I do…but am divided on the cause, be it adaptation of the brain to the new sound signature or whether it is due to some actual physical wear-in of the driver or other components, but yes…I do.
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NO. Not when I am paying 4 thousand dollars for what is supposed to be a flagship set. That shit better be flagship right out of the box or it’s going back. That is just laziness. I will not pay for a manufacturer’s lack of attention to detail.
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I read your post earlier today…It took me a little bit of time but I found the thread I was looking for over on headfi. Zach from ZMF touched on this topic when a few of the members asked him about it…If you want the link to the thread shoot me a pm…I am just copy and pasting this it deals with burn in from the company:
We have one, but logistically it doesn’t make sense, as I’d assume people would rather wait less time for their headphones and have them sooner.
I used to burn in the headphones for about 10 - 20 hours each headphone, but the problem is the process isn’t really done until about 100 hours, so that effort was basically doing nothing. If we burned them in that long it would really hamstring production and shipping, and logistics.
My suggestion would just be for new owners to let the headphone play for a full week, and listen in between. Even for new owners of stock models, that leaves plenty of time to decide before the return period is over.
Burn in isn’t about the frequency response changing, it’s about the mechanical parts of the driver flexing so that the parts are used to moving and have less resistance mechanically, and testing reliability. If the drivers actually changing in a differing amount to each other, than the tolerances of manufacturing are not good, and it means the tensioning and or tolerance of the drivers differ too much from each other because of the way they were produced. In that case it’s more about reliability than acoustics.
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you forgot the /s…
I can appreciate the overall point of the statement and position. But I take issue with one part:
I don’t think it’s fair for a major company (I’m not putting this on an Elysian or FatFreq sized company per se. Though I’m not absolving them completely either) to try to have their cake and eat it too. They want customers to do their QC for them to test for reliability issues, but cry about production, shipping, and logistics issues, and say it’s about not making customers wait too long for the IEM.
Really, now…what?
This is what I mean. If the company thinks it’s important to do 100 hours of break-in to check for QC issues and making sure the drivers work as intended, why are you sending them out until you are assured they will pass mustard?
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This may be an unpopular opinion or not the answer you are looking for but I am ok with it for the most part…I can see where the smaller companies want to get a batch produced, qc’ed and then shipped together to cut down on costs…During that 100 hours I am going to be listening to them and getting accustomed to them anyway…I personally would rather have them than have to wait for them…One other option is just don’t buy those companies products if you don’t agree with their business model…Just my 2cents and we all know what opinions are like
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Roger that! To be clear I was not responding specifically to you, hence I didn’t do a direct reply. My comments are directed at the portion of the audiophile community that is very anti-break-in. This segment of our community tends to tout themselves as being the “science-based” side while at the same time ignoring huge swaths of well-established material science, the science of conductivity, and the cognitive theory of pattern recognition. I thought I would try to speak to some of those in the above.
A very fair question. The best answer I can give is that because all of this is ultimately science-based, the outcome of the break-in process is also predictable. Matching a pair of drivers at the start and then knowing how they will break-in over time increases the amount of confidence in letting them out the door.
I mean, yeah? It’s a fair take. I certainly can’t fault anyone for holding that view. As a reviewer I’ve been loaned some BNIB headphones that needed break-in. I have a limited time with most pieces. Driving them for 100 hours before I can meaningfully listen chews up close to a calendar week of time.
Common quote: “Breaking in headphones is cost-prohibitive for small companies.” - is also true. Doing so at the factory or HQ requires space, something to power every set, power, and time. That’s all additional cost that gets past on to the buyer if they do it in house.
None of this answers the question generally for if break-in should happen in-factory or in-home. IMO there is no given answer to that. But, I understand the reasoning on both sides, truly. To each their own.
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Yeah, that’s why it’s a rant more than “you have to do what I say”. You’re pretty much spot on, with your post and I’m with it
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So what did they test (fr) before being reliable 
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listen I am just posting what Zach responded to on that thread…Shoot him an e-mail and ask him…he responds fairly quickly…Don’t shoot the messenger
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Sorry brah not trying to lol…and that’s coming from a cable believer 
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I think this is fair. I have always been a skeptic when it came to this subject. Once I got deeper into the hobby, I have come to realize that when you have a device that contains moving parts such as transducers, those diaphragms do need a little time to flex back and forth for a bit and settle in. Does it automagically mean it’s going to sound better after say, 20-40 hours or more? In most cases, yes, I think so, to a degree. Some lifechanging difference? No. Hell no. Does a DAC sound better over time? I think R2R DACS do as the ladder gets to operating temperature and stabilizes. But Chip DACs? I don’t think so. I have 2 of them and they don’t/haven’t changed over time. And cables? Complete bullshit. I have done the testing. A cable will not sound better be it one hour or a thousand. This has been my real-world experience.
