Headphone burn in TESTED! Is it real?
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
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sick burn-in
ol mate senny
🎉
LITERALLY!
Lol
Senny is a dms fangirl
I see the problem: You didn't burn-in the coupler first.
Ah! That must be it!
I like the cut of your jib! I really enjoy your closing song on your reviews.
Are you sure your 4.4mm connector is burned it. Those new plating requires at least 20 hours of pink and 10 hours of white noise
HAHAHAHAH 🥲
This video wasn't burnt in enough
Actually burn in is present on Audeze headphones. Like for example when I first started using LCD-X I got that burning sensation in my neck, but after 100 hours or so passed my neck muscles got used to weight and the burn doesn't ruin the listening experience anymore. So take that DMS!
KEK
Incredible comment
lol
In fact Audeze does ‘burn’ in their drivers before their top tier headphones leave their ‘factory’.
Damn. It seems Audeze has unlocked the secrets to neck hypertrophy.
My favorite type of burn-in? Cable burn-in, hands down. I take it very seriously, starting with Ethernet cables. These need a minimum of 18,000 hours to truly shine. The best part? It doesn’t even need to be music! I burn in my Ethernet cables with security cameras-yes, security cameras. After about two years of constant use, they’re spot on: perfect soundstage, gloriously warm tones, and pinpoint-accurate sound separation. Absolute perfection.
Speaker cables, on the other hand, are a bit more peculiar. The ideal burn-in time is 2,000 hours, but here’s the catch: once you hit 20,000 hours, the cables start to degrade. At that point, you must run the signal backwards for another 20,000 hours to reset them before they’re usable again. It’s a delicate science.
USB cables? A breeze compared to Ethernet. Just 600 hours of burn-in will do. And trust me, an unburned USB cable feeding a DAC is unlistenable-so harsh it’s like audio nails on a chalkboard.
Then there’s Toslink. For optical cables, it’s a bit unconventional: just 400 hours of direct sunlight does the trick. The effect is similar to 600 hours of USB burn-in. Without this, a fresh Toslink cable isn’t even worth plugging in.
And of course, none of this can be measured. This is the beauty of the audiophile hobby, you just have to trust me. It makes a difference and measurements mean nothing.
PS: On a serious note, I like your content. Thanks for taking a scientific and pragmatic approach.
Do I have to burn in my wifi and bluetooth adapters too?
@@timid_noob sometimes you have to burn in the air inside a room.
BURN IN THE COSMOS. THE UNIVERSE. THE FABRIC OF TIME AND SPACE. BURN IT ALL (in).
@@maxcardif9879 good plan, imagine how amazing Bluetooth could sound then? How do we get started?
My eyes were burned in just reading your comment,now I'm blind😵
Mental burn in is a real concept.
Audiophiles often fail to appreciate just how much our brains impact the sound of our headphones. It's funny watching people in this hobby stubbornly insist that the differences they're hearing have to actually be there, it can't possibly be in their head - for a hobby that's literally ALL about finding audio gear that most effectively fools our brains (the concept of soundstage and imaging, for example - the reality is and always was that we're strapping two small speakers to our ears, so any ability to hear sounds outside of that and localize them anywhere other than to the immediate left and right of our ear is an audio illusion!)
@@dgevertamazing comment
@@hyper_92 fully agree, too!
Real concept, but medically incorrect. There is no brain burn in, just convincing yourself.
@@dgevert If this is all fact, you had to get your information from somewhere. Can you reference any type of test or evaluation that was done using real science, to support your claims, done on any piece of audio equipment ever made? I'd like to see the real science for myself. I'm not trying to insult you, but too many people just make stuff up because they think they're right. To be honest, I'm not an electrical engineer, but I do have a masters degree in psychology.
"It's funny watching people in this hobby stubbornly insist that the differences they're hearing have to actually be there, it can't possibly be in their head - for a hobby that's literally ALL about finding audio gear that most effectively fools our brains (the concept of soundstage and imaging"
For the last 30+ years, or so, I haven't been able to find a single piece of science to back such a statement up. If you don't have anything, that's fine. I'm not interested in having a long argument that goes in circles because someone is trying to win. But if you do have something that's based on real science, I'd love to see it.
