# Breaking-in headphones, the final verdict!



## Han Bao Quan

So, I'm not sure if anyone has posted this, but Tyll over at Innerfidelity did an article on breaking-in headphones. It's quite an interesting read.
   
  http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/measurement-and-audibility-headphone-break
   
   
  tl;dr:
   
   


> "The one thing I think I have proved, however, is that if break-in does exist, it is not a large effect. *When people talk about night and day changes in headphones with break-in, they are exaggerating.* This data clearly shows that the AKG Q701 --- a headphone widely believed to change markedly with break-in --- does not change much much over time."
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 


   
  So there you have it.


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## Head Injury

I think it's safe to assume that a two month old article on such a controversial topic by as well respected and well known a man as Tyll on site that's very useful for objective data has already been discussed quite a bit.


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## musicisthekey

I believe in a headphone breaking-in. In my experience, it can take somewhere between 50-100 hours depending on the cans.


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## Chris J

head injury said:


> I think it's safe to assume that a two month old article on such a controversial topic by as well respected and well known a man as Tyll on site that's very useful for objective data has already been discussed quite a bit.




I guess that explains why so many Head-fi-ers swear that their headphones really do break in.


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## Head Injury

Quote: 





chris j said:


> I guess that explains why so many Head-fi-ers swear that their headphones really do break in.


 

 It's been discussed, doesn't mean it's been taken to heart.


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## Chris J

head injury said:


> It's been discussed, doesn't mean it's been taken to heart.




Get out there, start evangelizing!


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## Magick Man

It isn't as cut-and-dried as you want to think. From the same article:



> Ka-ching! Here we can see a clear downward trend of IMD products over time. While the data is a bit noisy, all IMD products are reducing in level about 1.5dB each over the course of the test. I included IMD in the test because I thought that the type of differences I've heard over time might be due to this type of distortion.






> Music is made of a multitude of frequencies. When the entire spectrum of music suffers from intermodulation distortion producing a sea of IMD products some 60dB down, I suspect it can be clearly audible. Reducing the level of this background crud 1 or 2 dB might certainly effect the subjective experience. I think it's extremely important to recognize that the perceptions of my measurement system in objective metrics may be on a completely different scale than that of the observer in the subjective experience.
> 
> How can you measure beauty?
> 
> ...




As he says, I've never heard night and day differences, but I have heard subtle changes with regards to speakers and headphones (none with amps, cables, or anything else). With some moving-coil headphones, the changes in the diaphragm are more obvious as time goes by. It varies depending on design and size, I suppose.


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## fatcat28037

IMO you should just buy them and put them on your head and enjoy the music.


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## Ser182

All electronics go through burn in. Some cans more than others see improvements. Some have been broken in longer during production. I am breaking in new cans now. I have a pair that I bought back in November and they sound very different than the new pair. Very different.


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## lazyredhead

tell me if i'm right

when you break it in, it's mainly the loosing up of moving parts. like if you keep bending a wire it becomes more flexible


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## xnor

Quote: 





lazyredhead said:


> tell me if i'm right
> when you break it in, it's mainly the loosing up of moving parts. like if you keep bending a wire it becomes more flexible


 

 Nope, if the diaphragm and voice coil in a headphone driver loosen up it's broken. Headphone drivers are not like loudspeaker drivers, there's no big movement, actually there's hardly any movement at all unless you really crank the volume.


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## cdnaudiophile

Sorry but the he contradicts himself here:
   
   
   





   
  http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/testing-audibility-break-effects


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## xnor

Quote: 





cdnaudiophile said:


> Sorry but the he contradicts himself here


 

 I bet one can hear differences even between a non-burned-in white (K701) and another non-burned-in K701 pair. Every headphone measures differently even if it's from the same model range.
   
  What I'm saying is that for this test it didn't matter if the green pair was burned in or not, audible differences are there regardless. Therefore, this test doesn't proof that burn-in causes audible differences*.*
   
  Btw: I'm repeating myself here, this has been discussed before.


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## dustdevil

Is it possible that he can see which pair he is wearing by the reflection on the monitor of the notebook?


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## bowei006

I believe in subtle differences, and your ear getting used to the sound signature of the headphone's as well as your music being played ON that headphone. It's a combonation of all of those including using your headphone's with different devices that may cause such a large perception of change as burn in.


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## ImperialX

This has been debated so much I don't see the need of starting another thread.
   
  I believe that _some _aspects of breaking in is psychological, but not all of it for sure.


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## chrislangley4253

Some drivers definitely break in. Ex. Magnums

Also, all drivers vary.


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## xnor

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> Some drivers definitely break in. Ex. Magnums


 

 Do you have anything objective to support that claim?


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## Mauricio

Assuming the break-in is real, what evidence is there to support the idea that headphones actually sound better rather than worse after break-in?


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## tinyman392

mauricio said:


> Assuming the break-in is real, what evidence is there to support the idea that headphones actually sound better rather than worse after break-in?




There isn't, but that tends to be the pattern. I've heard of 2 IEMs get worse with burn in, then better. Dunu Hephaes and Aurisonics ASG-1. 

I believe in lots of forms of burn in: mechanical, tip/cushion, psychological, etc. the main reason I think headphones tend to sound better with time is that the cushions/tips tend to seal better with your ear or head with time. This better deal can only (normally) lead to a better fit which normally will lead to a better sound.


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## chrislangley4253

xnor said:


> Do you have anything objective to support that claim?




No. Just my experience with magnum drivers. As well as several other people, such as the man that builds the drivers. The magnums change a lot. You would just have to experience it.



mauricio said:


> Assuming the break-in is real, what evidence is there to support the idea that headphones actually sound better rather than worse after break-in?




Well, it could certainly sound worse after break in. When magnums are in the process of of breaking in, the sound moves around.. then finally settles after about 300 hours.



tinyman392 said:


> There isn't, but that tends to be the pattern. I've heard of 2 IEMs get worse with burn in, then better. Dunu Hephaes and Aurisonics ASG-1.
> I believe in lots of forms of burn in: mechanical, tip/cushion, psychological, etc. the main reason I think headphones tend to sound better with time is that the cushions/tips tend tgoo seal better with your ear or head with time. This better deal can only (normally) lead to a better fit which normally will lead to a better sound.




