method keeps my listening ears free from brain burn in as I am not allowing my ears/brain to be colored by the new tech over a long period of continuous use. So yes, I beleive.

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47

Partially on a lark, partially to experiment with the behavior of some DAPs with various IEMs, and partly due to my growing curiosity as to where a variety of “budget” but apparently “high spec” IEMs sat, I wound up picking up a trio of KZ IEMs (ranging from <$19 to about $50):

QP2R%20-%20KZ%20IEMs
QP2R - KZ IEMs.jpg1024×852 482 KB

Note that the raw lure of Amazon same-day delivery, combined with my latent lack of patience, is largely to blame for events like these.

Anyway … since the main subject here is burn-in …

I started off trying the KZ ZS6 …

Fresh out of the box the treble was a coarse, peaky, grainy mess. Half an hour of playing on their own it had calmed down some. Six hours later (just playing on their own) it seems to have smoothed out some more. This isn’t “brain burn in” or “acclimatization” as I’m not listening during the process (just sampling briefly as we go along).

At this point, they seem pretty decent for $50. It’s really only the treble that was at issue. We’ll see how they sound in the morning. For their out-of-the-box sound, without considering the potential for changes over time, I’d have returned them (and sworn at whomever recommended them).

My general curiosity, and under-utilized measurement rig, may require that I buy another pair and measure them periodically over the same time frame to see whether the changes I’m hearing are reflected in impulse, FR or CSD plots.

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48

I’ve definitely experienced burn-in, but it varies a lot from model-to-model. My old Grado headphones changed a lot in the first couple of weeks. My Etymotic ER4 SR not so much. I suspect this is largely because on dynamic headphones, the stiff insulation on the voice coil gets “broken in” by use, whereas the only thing to break-in on a balanced armature is the diaphragm’s suspension.

49

Same thing happened with the pair of RevoNext IEM’s I got. Maybe ChiFi has a stronger burn in than other phones?

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Could be … hard for me to say this is the first time I’ve really played with IEMs of this nature.

Originally (as in 20+ years ago), I started off with the ER4-S, then the SE846 … and wound up with the Zeus XR (Adel) in fairly short order from there. None of those exhibited any meaningful break-in/burn-in. And most of what I’ve heard since has been at the Andromeda level and up.

It’ll be interesting to see if the ZS10 and ZST exhibit similar behavior.

The ZS6 has smoothed out quite a bit while left playing for 24 hours or so. The treble coarseness and grain has gone … they’re still too energetic up-top though (and occasionally quite piercing) and have a tendency towards being sibilant (as well as exacerbating any such issues in a recording).

That’s with the stock tips though, so maybe this evening I’ll get a chance to try my various other tips and see if those help. Probably start with the Comply and see how that goes.

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Comply tips made a world of difference on my RevoNext. I ended up with a pair of spinfits on it eventually.

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52

Me too. Model CP145 fits.

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The Comply’s helped on the ZS6 somewhat, but not enough - the treble still tends to be too piercing - just somewhat less so and less often. But they did nothing for the sibilance issue. Neither did using them with a couple of other sources.

Both types of Spinfit made matters worse on them, so those are no-go in this case (they’re usually my favorite for multi-driver IEMs).

None of the various tips I have really properly address the treble on the ZS6 - so as interesting as they are, and as much as I’d love for them to be some amazing bargain performer, absent a significant change in their treble performance over another day or so being left to run then they’re a bust for me.

The ZS10, right out of the box, and even with the stock tips, are much better. There’s still some treble grain/coarseness, but they don’t feel like they’re trying to stab me in the eardrums.

I’ll keep them both playing overnight and we’ll see in the morning.

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54

I believe burn-in exists, but not without its fair share of just the user getting used to the headphones. So I believe it’s a convergence of those 2 things. But it does seem like older headphones sound better to a significant degree.

However, I’m against burning them in on purpose! I think it’s best to just let them break in after normal use.

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55

Brain burn-in and gear burn-in are things in my opinion… I recently made this mistake in a post on Head-fi about the Jotunheim R and SR1a…I’d gotten used to my daily listening norm of ZMF Verite Closed and my random amps/DAPs to power it… and to my “brain” when I threw my first solid listen impression of the Jotunheim R felt “lite” and under-powered… I’m beginning to think it was more the acclimation of the richness of the Verite C and my other chains that my brain had gotten accustomed to, and my quick blerb was against what I usually do for these things as I was heading out of town for a week and wanted to put something out before I left…it bit me in the butt, and had me wracking my brain why it was so off.

Now that being said, I like the idea of a first impression post like what @ProfFalkin has stated in a different thread, as it would be interesting to go back and see if anything changed =). I am now listening to the SR1A with the Jot-R and I can easily say it has plenty of power… I haven’t listened to my Verite C in over a week so starting with the SR1A and Jot-R combo and sticking with it for the next couple days =)

The other problem with the SR1A is that it defies what your brain is expecting from headphones…it is really more of a near-field speaker experience than a headphone experience. For one it is a detail monster with laser accuracy… it can be off putting if you are acclimated or have assumptions of what you are about to hear. Honestly one of my rare “Wow” moments in listening to audio gear.