Burning in headphones or speakers is something that salesmen at HiFi stereo shops claimed would help the speakers sound better in the 1970's. It was pushed because taking speakers back meant they had to give a full refund and could only sell the pair as used. So salesmen came up with, "They just need a little time to burn in and they will be fine." Of course none of it was true. They hoped that if you continued to listen to them, you would just get used to that sound.
Famed speaker designer Andrew Jones is mates with audiophile Steve Guttenberg and has done several interviews on Steve's Audiophiliac channell (note the spelling). Maybe four years ago Steve asked him about burn-in in loudspeakers. According to Andrew it is real but hugely overstated. In a nutshell, most speaker cones are made from a fibrous material covered in a resin, and there's no way to repeatedly stretch and compress that fibrous material without changing the material's condition over the years. However, when talking about woofers or mid-range sized speakers, the heat generated by the voice coil after only an hour's use can change the speakers acoustic properties by as much as 10dB. Of course, when the speaker cools afterwards it mostly goes back to what it was before but it's never 100%. So, the speaker's properties are far more affected by the change from going cold > warm > cold than anything else. It's a fascinating interview, people should check it out just to hear an actual expert explain what's really happening.
Business is business.If a speaker really need burn-in to reach their optimum condition,then the manufacturer should have done that before they sent to the market.I read a book about loudspeaker design written by a veteran engineer recently,he said the purpose of burn-in is to make customer feel better,since they had paid for it,they surely have the right to do.But imo,buru-in is still valid under certain circumstance,some headphone lovers has proved it,they bought two brand-new heaphone of the same model,then burn-in one of them without listening,after 50 or 60 hours,they let their friends tested it,there is a difference.People shoud not draw conclusion from one specific experiment,that's what I want to say.
I once sold my DIY speakers to guy who was convinced that were great and at the moment was happy. Then after 4 days he came to me and he wanted money back and return them because he discovered that they did not reproduce bass. I said lets go I take my sound level meter and we will measure. I presented him that they reproduced impressive low bass starting below 20 Hz. (his previous speakers were powerfully hitting chest with higher bass) He said ok give me week more so I could decide again. After I met him next time he said - ok ok sorry - it is fantastic bass . I want to keep them. .
Sounds similar to "you need this ultra expensive dacamp and cables to hear the music correctly".
@@oyajixiami3700 I think the results of the experiment shows quite conclusively that any change in sound over time in not related to the driver. Pad wear and your own ears becoming accustomed to the sound is what most people perceive as "burn in". With speakers I think it's more likely wood changing along with your own ears, people say wooden musical instruments sound better with age.
Burn in is a wild concept. Sometimes I feel like its just a way for the manufacturer to force a user to live with the headphone for at least a few days. You got to let your brain adjust to the new sound signature. I could put a headphone on one day and hate it. Then I go to sleep and wake up the next day and the headphone sounds amazing. My opinions on a headphone can change day to day just based on if I woke up on the right side of the bed or how my mood is.
My hearing is way more sensitive in the morning. How about yours?
@@patrickrkruger Yup, almost like ear fatigue happens during the course of the day.
Placebo is a hell of a drug
@@anthonybertram1168 Nah, I have multiple headphones that I've had for years and sometimes I prefer the sound signature of one over the other. Seems to depend on how fatigued my ears are at that point. If I just woke up, I can handle something very bright, but in the evening I just want strong mids to vibe with.
I don’t believe in equipment burn-in. I am a believer though that amps, particularly tube ones do sound better if they’ve been on an hour at least.
Audio Snake Oil Law #4: obligatory burn in period = return period + 1 hour
Or at the very least, VERY close to return period, making it difficult at best to return.
LOL! 😂🤣🤣
One thing you'll always notice about when audiophile mystics talk about burn in, the change they admit to is alway, under all circumstances, positive. As in, it just conveniently resolves the peaks and dips at exactly the right places and exactly in the direction that is preferable with their head. Even if burn in genuinely did exist, the chance it would "fix" the issues you had with it is next to zero. Burn in is not sentient.
Yep. It almost sounds like getting used to the new sound by psychological adaptation, which is a very well-known and understood phenomenon. But naaah, it must be the magical "improvement" that happens on the hardware level, while staying completely undetectable through measuremenets - that makes waaay more sense (obviously, I'm being sarcastic). Some of the most ignorant and gullible people I have ever met were audiophiles.
Devil's advocate to that is= Not really? How manufacturer tune and design the sound of a gear it's always on a well worn model, there's little reason to tune on an always fresh out of the box sample.