Good theory with tips. Fit is so important with iems.


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## Mauricio

If you read the "reviews" and impressions threads here, they are replete with statements to the effect that the unit, be it a DAC or a headphone, "opened up" and sounded better after several hours of use.  In no instance has there been a person who's said that it sounded worse.  Me thinks people are hearing things due to self-suggestion rather than to real, perceivable differences.  Yet another instance of the illusions that pervade these so-called "reviews" around here.


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## chrislangley4253

mauricio said:


> If you read the "reviews" and impressions threads here, they are repleted with statements to the effect that the unit, be it a DAC or a headphone, "opened up" and sounded better after several hours of use.  In no instance has there been one person who's said that it sounded worse.  Me thinks people are hearing things due to self-suggestion rather than to real, perceivable differences.  Yet another instance of the illusions that pervade these so-called "reviews" around here.




Yeah, your skepticism is probably right in most cases. Amps and dacs shouldn't burn in. Cables neither. Headphone drivers can, in my experience. I wish everyone could just hear what I heard with the magnums. The debate would be over. Oh well. I guess when it comes down to it. No harm in burning stuff in.


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## c61746961

... Unless you're in the sound science forum and all you've got for your argument is "I heard it guys!". With all due respect, you are expected to elaborate on your testing and substantiate your claims with more than subjective experience.


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## bellsprout

Assuming burn in exists, what is it about it that makes everything generally better? If headphone manufacturers don't take it into account for the design and of their products, then any trend of perceived positive effects as opposed to negative will be purely accidental or imaginary. And if they do, then there will exist a technical paper that quantifies the effect


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## ImperialX

Quote: 





bellsprout said:


> Assuming burn in exists, what is it about it that makes everything generally better?


 

 As said, half of it is psychological. As for the other half, it hasn't been scientifically proven.


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## clarknova

Everyone perceives sound differently , regardless if that variation is large or small. That means that even if you swear on your first born that you can't or can hear a difference , it will always be user subjective and never truly conclusive. Its pretty much pointless to debate over it as there simply and logically can never be a universal truth to individual user subjective experiences. 
   
  How your headphones sound should only matter to YOU. Don't not waste time needlessly agonizing over other opinions on this matter. The best course of action in this matter? Buy your headphones from a business that allows you to return them if you do not find them satisfactory.


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## Magick Man

chrislangley4253 said:


> Yeah, you're skepticism is probably right in most cases. Amps and dacs shouldn't burn in. Cables neither. Headphone drivers can, in my experience. I wish everyone could just hear what I heard with the magnums. The debate would be over. Oh well. I guess when it comes down to it. No harm in burning stuff in.




They could also read Tyll's article and see the data, there are concrete, measurable changes on an auditory level going on.

But yeah, burning in cables, amps, and sources is bunk. However, there's so much snake oil in hi-fi that it's really hard to tell where the line is at times.


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## Vkamicht

What I find interesting is that they chose one of the 701 variants (presumably because they have been widely known for burn-in claims?) and one of the main claims of the K701 that I have often read, is the "bass really opening up" after 300-whatever hours. On the measurements shown, bass is the only thing that _doesn't_ change. If anything, the headphones became brighter, which goes directly against what most people say (and the argument against a K701 out of the box.) I realize it's not a K701 exactly, but still.


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## xnor

Quote: 





vkamicht said:


> What I find interesting is that they chose one of the 701 variants (presumably because they have been widely known for burn-in claims?) and one of the main claims of the K701 that I have often read, is the "bass really opening up" after 300-whatever hours. On the measurements shown, bass is the only thing that _doesn't_ change. If anything, the headphones became brighter, which goes directly against what most people say (and the argument against a K701 out of the box.) I realize it's not a K701 exactly, but still.


 

 Really makes you think.. maybe it's just all in their head? A simple matter of getting used to the (initially bright) sound signature.


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## chrislangley4253

Quote: 





magick man said:


> They could also read Tyll's article and see the data, there are concrete, measurable changes on an auditory level going on.
> But yeah, burning in cables, amps, and sources is bunk. However, there's so much snake oil in hi-fi that it's really hard to tell where the line is at times.


 


   


  Quote: 





xnor said:


> Really makes you think.. maybe it's just all in their head? A simple matter of getting used to the (initially bright) sound signature.


 

 Quite likely. I got used to the 225i, and found my first magnum experience boomy. After a while, I realized it was the 225i that was so off, not the magnum. The magnums are really nicely balanced and natural imo.


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## Mauricio

Quote: 





c61746961 said:


> ... Unless you're in the sound science forum and all you've got for your argument is "I heard it guys!". With all due respect, you are expected to elaborate on your testing and substantiate your claims with more than subjective experience.


 

 Don't tread on the High-end channel.  You'll be jeered with things like "you don't belong here" for voicing this common-sense opinion.  Adding insult to injury, they then annoint themselves the role of arbiters of "high-end" and "TOTL" sound.


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## Melvins

Quote: 





xnor said:


> Do you have anything objective to support that claim?


 


  my magnums sounded extremely aesthetic when I first started listening to them. Not much depth to the sound. This quickly disappeared over time. I mean. That's just what I heard I guess.


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## dustdevil

After eqing hd 555 so that it sounds flat, I find that the bass was lacking, but then it sounded much better after a few days, and I am pretty sure the headphones did not break-in, my mind did. 
       
       To prove that its your mind that is breaking-in, you can try turning the bass/treble down, and try listening to them a few days and listen to them again without the eq, you might find the headphones sound very different from what they did before.


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## Magick Man

I had a well used pair of D2000s and a new pair and they sounded different. As I played music and pink noise through the new set over a span of days, they started sounding more and more similar. That's good enough for me.


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## Lenni

Quote: 





imperialx said:


> This has been debated so much I don't see the need of starting another thread.
> 
> I believe that _some _aspects of breaking in is psychological, but not all of it for sure.