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56

Anything with moving parts clearly experiences changes with use. For example, a brand new car with fresh tires and shocks drives notably worse [i.e., squishier] than one with 5K to 15K miles. One of our new cars got better fuel economy and became much faster abruptly at 17K miles.

With audio, movement mainly affects dynamic drivers.

This is also known as simple training. It’s absolutely real, and documented a million different ways in bio-psychological research. The process is ambiguous for some people, as audio training is largely passive/minimal effort (and usually pleasant).

And for that reason I’d perhaps buy a Benchmark AHB2 plus a $3,500 set of speakers instead…guess I need to try it…

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Yeah, there is that whole you could buy a pretty decent set of near-fields for the price… but, the SR1A, even though it does leak sound…it isn’t as even remotely as bad as a speaker system.

So, for that reason alone…the SR1A is pretty awesome for me =)

Also, I am a believer in break-in for anything mechanical, but, I try to be PC on audio forums with those statements lol.

I really enjoy psychology and think the brain is such a unique and amazing “device” lol. We are all made up of experiences, and those experiences dictate what we do at any given moment, those experiences also give us biases…everyone has biases it is the nature of how our brains work. It is acknowledging/recognizing those biases to better understand the reasoning of a decision that is the hard part lol.

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Beyond mechanical, there are genuine transformations in metals over time. With audio electromagnets, the atoms are said to align with the magnetic field following use, smoothing the sound. Note that with no manual intervention metal contaminants can self-collect and fall out from lead (i.e., the hole in the middle of this ancient metal page):

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Source: A Preliminary Translation of the Jordan Codices is Offered | Daniel O. McClellan

Sigh, sigh, SIGH! This is a thorn in my side. The notion of psychological ‘biases’ has thoroughly spread throughout mainstream culture. However, until the 1990s these processes were neutrally described as ‘heuristic’ reasoning – ways of making decisions with incomplete information. The concept was adopted by those with an agenda and given the ‘bias’ spin. Yes, in technical sense they are biases but not biases in a negative or avoidable fashion.

Far, far too much concern is given to the notion of bias. The better strategy is to make sure one is operating at their potential – whole picture considered, not fatigued, not ill, not rushed. Many ‘biases’ will be with you for life. No point in seeking the impossible.

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This!! lol I agree with your statement (and post in general)…biases are not a negative just how one approaches a situation based on experiences/learned behaviors…

I think the learned behaviors can be problematic…but, that is a discussion for another time lol.

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60

This is an interesting concept and I have read different things when it comes to headphones, as well as burning in amplifiers. As I just got the iFi IDSD Micro Black Label today I went to their site to see what their stance is on it.

"### (Both devices) - Burn-in period, how long do iFi suggest?

At least 1 week running 24/7 and as per any normal amplifier it certainly requires an audio signal to be run through it to break-in.

We use components from AMR machines which are high-end amplifiers and thus require burning in to sound better."

I have also read that Planar headphones sound better after burn in. Any truth to this?

61

Yes, I have. My Senn 600 when I first got them were eeeextremely bright and glarey sounding. Later on, they became normal sounding. I owned some Adam monitors as well. The sound was the same: bright and shrill. My buddy was there listening with me and agreed. After about 40 hours, they burned in. My friend came over that next week and commented on the change. My ATH-m40x took about 4 hours to burn in. My friend also had a new m40x and his timeline was exactly mine too — about 4 hours to mellow out.

I don’t get why people seem to be offended at the idea that burn-in exists. What does it prove to shout constantly about it not being a real thing? The change is real no matter what — physical or brain burn-in. The end destination is the same either way.

I’m currently listening/burning in some IEMs that are fresh out of the box. The designer himself told me to allow 100 hours for burn-in on these. (No, the return policy/time-frame does not apply to me) Who am I going to believe — the guy who designed them and my ears or some rando on the internet shouting that everyone else is wrong?

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62

I normally buy gear used cuz I’m broke/cheap that way; every component at my disposal has been previously owned by someone else, so with one exception I’m unable to comment on any personal experiences with breaking things in:

My parents were wanting to get some bookshelf speakers to augment their bedroom TV so we ended up getting a pair of Behringer MS20 monitors for em. While sorting that out home alone I played some of my tracks with the speakers arranges as a nearfield system (which it was designed for…) and sat back to evaluate. Yeah, no, it sucked butts and was unpleasant to listen to.

After a few hours running music and noise through them though, the presentation became less muddy and the soundstage opened up. Several months later they’re still not awe-inspiring by any stretch of the imagination, but they’re no longer a muddled, confused mess of diarrhea farts as they were in the first day or so of use. These are speakers though, with proper rubber surrounds and all, so I’m not sure how much of the same can apply to headphones. If I ever buy a new pair of cans then I’ll make sure to note how they change over time, though that’ll of course be coloured by my personally adapting to their sound.

I do have personal experience with Schiit’s multibit DACs needing warm-up time ranging from a few hours to a few days (Bifrost MB A1), but that’s not the same thing. I’m told the Micro iDSD (silver)'s amp section seems to need a bit of runtime to stop being a glarey, sibilant dagger, but again I got mine used :))