What is this? The audiophile version of gaslighting? Those ice-picky highs you were hearing aren't there or you just got used to them.
@@MuhammadKharismawan please stop posting here. Everytime I see you, you are spouting unsubstantiated claims. This on isn't even relevant to the OPs comment.
@tednicholson9225 I don't even comment on DMS channel that often 😅 who the heck are you to kick me out 😗 I've been around since this channel is still named dms3tv
Pro audio tech with 47 years experience here. I'm going to let you all in on the grand secret of "burning in" audio gear. You're not burning in the equipment; you're giving yourself time to get used to what the stuff sounds like. You're burning in your own personal hearing apparatus, not the headphones, or speakers, or amplifier, or whatever.
Very true
Maybe the burn in was the friends we made along the way
Good friends roast each other well
I remember Tyll's Q701 burn-in test showing a bigger difference from the temperature changes through the day, than any actual burn-in
Lol
'Burn-in' also is commonly cited in the car exhaust scene, where a car exhaust 'carbons up' and gets louder (or quieter) and it seems to go in the direction that you want regardless of others documented 'experience'.
Burn in is real but it's your brain being burned in. It is getting used to the tuning not the drivers 😂
True, but was already stated in the video.
the whole "get used to the sound" is even harder to argue when some just listen to it once and then start a burn in from start to finish. at that point itd just be a placebo
If burn in made a significnt difference, the driver manufacturer would do it themselves at the factory.
Some do.
I mean, there are people who did the math on how many times a DD moves in just few seconds. If that's not enough for a "burn-in", i don't know what is. Even if it was real, it happens so fast the most wouldn't even realize. The few companies that recommend that is A) to appeal to the placebo driven idiots and B) 4:45 they just want people to let their ears get used to the sound. If you're coming from some hardcore V-shape, very exciting bass and treble and switch to something neutral, you're very likely to "hate it" out of the box because it's boring.
Hopefully with this video /r/headphones will like you now. Next do "cables don't matter" and they'll make you a mod.
well cables do matter, I swapped out a cheap cable on my dorado 2020 for a slighly expensive 7N copper cable and it gave my dorados more life. bass impact, and sound stage. I had to go back and forth for atleast 20 mins and concluded with the fact that cable wires do make a difference to the sound
@@kanz7329 if u buy a cable for $0.50 from aliexpress or a simple amazon originals cable, maybe. But expensive cables are a total scam if you bought them because you think they sound better. I do have some slightly more expensive (like 50 bucks) cables myself, but I just think they looked nice. They sound just as good as 3$ speaker wire
@@kanz7329online guys with shitty cables and equipment will never believe it could be true (coz they are not smart enough to believe moleculars even exist)
I have said "burn in" was psychological from the moment I heard someone say it. You will get used to a sound , the driver wont change. When I hear reviewers swear by it I lose some respect for their opinion on audio products. Z reviews is a big proponent of burn in, makes it hard to watch anything from him nowadays.
I'm going to sell crystal pendulums to help people burn in their headphones.
sounds like a promising business model
They'll need to be pretty expensive, or folk will just look at your product and then search for a higher fidelity, low oxygen, burn in crystal. Perhaps a range of products at increasing price points.
Can we put this to rest now?
There are still people who buy expensive cables for the sound and people arguing about what the best SD card is for sound quality, this will never be put down... But we can just ignore these people I guess
No. Subjectivists who believe this sort of thing will never accept any kind of evidence-based argument that conflicts with their subjective experiences. You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
@@miki890098 on head-fi there are people that insist that changing the device language on a DAP changes the sound.
Loved this test! Can you do it with other audio debates, like DAC and AMP effects on frequency response? It would be great to see measurements on a lot of subjects that audiophiles usually have a subjective bias
I cannot speak for all headphones, but as hours passed, it sure made a massive difference to my HD600 Senns. I have 2 sets and the original sounds very veiled by now, even with new pads. Everyone who compares them now hears the huge difference. The original ones lost their top end and sound sloppy now.
So yes, it sure can make a difference. But will it be better or worse? This is where subjectivity and assumption kick in.
Burn in does make sense on speaker drivers with fabric components, like fabric surrounds and/or spiders.
Especially when just one driver of a pair got changed or reconed.
The TSP changes are measurable.
But on PP / plastic membranes incl. surround and balanced armatures... no way... Just a waste of time.