 


   
  Burn-in is mostly psychological. I’d say probably 85% of it, and 15% maybe physical (depending on headphones). it's rather simple - humans are learning creatures, that’s one aspect that differentiate us from machines. to put it simply, our brain goes through an “adjustment” period. this happens whether it’s physical, visual… or auditory. imagine you visit a place you’ve never been before, or even a place you haven’t seen in a while (whether is a room in a house, school... or even a foreign country), even only after few hours of been in there your perceptions will have changed; after days/weeks/months it will be A LOT different since you viewed the place from the first time. people who say there’s a night & day difference between before & after burn-in is because what they experience _it is_ a night & day difference.
   
  When I went to pick up my D2000 I was on a train back home, and I could not resist giving a listen, so I got them out and plugged them straight into the Sansa Clip. I was mortified - that's not what I expected at all! then I plugged them into an amp (I had an Icon combo at that time), and as I kept listening the sound started to make more and more sense.
   
  that’s all there’s to it, really.


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## poikkeus

I'm in no position to say what percentage of "break-in" is psychological or not, but dustdevil makes an important point relative to volume. By increasing volume - which just about every use does when listening to music - different samples may sound thinner or fuller depending on volume. That's why it's so important to control for volume before making conclusions on break-in.


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## qohelet

i believe in burn in. i had the chance to compare a burned in d5k with just opened in d5k. i can tell clearly there's a significant difference between the two. my other friends tried as well and we arrived with the same conclusion.


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## tinyman392

qohelet said:


> i believe in burn in. i had the chance to compare a burned in d5k with just opened in d5k. i can tell clearly there's a significant difference between the two. my other friends tried as well and we arrived with the same conclusion.




ABX them to confirm  Same goes for your friend.


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## chrislangley4253

qohelet said:


> i believe in burn in. i had the chance to compare a burned in d5k with just opened in d5k. i can tell clearly there's a significant difference between the two. my other friends tried as well and we arrived with the same conclusion.




Even with ABX, coulda just been driver variation.


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## liamstrain

Quote: 





chrislangley4253 said:


> Even with ABX, coulda just been driver variation.


 
   
  +1, or pad differences. And frankly, without that ABX, we can't even say for sure the difference was audible.


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## chrislangley4253

But for what its worth, I do believe certain drivers do burn in quite a bit.


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## Mauricio

Quote: 





liamstrain said:


> ... And frankly, without that ABX, we can't even say for sure the difference was audible.


 
   
  That seems to be utterly insignificant and unimportant to most on this forum, I would say.  Very few have an interest in keeping themselves honest.


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## Anaxilus

Quote: 





mauricio said:


> In no instance has there been a person who's said that it sounded worse.


 
   
  That's not true.  Myself and a handful of others have said just that.  Some people just choose to have selective reading or haven't read enough impressions.  I've sent back 3 phones IME and purrin got rid of another.  So feel free to get back to the argument but please stop spouting universal claims that aren't true.  You should have enough to talk about w/o reverting to straw men.
   
  I see there's quite a few new joins here.  FYI this merry go round has been spinning for a long time.  Often a good idea to search out some prior threads.
   
  Sound Science needs a separate sub-forum called Ground Hog day.


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## Mauricio

Ok, fair enough, how's this?
   
_The overwhelming majority of, indeed the preponderance of impressions here point to equipment sounding better, rather than worse, after break-in._
   
  Since the dawn of communication, humans have had to speak in generalizations.  We all do it all the time.  Otherwise we'd never communicate a point because our conversations would soon get bogged down with an interminable stream of exceptions, provisos and caveats.  You know what I am saying, yet you are calling me to task based on a literalism.


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## Anaxilus

Quote: 





mauricio said:


> You know what I am saying, yet you are calling me to task based on a literalism.


 
   
  No I don't, because if you were generalizing your whole point would be so invalid you wouldn't have made it in the first place.
   
  Saying, "In no instance...." is not a generalization.  
   
  Yes I am, because that's the very burden those who cling solely to empiricism choose to carry.  This isn't Burger King.  If someone wants to light a fire I have no problem holding their feet to it.


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## swimmintunes

Fuel for the fire. 
   
http://rinchoi.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction-it-is-generally-known-that.html


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## Mauricio

Those waterfall plots, both pre- and post-, are terrible.


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## Bill1202

Like!  LOL...


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## signet02

I was skeptical at first about break in of headphones... So I purchased two of the same headphones... Both Sennheiser HD 380s... The first I put a few hundred hours on, the second, none... Upon comparing the two, here's what I heard:
  
 Note: I marked the two, so as not to mix then up... Also, I used a 'Y' connector, so I could rapidly change from one to the other...
  
 1) The overhang and ambience of the broken in headphone was more pronounced... I used the same passages from the same recording, BTW...
  
 2) The timbral accuracy of the broken in phones was better...
  
 3) The unbroken in headphones sounded more brittle and unforgiving...
  
 4) The ear-pads on the broken in phones conformed better to my head, thus producing slightly better bass response...
  
 So there it is... At least for me anyway...
  
 * Testing was done with a Little Dot LD 1+ with Muses02 opamp and Voshkod tubes...
  
 * Program material was Mahler Symphony #4 by DG, cut 3, various excerpts...
  
 Note: I am now giving a full spectrum break in to my new Grado PS 500s... I'll report on that in a week or so...


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## bigshot

Did you compare the two before either of them was "broken in"? Typically headphones of the same make and model can deviate in frequency response 3dB or more from copy to copy.


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## signet02

bigshot said:


> Did you compare the two before either of them was "broken in"? Typically headphones of the same make and model can deviate in frequency response 3dB or more from copy to copy.


 
  
 On these two pairs, yes... I have several pairs of these, as they are my favorites... At any rate, it was not just a small deviation between the two after break-in... I also understand that there may be a difference between two headphones of the same make and model, although Sennheiser does do a reasonably good job of matching drivers within a certain model over time, in my opinion...


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## bigshot

Was there a difference before you started? You should subtract that from the difference at the end.


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## signet02

bigshot said:


> Was there a difference before you started? You should subtract that from the difference at the end.


 
  
 I would say that that would be pretty hard to do, as there didn't seem to be any difference in the overall sound signature... I still have the well broken in ones and the others are still hardly used... I checked them both again, and confirmed my previous... This time I checked: Decay on tympani, piano arpeggio, snare roll... (m.)


