Hello all Im new to this site and have been curious about Headphone burn in.
I have looked over these forums but have not found a specific time or amount of time to burn in new headphones.
Does anyone have any advice to do burn in or not and how long to do it if it is needed?
thanks in advance Larry
Its not a hard and fast rule, but as someone that generally experiences burn in I would say just use your headphones and keep them running when not in use for about a week or so. Generally when you arent using you want more aggressive music but honsestly anything on loop as long as it has decent dynamic range and plays a good range from bass to treble.
But yeah for most part you can use most headphones out of the box. Its just that it might be slightly sibilant or too heavy on the bass esp for dynamics, I dont have much experence with planar break in so I cant say what changes generally occur.
I believe in burn-in…however I’m uncertain if it’s our mind attuning itself to the new sound signature or whether there is some sort of physical change to the headphone that is the root of said burn-in.
Personally I think it’s both. I also think the physical part will vary from device to device. For example, I experienced a big change in how the Elegia sounded after 20 hours or so. I am not expecting that big of a change for the XS headphones I just got, but I do believe there will be a “settling in” of some sort.
Burn in depends a lot on the headphones but it really is a thing. Some headphones don’t change much but my beyers, my god after some time it was like a new headphone, twice as good. I noticed it because in the beginning i could not bear them without EQ (highs -10db) and after some time that changed completely! I guess this took some weeks of “normal” listening.
Be mindful though, that it’s not only burn in that exists but also pad-wearing. With some headphones (Sennheiser, Beyers) the sound does also change with the pads degrading.