Great explanation, that buyers will less likely to return like that. Your hearing will adapt to quite big differences and you will like more any speaker, headphone after listening to it more.
Kinda, like a built in EQ in your head.
So I agree, this is only good for the manufacturers.
I suspect that the difference one hears is more psychoacoustic than what actually happens to the headphone objectively. As you noted in the video our ears adjust to the new frequency response and overall "feel" of the headphone.
You should have tried to see distortions. I would like to see it. Edit : It would perhaps have no influence on THD but I'm curious and I want to see a broader picture on why it's snake oil
Cable guys: now change the cables to silver. Lmao
The fact that no one ever says the speaker or headphones gets worse after burn in is another red flag that the effect is completely imaginary.
"Burn in or break in, is more important when designing something that is volume dependent like a woofer cabinet. Port and volume parameters can change depending on Thiele Small parameters which will change depending on compliance of the driver. Generally more important when designing than in a finished product.
Break in is real and IS a measurable phenomenon, in subwoofers, however, it does appear to be miniscule to insignificant in headphones. Headphone drivers are not constructed in the same way as full sized speakers, the cone is made of a different material and is bonded to the coil differently. In full sized speakers, the resin used to bond everything creates a very strong bond that is simultaneously hard and flexible. What that means is that at the factory, short of just playing them for hours, there is no good method of consistently moving the cone repeatedly so that the brittle outer later of the resin micro cracks and allows some flexibility in the joint, this is why brand new subs always feel super stiff. As the subwoofer/woofer warms up, it allows the resin to crack and fully cure into it's final flexible form. Not breaking in brand new subs has been well known to cause both failures ranging from coil rub to full melts.
I had an Atomix APXX 12", great sub, one of the best sounding subs I've ever owned. I actually bought two, because I killed the first one believing that break in was a myth and ran 1500rms to it at full tilt for about 30 minutes before the coil started rubbing, that was back when I used to drink so we just didn't notice until it was too late. When we pulled it apart, the resin holding the coil together started to melt and delaminate in places. It did that on about 90% volume, so probably not even the full 1500rms. The second sub, I spent a month using a less powerful amp, 600rms, and even then with the gains turned down for the first week, raising it every weekend until about 3-4 weeks later when I put back the big amp, low gains for 2 weeks and finally turned it up properly, and bro that shit hit HARD for hours of constant play.
That sub is still alive and kicking hard to this day, and what's better, I upgraded to a bigger amp, a Taramps Smart 3k, waaaaaayyyyy more power than my old Soundstream amps, and that sub ate everything that amp could throw at it, in short bursts obviously, you could feel it getting hot, but it was comfortably handing the power at 80% volume and would happily run at 100% for a few minutes.
Is it possible I just got a bad sub the first time? Maybe, but my friends have also had similar experiences, we all have old burned subs being used as door chocks, and since we all learned our lesson, we haven't had it happen since, and we're all pushing our subs far beyond the manufacturers suggested rms power.
i always assumed burn in is like it is in cars. lots of evidence of people buying super cars and then blowing them up immediately because they do pulls in them. when the parts are just not used to that kind of strain
A video in which Doug solves the endlessly stupid burn-in debate. 10/10.
I always thought that I had to replace my ears since I could never personally hear the difference after burning in headphones. Now I know why. It’s refreshing to see someone create a video addressing this topic-thank you!
If burn in of headphones really was an issue, why wouldn't manufacturers just do it in the factory?
The Omega box is a nice touch.
The placebo effect is proven to show that people can physically positively respond to a sugar pill if the recipient believes it is a real drug. Our minds are powerful. So is this video! Thanks for the good work DMS.
In the electronic industry we do sometimes carry out 'soak tests' on new equipment before shipping. The reason is to eliminate infant mortality failures due to manufacturing defects. There is no burn in effect with ekectronics or cables. It's just possible a mechanical system like a speaker driver could change a bit with use but there's no guarantee that change would be for the better.
The only burn in that I've experienced is with certain amps/dacs. I recently upgraded to a schit Bifrost and it had extremely piercing highs for the first few days. For the first time in my life I was understanding the complaints about the HD800s being fatiguing to listen to. Anything with female vocals was producing a harsh ringing sound.
I ended up leaving it on and switching dacs for a couple weeks. Once I came back to it, it sounded noticeably more tame, and even testing it with the harshest music I have, I have been unable to reproduce that intense ringing.