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## lljayll

signet02 said:


> I would say that that would be pretty hard to do, as there didn't seem to be any difference in the overall sound signature... I still have the well broken in ones and the others are still hardly used... I checked them both again, and confirmed my previous... This time I checked: Decay on tympani, piano arpeggio, snare roll... (m.)


 
 Interesting. Thanks for this information.


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## kramer5150

Having done blind ABX sessions with other members, there are people who can very easily hear differences between old can-A and brand new can-B... and could consistently pick out each one in a properly run blind ABX.  Thankfully I am not one of those... I just enjoy the tunes.  





  
 Its all a big moot point though.  Even a properly run blind ABX test is moot (in the does burn in exist? context), until you can find a way to eliminate the effects of random sample population variation.  And even then if you "could" blindly ABX test 100-1000s of samples, there would be no way to eliminate the effects of production batch variation.  Every headphone in existence has production tolerances and process control limits.... they HAVE to, or they would generate more defects than sellable product.
  
 When its all said and done and you run the blind ABX to form a definitive conclusion.... how do you know the differences heard are not the cumulative results of production/process variation?
  
 If you enjoy the sound, thats all that matters really.  The final verdict is MOOT.


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## signet02

kramer5150 said:


> Having done blind ABX sessions with other members, there are people who can very easily hear differences between old can-A and brand new can-B... and could consistently pick out each one in a properly run blind ABX.  Thankfully I am not one of those... I just enjoy the tunes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
  
  
 I think it's pretty easy to correct for the production run thing if you start with two of the same model headphones that sound similar enough to begin with... And I think the whole point of this thread is to determine if anyone can hear the difference, right?...
  
 And as you point out, some do, and some don't...
  
 A practical application of all this, IMO, is to perhaps address the issue of people returning headphones because they sound so disappointing right out of the box, as many of them most decidedly do...


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## bufferoverflow

When you do this abx'ing ..
 How do you make sure the headphones are located EXACTLY the same every time you switch ?
 If they are not, the test is void .


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## signet02

bufferoverflow said:


> When you do this abx'ing ..
> How do you make sure the headphones are located EXACTLY the same every time you switch ?
> If they are not, the test is void .


 
  
 There's not a whole lot of variance as to how the Senn. HD 380s sit over your ears...  Perhaps with other phones...
  
 At any rate, the difference is just too pronounced between the two...
  
 These are only my opinions based on my experience with these particular headphones... Your mileage may vary...


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## carbondream

h


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## carbondream

There are too many variables to ever definitively determine that there is an audible difference across the board.  Some ears will perceive differences, some will not.  Some drivers will audibly sound different, some will not.  The point is...  until someone buys two pairs of every headphone on the market and meticulously test them in a scientifically controlled environment, the "Audibility Argument" on this topic will go on forever.
 That said....
 From a mechanical and engineering standpoint... it is RECOMMENDED that ALL moving parts go through a period of "break-in".  Size of the parts or degree of motion does not matter!  The process is to condition and stabilize the moving parts.  To put it generically.... its so those moving things can get use to doing what they are going to be doing for the rest of their lives and its solely for longevity purposes.  For the same reason that you change the oil in your car regularly.  Sure, you dont have to ever change it, and it will seemingly run fine for a while, but we all know how that story will end.  Its the same principle, just on a smaller scale and obviously never changing your oil is going to have a larger impact, quicker, but hopefully you get the point.
 So, in terms of "proper care" of moving parts... i would personally suggest a break in period EVERYTIME but you should NEVER expect to hear a difference.  If you do, good for you, but just remember that is not the goal or purpose of a mechanical break-in.
  
 Please excuse my lack of head-fi experience.  I feel like this had to have been mentioned by someone else at some point.
 If not, i hope it helps.


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## bigshot

The difference between two sets of the same headphone is probably greater than any burn in. It seems to me that if burn in was a serious issue, the people who do response charts on cans would publish two sets of graphs- before and after burn in.


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## blades

bigshot said:


> The difference between two sets of the same headphone is probably greater than any burn in. It seems to me that if burn in was a serious issue, the people who do response charts on cans would publish two sets of graphs- before and after burn in.


 
  
 It is a curious audiophile phenomenon driven by hearing bias.  I've never tested headphones but I once had a chance to do some tests on two pairs of speakers which were known to require a long "break in" period.  A dealer friend was unboxing a new pair of B&W 801 Matrix speakers for testing and delivery.  I asked him if we could do a blind comparison with his floor models which had been in place for several months.  To make a long story short, nobody could tell one pair from the other in a bias controlled test which speaks well for B&Ws quality control.
  
 It is true that there is a short period of time in which components in the speaker system experience electrical changes but there is no real evidence that those changes are audible.
  
 Most of us who have been involved in bias controlled testing conclude that it is the listener that breaks into the gear rather than vice versa.  A change in sound will be uncomfortable for a listener and will become more and more comfortable as he becomes accustomed to the new sound.
  
 Manufacturers, dealers and audio writers push the break in concept primarily to reduce returns.  They know that an audiophile will like a sonic presentation better as time goes on because of this psychological effect.  Actually, I'm going through that right now.  I installed a new Class T amp for my personal computer.  The darned thing as a bass boost and I still haven't adjusted to it.  I've adjusted my subwoofer and still feel like things are a little dark.  I wish the manufacturers would warn folks when they design a bass boost into an amplifier.  In time I'll get used to it.


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## ab initio

> Actually, I'm going through that right now.  I installed a new Class T amp for my personal computer.  The darned thing as a bass boost and I still haven't adjusted to it.  I've adjusted my subwoofer and still feel like things are a little dark.  I wish the manufacturers would warn folks when they design a bass boost into an amplifier.  In time I'll get used to it.


 
  
 If I were you, I'd be sending that amp straight back to the dealer. Built-in sound coloration? No thank you. That is one of my biggest pet-peeves!
  
 At one point before I was really focused on sound quality, I needed to get some speakers for my desktop at home. I went to Walmart and picked out a set of multimedia Sony speakers with a little (like 5 inch or something) subwoofer and two 2" satellites. The system had nothing but a volume control, so there was no way to balance the "sub" with the tiny little speakers. The thing sounded terrible! The "low end" was handled by the sub, and i think it was basically a muddy-mess from 300 Hz down to 60 Hz and nothing really below that, and then completely underpowered speakers that were nasally if you could actually hear anything over the muddy subwoofer mess. I think these speakers were colored for explosions in games and the beats in pop music because all they could do was make a muddy boom-boom sound. I spent the next 4 years almost exclusively listening to headphones.
  