In my opinion one must use caution when throwing the “burn-in” term around. And for the record, I hate that term. Break-in, maybe. That is more appropriate to me.
I know I know…When I read his post this morning I knew what he was getting at (@GooberBM )…and I had just read what I posted yesterday…I just forgot which thread it was in…I thought it would cover what he was asking…
Would like a similar test being done. On a new pair, specially planars. Time laps the process for good measure.
Headphones being measured on a test rig. Leave em there, no movement no touching no nothing.
“Burn in” in the same test rig and still no movement. Pads gets used on the process.
After the "Burn in, still the headphones have not moved one hair of a distance.
Then measure them again.
Even tiny movement effects measurements, should at least.
It is visible and clear even in room by moving speakers, just a bit. Something small like headphones on the measurement rig. Any movements forward, backward, on sides should effect also.
Some pad pressing “tests” would also be nice. Can you get new vs used headphone measure the same if pads are changed or “pressed” little.
Whenever I do burn in I leave it on for hours and hours…when 20 or more hours go by I put it back on. I’m not testing every hour to see if it changes.
I must say that burn in exists in my experience. I have been able to prove it with a Sundara among others (I gave it 100 hours). The bass got crazy. Deep, dense… I loved it. I also heard this from another person who tried the headset before and after. He said:
“The bass is a heavy ball and the treble I notice less. Fuck, it sounds different to me”.
The SV023 is also changing and it’s a dynamic driver.
In principle, dynamic drivers should be less noticeable, although technically it makes more sense for them to undergo changes after burn in.
Some electrical component makers specify burn-in period in their spec sheet. For example some special filter capacitor may need twelve hours at nominal voltage to fully form.
And that is reasonable! There are some curves (curves! Two dimensional info, not a single number!) on performance change over the burn-in period provided.
Anything mechanical will need to wear in. Everyone who has rebuild an engine can attest to this.
For mission-critical equipment, there will be burn-in, protocols and procedures get signed off by multiple people and so on.
yup. With you on that.
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A bit late on this thread, but I wanted to throw in my two cents on this from the ears of a more casual audiophile.
No doubt that it exists in the sense that your ears get used to the headphones/IEMs sound they produce. But the thing that seems to be far more decisive is the actual headphones themselves needing to be “warmed up.” I’m not going to argue whether it exists or not, my main question is…Why?
What’s the benefit of spending hundreds, even thousands for a lovely new pair of headphones/IEMs…and then not even using them for like a whole week? Let’s say it does exist, and it makes a decent difference. By the time you’d use them normally that week, it would get burned in anyways. More importantly you would understand the headphones far more in terms of sound, build and comfort vs leaving them to be screamed at in a corner for hours on end. What if you spend that whole week not using them, you finally put them on, and you hate how they sit on your head? All that time, and they feel uncomfortable to wear?
To me it just sounds dumb. Especially since you’re just eating away your time to return them if you won’t like them.
personally I usually set new gear to play music a bit louder than I would normally listen for 3ish days after I spend a day with them, then I go back and see if there was a major change.
in my experience most cases it’s not noticeable if at all but I have had a couple pieces of gear with reasonable changes ( one tamed treble enough to go from >5 minute sessions before to an hour and a half sessions after).
the main reason I do this is just in case something got worse and to test the QC a bit (I’ve had a few products show issues that likely would’ve taken longer to be revealed than their return periods with my normal usage habits).
IMO more beneficial than harm burning it in earlier than normal listening.
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I don’t know if the correct term is burn-in or break-in. For me, when I get, say, a new set of headphones, I will get the volume to a slightly louder than comfortable level and then let them run through my playlists for an extended period. For example, if they arrive on Friday, I’ll put them on a stand and run them all weekend. Whenever they aren’t on my head, that is! Putting current through them and letting the diaphragms flex and work sort of settles them in. And it seems to work. I have not had a negative outcome yet.
I think that things like speakers and headphones tend to benefit the most from these processes, but even things like amps can benefit some. Putting current through the electronics for a constant period can, and I think does, change the operating characteristics of the components, making them more stable and in a better position to deliver max performance. Or they will fail! If that happens, that is something you want to have happen right away so corrective action can be taken while it’s in warranty.
Everyone has their own thoughts and techniques, of course, but this is what works for me.
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