It's always possible, it's just me, but the fact that I had been using the same headphones for years before, was how I noticed such an obvious difference.
The pad changes and wear are really important. I got the Sony MDR7506 based on your recommendation, and as acutely aware of the complaints folks had with the headphone (mainly the brightness). I bought the yaxi earpads you recommended swapping in, and while the frequency response shifted in a more pleasing direction at first, it was only after I had physically worn them in (in much less time than "burn in" or mentally getting used to them is expected to take") that their response matched your description of leaning more neutral. I'm a very happy owner of those headphones now, and plan on buying another with the new pads as a replacement whenever these kick the can.
Ok. It doesn't effect frequency response. What else is measurable? Are we measuring the wrong thing ? You mentioned pad wear but there are no pads on speakers. Would a larger driver give a measurable result ? There has to be something to this. I took back a pair of new LS50 speakers because they had an edge to them but a got a used pair and they sounded better without a edge. Weird.
You watch the headphone show podcast. You should know that all properties of headphones are proportional to amplitude response. If there was any difference in the driver, it would be proportional to the amplitude response graph.
@@samulhardif8331 Maybe. I think there has to be something to it though. Maybe driver tension has to do with ringing and how quickly the driver starts and stops. To simulate different tension levels , I was thinking of testing drivers at different temperatures.
@@matthewhilty4209 then that would show in the graph. Hifimans often have riging, but it present as modal peaks in the treble. All transitory qualities of a driver in minumum phase can be displayed as the amplitude of frequency.
Thanks for this and your concise video, that's a lot of work and you did not overextended, just 7 min and a half which is nice.
I have 18 pairs of headphones across in ear, true wireless, wired gaming, wireless gaming, wired 'audiophile' and others. Across ALL of those, bar one, I have never noticed any benefit to burn in. However, when I got my brand new HD800S, and plugged them in, initially, I was sure that there was a fault with them. I am not joking when I say they sounded absolutely terrible. I was unfortunately called to attend a family emergency, and left immeditely with the headphones still playing music. When I got back 3 hours later (thankfully nothing serious happened), the headphones sounded as they should. I have since, noticed no difference with them. I to this day believe, the membranes for the drivers (not sure if thats the right term), were stiff initially, and over the course of that 3 hours, be it 5 minutes or 2:59, they loosened to their normal amount of movement and then they sounded as they should. It's the only pair I've ever tried where that was the case. Having said that, burning in for 100 hours or so, isn't a big deal either way. I typically only listen for 10 hours a week at most these days, and for the first few days, I just leave them on my desk when I am not there, playing music.
I have the Beyerdynamic COP and by accident ordered the pads for the DT990 PRO. They looked identical but the difference in audio was insane.
The reason why I think burn-in is incorrect is that although there are people who say burn-in improves the sound, I rarely hear of anyone who says it makes the sound worse.
Expectation bias at it's finest
@@CammyFi Based
I've experienced Audeze drivers stretching and developing crinkle over time... I suppose that could be a sort of bad burn-in?
Incidentally, the LCD-2 I own which does this appears to have elevated distortion in the midrange compared to examples I see online.
But I can't make any firm conclusions since I got it used and don't know what it was like new.
@@degru4130 I think you answered you're own question,they were for sale for a reason.
@@iisakei2369 that's a really interesting point!
I found burn in to improve sound for diaphragms which are heavy, thick and stiff, Mainly on cheap speakers and old headphones which didn't PET or newer materials.
I love this. Thank you for finally providing a conclusion to this “argument” that is basically as objective possible.
Yup, I can admit that I believed to "perceive a distinct difference" between a burned-in and a non-burned-in unit at one point.
After making a fool out of myself, saying that I heard a "clear difference" between two senny units. I afterward made a blind test with all factors more or less eliminated, except my pure listening impressions of the two headphones. After listening to one of the pairs in random order with a blindfold and guessing which pairs I was listening to was, (with a sample size of 20 guesses) the results were pretty random, and that's where I realized that placebo is a great factor as to why one *actually* perceives a difference, despite there being none. Because after the fact, the difference I previously heard was no longer there.
It all comes down to your experience with a product, the expectations, and even your subconscious knowledge of seeing graphs that can vary depending on the measurement gear. These factors can build up to an expectation of a sound, rather than the sound itself.