 Colored equipment? send it back, it's not worth your money if you can get something better at the same price point!
  
 Cheers


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## bigshot

It might even be a sign of a manufacturing defect. I second the suggestion to return it while you can.


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## blades

I tend to agree with you both but the boost isn't all that bad after adjusting my sub and, when I get a chance, I'll EQ the computer to cut the bass a little.  The amp cost $66 and change.  I'm not sure what should expect for that.  I think it's fixable.


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## bigshot

Well, I guess if it is a manufacturing error and it burns out eventually, it's no great loss. It would be nice if that imbalance was consistent over time though and not drift. A friend of mine had an equalizer that you could set one day and two days later you would have to set it all over again.


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## blades

I spent about 5 minutes with the Windows equalizer and straightened it out.  The amp sounds accurate now.


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## ab initio

blades said:


> I spent about 5 minutes with the Windows equalizer and straightened it out.  The amp sounds accurate now.


 
  
 We need a way to quantify how well equipment responds to equalization/correction. My opinion is that all devices that behave linearly, even with EQ, are equivalently "accurate." Namely, if they can be configured to output the original signal over a reasonable range gains with inaudible noise, then it is effectively a "perfect" component.
  
 THD+N is part of it, however, depending on what the original frequency response is, if adding the required equalization to achieve perfect response results in audible distortion, then the component fails to be considered accurate. However, any component that response linearly to the input is equally capable of high-fidelity reproduction.
  
 Thoughts?
  
 Cheers


----------



## SilverEars

Anybody have studies done on EQ?  Like different aspects of the headphones measured after EQ so that any patterns can be noticed.


----------



## bigshot

If a headphone can reproduce all frequencies at a high volume cleanly, it can be EQed. Of course massive corrections are out of the question, but if a headphone can reproduce a wide spectrum of frequencies, it's probably starting from a place not too far from flat.


----------



## blades

ab initio said:


> We need a way to quantify how well equipment responds to equalization/correction. My opinion is that all devices that behave linearly, even with EQ, are equivalently "accurate." Namely, if they can be configured to output the original signal over a reasonable range gains with inaudible noise, then it is effectively a "perfect" component.
> 
> THD+N is part of it, however, depending on what the original frequency response is, if adding the required equalization to achieve perfect response results in audible distortion, then the component fails to be considered accurate. However, any component that response linearly to the input is equally capable of high-fidelity reproduction.
> 
> ...


 
  
 The problem with my post is that I said the amp now sounds accurate.  I should have said it sounds the way I want it to sound.  Accuracy can't be heard.  It can be measured.  Anybody who fools with the frequency response without measurements is fiddling, not equalizing.  So I fiddled with frequency response to make the system sound more like it did before I changed to the new amp.  I corrected what I perceived as a slight bass boost.
  
 While any variation from a flat frequency response can be referred to as distortion, that isn't what we mean when we refer to the term.  Normally we refer to IM or harmonic distortion.  While the EQ does produce audible differences in frequency response it doesn't necessarily produce audible distortion.


----------



## bigshot

blades said:


> Accuracy can't be heard.  It can be measured.  Anybody who fools with the frequency response without measurements is fiddling, not equalizing.


 
  
 That isn't necessarily true. When I first set up my system in my new house, my sound engineer friend was busy working on a project and couldn't come by for a couple of months,. So t equalized my system by ear using wide frequency recordings of acoustic instruments that I knew to be flat. It took a LONG time, but when I was done, my buddy was free again, and he came by with his signal generator to fine tune it for me. He spent about 15 minutes running back and forth through the range and told me that he could hear a few narrow dips and bumps, but I had gotten it as close as I could have using a 5 band parametric. He said I had gotten it to the point of what would be his first pass. If he was EQing it for studio work, he'd go back and iron out the details, but for that he'd need an equalizer with more channels. It was good to hear that, because I was very happy with my curve.


----------



## blades

You get the golden ears award.


----------



## castleofargh

bigshot said:


> It was good to hear that, because I was very happy with my curve.


 
 I'm sure you have great curves.


----------



## bigshot

woo! woo! you should see my golden ears glowing in the moonlight!


----------



## krismusic

Nice one Bigshot. Maybe the title of this thread needs changing! The Final Verdict. Not!


----------



## Happytalk

So for the lazy newbie. Can't I just let them break in naturally over time? Is there a difference between actively breaking them in for several 10's of hours in succession vs. just using them regularly for a few months?


----------



## castleofargh

happytalk said:


> So for the lazy newbie. Can't I just let them break in naturally over time? Is there a difference between actively breaking them in for several 10's of hours in succession vs. just using them regularly for a few months?


 

 oh if you're into those stuff you can find some "special burn in records". you know like pregnant women are told to listen to classical music during pregnancy ^_^.
 if you start with death metal, your gear might grow up with a rebellious mind. it's all about good education I say.


----------



## SilentFrequency

happytalk said:


> So for the lazy newbie. Can't I just let them break in naturally over time? Is there a difference between actively breaking them in for several 10's of hours in succession vs. just using them regularly for a few months?




Maybe the "lazy" way is more "organic" non forced way of breaking in headphones? 

Yet, actually, how can "breaking in" headphones ever sound like a good idea?

Id like my hd800's to sound as good as they are from the day I first used them for years to come and isn't "breaking in" just another form of wear and tear?

Don't headphones conform to most things ie the lower the use the less worn/stressed they are, or "fresher"?


----------



## Happytalk

I am just curious to know if there is a different effect either way. Just using them to listen to music regularly vs. burning them in constantly for 50 hours, for example. Do the sonic results differ in the end?


----------



## castleofargh

happytalk said:


> I am just curious to know if there is a different effect either way. Just using them to listen to music regularly vs. burning them in constantly for 50 hours, for example. Do the sonic results differ in the end?


 

 almost nobody cares, it's like asking if there is a special way of walking when you get new shoes. the reality of burn in is moderate at best and probably dependent on what the driver's membrane is made of. but a driver can do 2 things, forward and backward to vibrate some sound. so maybe using square waves at 130db loudness right out of the box will not help your headphone live long, but else it's all a little silly.
 my personal opinion: just listen to your music and forget about all that.


----------



## Happytalk

silentfrequency said:


> Maybe the "lazy" way is more "organic" non forced way of breaking in headphones?
> 
> Yet, actually, how can "breaking in" headphones ever sound like a good idea?
> 
> ...







castleofargh said:


> almost nobody cares, it's like asking if there is a special way of walking when you get new shoes. the reality of burn in is moderate at best and probably dependent on what the driver's membrane is made of. but a driver can do 2 things, forward and backward to vibrate some sound. so maybe using square waves at 130db loudness right out of the box will not help your headphone live long, but else it's all a little silly.
> my personal opinion: just listen to your music and forget about all that.




That's what will always happen anyway. I almost prefer pre owned because I don't have to think about it. Music first. A great thing about this site is the support for over analysis. All the comparison makes it fun. I will search to see if there has been a clear comparison.


----------



## SilentFrequency

happytalk said:


> That's what will always happen anyway. I almost prefer pre owned because I don't have to think about it. Music first. A great thing about this site is the support for over analysis. All the comparison makes it fun. I will search to see if there has been a clear comparison.




Do you only buy pre-owned from people you know personally?

The only reason I ask (at the risk of sounding ocd) is the germ factor. I mean, what if the person had poor hygiene ie greasy hair etc?

I was in a store recently helping my friend buy herself some headphones that would sound good as they now think I'm a audiophile, which I guess I am even though friends think I'm a little nerdy now, lol, but whilst we were looking through the display demonstration models we noticed this guy trying every pair out in display and he just looked totally unclean, which at that point me and my friend just looked at each other then left the store.

This is something I've probably not even thought about until that experience and I'm guessing the store hopefully clean their demo headphones daily with anti bacterial wipes maybe.

Personally if I ever bought a used pair of headphones Id totally clean the ear pads fully before use, but that's just me.


----------



## krismusic

Can't beat the feeling of putting a lovely box fresh pair of 600's on IMO.


----------



## theSC00BZ

The thing is, most devices and their components for the consumer market are manufactured to tolerence. Basically, no two headphones are identical. They can argubly be very similar, but not identical. Is the difference enough to effect the sound? Sure; in some cases yes, in other cases no.
  
 Then there's basic physics. Listening to sound at any given time (unless in labotatory controlled conditions) will be different than the last. Temperature, air pressure etc. are all variables. Is it enough to effect sound? Again, in some cases yes, in other cases no - but even your own tympanic membrane can be effected by this, regardless of your headphones. Even your mood effects how you 'perceive' sound.
  
 Additionally, any mechnical parts (outside of lab controlled conditions), change over time. Enough to change sound? Sure.
  
 All these variables change from one day to the next. Change is irrefutable. Anything else is psychology and personal preference.
  
 That's my 2 cents anyway.


----------



## SilentFrequency

thesc00bz said:


> The thing is, most devices and their components for the consumer market are manufactured to tolerence. Basically, no two headphones are identical. They can argubly be very similar, but not identical. Is the difference enough to effect the sound? Sure; in some cases yes, in other cases no.
> 
> Then there's basic physics. Listening to sound at any given time (unless in labotatory controlled conditions) will be different than the last. Temperature, air pressure etc. are all variables. Is it enough to effect sound? Again, in some cases yes, in other cases no - but even your own tympanic membrane can be effected by this, regardless of your headphones.* Even your mood effects how you 'perceive' sound.*
> 
> ...




I totally agree with *that* and could even go further to say that sound (music) can also alter your mood (at the risk of this being obvious anyway)


----------



## theSC00BZ

silentfrequency said:


> I totally agree with *that* and could even go further to say that sound (music) can also alter your mood (at the risk of this being obvious anyway)


 
  
 Absolutely... My headphones are also a "go-to" place when I need to chill - even elevate myself sometimes at the risk of sounding like a hippy. Whereas cranking the tunes up while driving makes me a racing lunatic


----------



## OddE

silentfrequency said:


> Personally if I ever bought a used pair of headphones Id totally clean the ear pads fully before use, but that's just me.




-A new set of pads are surprisingly cheap for a number of brands/models. I think that would be my preferred route. (New pads for my K240s cost the equivalent of $13 or so a few months ago...)


----------



## Happytalk

I'll survive with a thorough cleaning and some carefree listening with already burned in headphones.


----------



## hotdogseller

When did people start equating "burned in" with better sounding? It's not a ******* leather shoe, shouldn't this purported degradation of the driver produce less accurate sound?


----------



## SilentFrequency

hotdogseller said:


> When did people start equating "burned in" with better sounding? It's not a ******* leather shoe, shouldn't this purported degradation of the driver produce less accurate sound?




I hope by your comment you don't burn in your leather shoes by passing a electrical signal through them!


----------



## ieffsmale

Yep, I've thought this exact thing for years - the difference in how a piece of equipment or cable sounds over time, all other things being equal, can and often is at least partly a result of the listener gradually getting accustomed to that piece while the memory of the piece that it replaces gradually fades over time.
  
 Maybe the only way to know for sure is to remember with 100% accuracy my perception of the differences in sound between the units at the moment they were introduced and then again after a period of "burn-in" time. 
  
 To my knowledge, the machine that accurately memorializes those perceptions hasn't yet come down the pike. But I certainly have perceived changes in the sound of equipment and cables after they've settled into my system for a while.
  
 A couple of important quotes from Tyll's piece:
  
 1)  "Have I shown that break-in doesn't exist and is not measurable? No. The slight changes around 9kHz on the CSD plots, and the significant change in IMD products over time do indicate that *something is happening, and happening in a way that seems to me to be properly indicative of the things I've heard with break-in effects.* I think the nay-sayers need to acknowledge something might be happening here."
  