You should also check impulse response and square wave response.
So DMS proved that
- with his drivers and
- with a specific measurement and
- with a specific method of measuring,
the sound frequency change more with the placement of DMS drivers, than breaking in DMS drivers.
Could you do a similar test with different cables? I don't mean burn-in, but does the type of cable affect the sound?
And the most daring argument against burn in I can make is. "If it happens why doesn't the factory do it so the consumer gets the product at it's best?"
I couldn’t resist,…there is absolutely no burn in with electronics. Speakers do not break in. It is 100% your ears adjusting to what you want to hear. Seriously, your mind is convincing yourself the money you spent was worth it. In fact , you actually get more performance fade from age. Material sag in speakers. Magnets get weaker, etc.
Thanks for this! Way better than someone proclaiming the sound has changed after not listening to it for several days. If burn in was a real thing they would have burned it in before they shipped it.
Gotta love how audio companies suggust 100 hours so the listener gets use to the sound and doesn't wanna return them lol
I’ve heard burn in one time - some car speakers I had installed literally hurt my ears with their harsh treble. After a while, the trebles leveled out. Never noticed burn in with any other product.
This is great! I was always skeptical about the claims manufacturers and RUclipsrs made about burn-in so it's good to see actual real results.
Burn in doesn’t affect frequency only soundstage width and depth
Troll post?
Good eye
@@DailyDoseofDaly no typed this on the wrong post. What happened? 😭
He did the old switch'a'roo on ya
DMSs content is so unique ❤❤❤
I always supported the school of thought that says burn-in is real but it’s entirely psycho acoustic and a few hours is all it really takes
I think as you say around the five minute mark it's a psychological/neurological phenomenon rather than a physical one, in as much as if we listen to any sound source for long enough our brains tend to calibrate themselves to it to make it sound more neutral.
Thats cool. One more thing to realise is that all amps with same frequency response sound identical, and you'll reach audiophile nirvana
I salute you. I have been saying so for a long time, but you brought data to the table.
The other reason is the neural network in your skull will actively seek to adapt the output of the driver to what you like to hear. In other words, the burn-in process is an adaptation process that happens in your brain. Manufacturers know this too; after a few beers, they’ll tell you “listen for a while, it’ll grow on you”.
Obviously, there are limits to that magic.
It’s kind of anti-refund mechanism. After several days of burning you will find that you have passed the refund period.😂😂😂😂😂
I want to see brain burn-in next, thanks
Nice. Pull a headphone/iems you don't like and listen to them for a week - done.
That's what Markiplier's Edge of Sleep is all about.
@@handlemonium no
I'll just let this video play in a loop for 100h and then it will coincide with my own conclusions about headphone burn-in...
Honestly of all my headphones and IEM (at least a dozen pairs) I never experienced burn in except one: Tin HiFi P1. At first they had an absolutely incredible detail, but complete lack of dynamics (kick drum was incredibly slow). But then they evened out getting almost normal, unfortunately, I really liked that amazing transparency...
i not starting any controversy here but I think the part that burn in "might" (or even no difference at all) affect is the decay characteristic of a driver not the frequency response of it. But there is not much info out there or guide to how to measure them. I know there is cumulative spectral decay and impulse response can be use but not 100% sure and have no idea how to standardize them.
I have a couple of good headphones and switching between them is always weird. They sound kinda bad for a while but I get used to the sound and it sounds amazing afterwards. Brain has to re-adjust to the frequency response.
That IWC is so pretty, stunning green.
The reason that the company wants you to burn in the headphones is that 1) as you stated. Your ears will get accustomed to them. 2) the company wants to prevent you from returning them, therefore, keeping your money past the warranty period.
Probably any noticible burn in would be filters that dirty up or materials that deteorate. Maybe.
From my own experience within an audio universe, the reason for a manufacture to swear upon a burn-in effect is that a person's ears get used to the sound signature of an audio equipment. Not only that, but at some point they even begin to swear by it and defend their choice like it is their freaking parent/sibling.
One acquaintance of mine used to use cheap, shitty knock-off headphones with low quality audio files (128-160 kbps). When he got to listen to his usual songs on a better audio equipment, his first thought was that the better audio equipment is cheaper in quality than his iphone earphones knock-offs. After he took some time to use his new headphones, which I recommended, he finally agreed with me that iphone knock-offs must be set on Mordor's flames.