 2)*  "**So, while headphones change little over time, their ability to deliver pleasure may improve markedly. Easily hearing the differences I've so often heard before **13 out of 15 times in a simple blind test proved to me this is a subtle, but important distinction."*
  
 In my experience, this applies to both equipment and cables. I couldn't care less if anyone or everyone or not a single one hears exactly what I hear.  I will continue to do the crazy things that I do, and will continue to enjoy the real or imagined changes that I may or may not hear occurring.


----------



## abm0

Buy a pair of cheap Superlux HD668Bs, never-used.
 Burn them in with 20 to 20k frequency sweeps for something like 200 hours.
 At an interval of your choosing during the process, measure their frequency response with adequate equipment or even just some decent microphone stuck between the cups, even if they don't form a seal around it (and try to get your environment as close to dead-silent as you can).
 Compare the measurements.
  
 Then talk to me about your final verdict on headphone burn-in and how the changes are mostly inaudible.


----------



## castleofargh

abm0 said:


> Buy a pair of cheap Superlux HD668Bs, never-used.
> Burn them in with 20 to 20k frequency sweeps for something like 200 hours.
> At an interval of your choosing during the process, measure their frequency response with adequate equipment or even just some decent microphone stuck between the cups, even if they don't form a seal around it (and try to get your environment as close to dead-silent as you can).
> Compare the measurements.
> ...


 

 1/if you have done so, please share your data.
 2/ it is well known that the ear pads on headphones will change over time and affect the signature. so if somebody does some measurements they must be done at the exact same position, and it probably would be best to remove the pads for variation measurement purpose. unless we're saying that the pads are the burn in of headphone? then sure burn in is real it's been proved many times.


----------



## abm0

castleofargh said:


> 1/if you have done so, please share your data.
> 2/ it is well known that the ear pads on headphones will change over time and affect the signature. so if somebody does some measurements they must be done at the exact same position, and it probably would be best to remove the pads for variation measurement purpose. unless we're saying that the pads are the burn in of headphone? then sure burn in is real it's been proved many times.


 
 I don't have a good microphone, I just used whatever crap is included in the HTC One M7, plus a brief listen every time I "measured" them (so there was no "getting used to them" effect; it wouldn't have been possible to use them long enough to get used to them anyway, with how bad they were before the burn-in).
  
 Forget earpads, forget "getting used to them", forget all that. I set them on the table and let them play reference sounds to burn them in. That's it. Measured them at 51, 115 and 205 hours in and gave them a brief listen each time. That was it. I took some care to avoid lying to myself about any changes that might occur.
  
 This is what I got ("measurements" at 0, 51, 115 and 205 hours of burn-in):
  
  
 - To "measure" them I played pink noise through them and I set them on the table with my phone set horizontally between the open cups (one corner of the phone sticking into the space of each cup, because the cups form a "V" when you set them on the table)
  
 - First two measurements were made with the bottom microphone of the HTC, which drops off hard at 4 kHz. Still, you can clearly see that after the first 51 hours of burn-in the treble at 5 kHz and beyond is more pronounced and also flatter (5k is no longer the only thing "sticking up" and piercing your eardrums)
  
 - Last two measurements were made with the top microphone of the HTC, which is pretty flat up to about 12 kHz. Again you can see from the 3rd to the 4th image how the various peaks merge into wider bands of flat response
  
 - Measurements were all made at night, with all the neighbors asleep and no audible noise coming from outside. At most there might've been some equipment vibrations(?) being transmitted through the table I had these set on, as can be seen in the spurious lines in the low-mids and bass
  
 - Overall I would say that the way these change with burn-in is that they become _brighter and flatter_, and the flattening is what makes them lose that harsh, piercing sound (from the narrowly exaggerated response around 6-7 kHz). Many reviews say they become less bright, but I think they're confusing the uneven and piercing sound with brightness. Brightness actually increases overall, but because they also become much flatter the sound becomes much more enjoyable.
  
  
 I just wish the InnerFidelity guy or someone else with good equipment had done this test with the right headphones - the HD668B - so as to give the burn-in hypothesis every chance to prove itself, rather than choosing expensive high-end headphones that may not burn in much just because of how good they already are coming out of the factory.


----------



## Ancipital

Either I'm losing my mind, or I have been visited by a headphone break-in unicorn. I can't deny it. DANGER, ANECDOTE AHEAD.
  
 I recently picked up a pair of HE-400i, which as you'll know, are planar magnetics. I had high hopes of hearing something unusual and pleasant.
  
 Right out of the box, the bass was... nonexistent. It wasn't just rolled off or recessed, it was.. an ex-parrot. I had to really strain to discern a bassline at all in most music. After a few hours of messing, however, the bass fairy finally arrived and touched me in places that we're told are private. Now they're splendid, they have really decent bass- not a massively bloated amount, but clear and occasionally with OTT source material, an intimidating amount. This change was noticable the day after unboxing them, with maybe ten hours on the clock. Same source, same DAC/amp, same media.
  
 I really don't think that I imagined it, or that I have just learned to listen to them. I initially compared them to a pair of HD25, and some SE215, both of which are famously generous with the low end, I know. I then compared them to my HD650, which have a slight bass bump over the 600s- and the 650s killed the HE-400i.
  
  
 Unfortunately, I didn't have time right away to do any sort of half-arsed measuring with a mic in the middle- and I think our measuring head is a lab up north now, so I have no objective measurements to tell me if I have subjectivitis. However, compared to some fairly reliably stodgy candidates for comparison (especially old HD25s that have been in use for years), they have gone from so terribly insipid that I was on the cusp of returning them, to cans which nearly gave me shartings today when watching the new Overwatch short. 
  
 So, tell me, doc.. is it bad? Will I ever be able to operate an oscilloscope again? If this is just perceptual shenanigans, then it's more powerful than usual.


----------



## abm0

Ah. The "loosen them up a bit", less-than-24h kind of break-in. Must be a thing with some high-end models, since Zeos also reported this kind of experience with the Stax SR-207.


----------



## Ancipital

..I feel like I'm being gently sent-up


----------



## abm0

I know I wasn't kidding one bit when it came to my 668Bs, and Zeos doesn't sound like he's kidding either on the Stax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0EtAF_lEk


----------



## Ancipital

abm0 said:


> I know I wasn't kidding one bit when it came to my 668Bs, and Zeos doesn't sound like he's kidding either on the Stax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0EtAF_lEk


 
  
 Well, luckily the SR-404 Signatures up the corridor have been in use for some years, so if there is any effect, they're long past it- they just sound lovely, with my Mojo driving the SRM-323 (I think, I'd have to go and look). 
  