You nailed another hi-fi fallacy!
Not only headphones… the manual for my iBasso DX180 DAP suggests 100-150hrs of burn-in. Still sounds great!
I'm sure the sound of the headphones changes after the first few hours of using them.
1. You just get used to the signature, and things that stood out, become easier to ignore, and things that were masked, you learn to discern more.
2. The pads become slightly compressed and start conforming to your head a little differently, they might reach their design shape.
3. A little bit of human slime penetrates into the cover cloth and provides a little bit of acoustic impedance, damping the peaks.
I wonder whether effects 2 and 3 are significant and to what extent, could one rank them?
By the way maybe impedance curve should be measured as well? It doesn't really make sense for headphones not having any crossover. On speaker drivers, this is actually a thing, and is the reason every speaker designer will burn in the driver playing a low frequency for just a couple hours to break it in, the changes are actually quite quick by the time the driver has stabilised into its long term behaviour. Interestingly, while TSP changes are numerically significant and quite consistently present, it doesn't actually result in a substantially different optimal tuning or a substantial ultimate response difference, like, you also have temperature to contend with which change the crossover tuning much more substantially, but still generally not audibly. But it's just done as a matter of good diligence. If the speakers are individually pair matched, they should also be burned in prior, else you're just doing something that takes effort and you don't want to make the system worse by doing that even if by a tiny amount, but in my opinion pair matching is a fairly unnecessary luxury, like you use vaguely quality parts, things come out fine and you just don't need to worry about it.
Someone said this that made sense to me:
"When we burn in the headphone, it's not to change how the heasphone sounds, instead, it's to make our brains adapt to how it sounds."
6:15 Funny, I think this is what that actually started the burn-in (or break-in) myth, as I actually do noticed some sound difference when my headphones were starting to get comfortable to wear.
So I'd be stupid to argue with the very impressive data you managed to collect and additionally I'm not even an audiophile, I only own a couple budget headphones but I wanted to throw this out there to see if anyone has an explanation. In one of Joshua Valour's video about the Sennheiser HD560S, he says that he can't eq bass into them because if he does just a little the drivers start popping. However, I've eq'd a LOT of bass into my modetaly old pair for fun and listened to them loud enough to be uncomfortable and never experienced any popping. This may not necessarily change the sound (which is what the break-in myth is talking about) but I think it may prove that the drivers do change at least a little with time. This also logically makes sense to me that the plastic in the cone could soften slightly with use and allow the driver to be a little more robust and maybe reproduce some volumes/frequencies that a brand new driver couldn't and wasn't designed for
Joshua Valour's video: ruclips.net/video/QBDkfVMNxRk/видео.htmlsi=X5TESApibCdHKzSE&t=537
At the end of the day, audiophiles aren't really arguing the validity or existence of burn-in, rather, they're arguing the existence of a non-quantifiable way to hear sound that is so imperceptible that only an elite few can notice it...thus making them better than you.
Would you do a square wave comparison test? Maybe the response will be quicker after burn-in. In my experience a frequency response graph doesn't tell the whole story...
A dummy head recording of some music playing before and after burn-in would be cool as well.
Wave tests and impulse are both visualizations of frequency response with minimum phase 😄
A better test would be, sponsored content saying you should burn in vs non-sponsored content saying you should not
I'm not taking any sides here but I just remind that there could allways be things that is happening but you dont know what it is so you dont know what to measure. Happens all the time in life 😅
Headphones are minumum phase. Whatever physical changes are happening to the driver will show as a proportional change on the FR.
like we all know, not just only headphones, it apply to pasive hardwarde, like electronics etc, they said let the capasitors " had enough juice " to make then shine to the highest levels. for me they sound like brain burn in or placebo effect. unlike the cables materials that can make a very noticeable difference. thanks for your experiment, God Bless
Thiele/Small speaker parameters can change after prolong use! Can a sonic difference be discerned when these parameters change idk maybe, can you discern a sonic difference between copper headphone cables and silver headphone cables? I do not listen with my eyes so graphs and measurements and Harmon Curves mean nothing to me
I’m more concerned about burnout at this point.
must be a mind game, headphones i like, like the 490pro don't change in sound. on the other side the dt 1990 pro sounded less harsh after burn in, my brain must trick me ^^.
Looking forward to the pad wear video. I used the pads my HD6xx came with for years and then finally decided to replace the pads. It's crazy how much of difference new vs worn pads can be. Way more of a difference than "burn in" lol
People think a years old, very well used driver sounding different than new = burn in works; however, there is no way to achieve YEARS of active or heavy use with a hundred hours of "burn in" using some video or some other thing. And yes, ALL of this can be overcome with new or different pads.
My assumption has always been that "burn-in" is requested by companies more for reviewers to not do what Crin does and judge a headphone after 15 minutes of use (recall Crin's famous spoiled milk example). As you pointed out, you can sort of get used to most sound signatures after a while of listening to them and so a reviewer would be more likely to eventually come around to and favorably review more headphones after giving them more listening time. Reviewers who believe in burn-in I always just assumed stopped listening to the music that was giving them issues after the first few days and found some other tracks that sound more correct and attribute that to the drivers changing without realizing it. However, I can already foresee the responses to this "well you can't measure soundstage/detail etc on a graph so this proves nothing..." and the debate rages on.
Well, to make it more controversial: you can measure any detail or soundstage on a graph. If your ears & brain can hear it, the information was in the soundwaves to begin with. It's just that we don't know how to translate the complex mix of frequencies to how the average listener would perceive them stage-wise, let alone visualize that in a meaningful way.
Frequency response graphs are nice and easy to read and compare, even though your unique brain applies a unique filter to that, just as much as to the supposed sound stage. But alas, our not-so-unique brains just want simple answers.
Sanity, honesty and scientific principles - that's all we need! (in an industry surrounded with so much hoopla). In a single word - thank you!
I didn't realise people felt the frequencies changed volume with burn-in. I thought it was more of a slew-rate thing, at least that's how it is in guitar amp world. Either way it's probably just money isn't it.
If you want a real answer, then you really need to ask a manufacturer that recommends the product will sound different after a certain amount of use. And the vast majority of them do. For myself, I never understood why people make such a big deal over it. In the end, it means absolutely nothing. After 100 hours of use, the issue is resolved. Its only a few days of continuous use, so if you have a return policy, and most are for 2 to 4 weeks, you still have plenty of time to return the product if you don't like it.
@052RC ah so you're just a consumerist d3gn. Got it
@@052RC "speak to the manufacturer". They will tell you to burn it in past the return window.
@@052RC you are an embarrassment
Actually I loved this video. I had theorized for a while that if burn in changed things on the headphones that it was probably pad wear, since the distance to your ears and things of the sort will change with pad wear.
I;m the biggest fan of audio voodoo bs like burning in cables, using stand for cables etc. But in case of headphones - this is different. Effect most likely varies form hardware to hardware. I had significant change with Grado SR325i headphones few years ago. Huge factor is the fact that i just got used to the sound but after few dozen hours change in sound was not only noticeable but also quite sudden. Didn't expect that.
But of course shout out to all those philes that can hear the grass growing :D
1 to 2 db from a harsh treble is a life changer
Thank you for confirming what science has been saying for years. People may get upset but I applaud your courage and honesty. 👋👋 Great Video!!
Very interesting. I bet that you could get this published. You'd probably need a larger sample size to get sufficient statistical power and calculate the total variance and use that as a dependent variable in an analysis of variance, but I'm sure there are people out there like (Sean Olive or Durand Begault) who could advise you on that.
In order for it to be considered science, you have to follow the scientific method. In this case, its not even close. The first step is you need to have some type of observation that can't be explained with what we already know. We don't have that. Having an owners manual telling you 100 hours burn in is recommended, is not an observation. Without that, you can't have a test, and there's nothing to publish. That said, I'd love to see someone do a real test, but in this case, is it necessary? I say no. Regardless of what your position is, the issue resolves itself automatically. Its only 100 hours, and most return policies are a minimum of 2 weeks, so you'll still have plenty of time to return the product either way. After the 100 hours, it makes no difference. If you are going to take the time to test something, I would rather invest the time and money testing for something that remains constant, not something that goes away after a short period of time.
if burn-in was important, the manufacturer would do it for you!
This has more to do with plastic compounds and paper VS. plastic. To test this concept properly would require many brands and types of drivers for a least a year. letting drivers sit without being played for a year will impact the plastic. ect...
The Modhouse Argon Mk4 comes out early next year. Please get an pre-release pair, and do a review. I'm waiting.
All I see is a fellow Christopher Ward enjoyer.