 That video is quite annoying, looks like he has a Gopro on his head, and he gushes like he can't believe he's in Kansas anymore. I'm glad he's happy, but I fear what will happen if he ever listens to their actual high-end models. Even allowing for diminishing returns, tiny improvements might kill him


----------



## castleofargh

subjective opinions are subjective, and opinions.
  
 and just in case it wasn't said enough already, pads will change in shape, flexibility etc. and that will alter the signature. better fit after some time will most likely improve the seal and increase low end, getting the driver closer to the ear may also change the trebles a great deal...
 IMO we should call that "pads vs head: pads lost", but if some want to call that "burn in", go ahead. as long as we can be clear on the meaning I'm ok with it. just try not to pretend like you know it's the driver or the metal or whatever that changed if you have no actual evidence that it's not the pads or your brain. that's really all I'm asking.
  
  
  
  should I talk about burn in for sponges, sofas, beds... ?


----------



## Ancipital

> should I talk about burn in for sponges, sofas, beds... ?


 
  
 For hard futon pads, hell yes.. When new, it's like sleeping on concrete- when they're "burned in" with a dip for your body shape, they're delightful


----------



## abm0

castleofargh said:


> as long as we can be clear on the meaning I'm ok with it. just try not to pretend like you know it's the driver or the metal or whatever that changed if you have no actual evidence that it's not the pads or your brain.


 
 As already stated, I do have the requisite evidence, since I burned them in on the table, not on my head, so there can be no discussion of pads giving in or the brain getting accustomed. Not to mention the little low-tech spectral analyses I did with my phone just to have that extra data. Yet I keep getting these "it must be the pads" comments, like people can't or won't read anything that goes against their preconceptions.


----------



## castleofargh

abm0 said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > as long as we can be clear on the meaning I'm ok with it. just try not to pretend like you know it's the driver or the metal or whatever that changed if you have no actual evidence that it's not the pads or your brain.
> ...


 
 yes I work for the organization trying to remove all evidence that headphone burn in is the cause for climate change. that's why I'm so unfair and focused only on the pads.
  
  I have nothing to gain one way or the other, and I'm just as curious as the next guy. in fact I most likely have tried more stuff than the next guy when it comes to looking for evidence of burn in(but admittedly centered on IEMs as that's my dope). and I'm sure some headphones somewhere change a lot over a small period of time. but that's my opinion, not a fact. because I haven't seen proper experiments demonstrating that. the only reason why I lean on one side of the argument is because the evidence I have up until now tell me that burn in is mostly in people's head, in the way to put the headphone on, and in the pads. for those 3 stuff we have plenty of evidence that they can impact the sound in a very audible way. for the driver "burning in", we don't really collapse under the evidence that the changes are clearly audible. what we have are people confident about their own hearing over such a period of time. and that to me means nothing, not anything. confident audiophiles, I've learned to trust them less than a telemarketer.
 so I take the information I know I can trust and I draw my own conclusion. until I'm presented with enough evidence of the contrary, of course I will tend to believe that's how it is(mostly).
  
  
 I'm sorry but your test doesn't mean much to me. for it to be relevant I would at least need to know:
 -how loud the headphone was compared to ambient noise at the mic's position.
 -that you had a secure way to hold both the headphone and the cellphone so that nothing would move at all throughout the entire experiment.
 and I'm sure some more knowledgeable people about how to do proper testing could have other questions.
 without this I'm inclined to think that you've demonstrated how moving a little bit can have very measurable impact on the signature. and for that we do have a lot of information already and how some headphones have a smaller "sweet spot" than others.
  
 anyway, I have a pair of headphones here that are still in their original box, I could try to set up something(after I've finished plenty of other stuff in my todo list). it would be a nightmare to have something I can't approach or touch in my room for several days, and I honestly can't say if I would be able to do it. my house is pretty small and my clumsiness legendary. but still, let's say I do it, and succeed in getting results one way or the other. what would that prove? that my pair acted like measured. nothing more. it wouldn't close the debate, wouldn't prove anybody right or wrong as nobody is making the claim that no headphone will ever change it's signature. and of course not, that would be like claiming that decay and wear don't apply to headphones. ridiculous. so for those who already believed the result, it would be some kind of confirmation. and for those who don't, my clumsiness would explain the result being "wrong". I'm not sure there is something to gain from such an experience. I get overly excited only because I can't stand empty claims, not because I believe there is a definitive answer.
  
 also I don't understand what is so bad about the idea that the pads and positioning make most of the actual differences? at least both have been demonstrated to have audible impact. we can claim stuff on those 2 subjects.


----------



## bfreedma

abm0 said:


> As already stated, I do have the requisite evidence, since I burned them in on the table, not on my head, so there can be no discussion of pads giving in or the brain getting accustomed. Not to mention the little low-tech spectral analyses I did with my phone just to have that extra data. Yet I keep getting these "it must be the pads" comments, like people can't or won't read anything that goes against their preconceptions.


 
  
 You used a phone mic to do analysis?  Phone mics are nowhere near accurate enough for that.  For anything viable, you really need a calibrated microphone and a rig to ensure the headphones and mic are in exactly the same position each time.
  
 Also curious as to how you tested them without putting them on your head.  Or how you ensured that they were positioned identically on your head when you did listen.  Millimeters matter.


----------



## abm0

bfreedma said:


> You used a phone mic to do analysis?  Phone mics are nowhere near accurate enough for that.


 
 Um, yes they are - I was looking for huge differences, not a correct response curve every time, and huge differences are what I found.
  


> Also curious as to how you tested them without putting them on your head.


 
 So you haven't even read my account of how I kept track of the burn-in but you want to criticize it. And I'm supposed to, what, repeat everything I said because you're too lazy to look a few pages back?
   





> Or how you ensured that they were positioned identically on your head when you did listen.  Millimeters matter.


 
 Not in this case. I'm not some uber-audiophile with decades of experience, I'm not going to hear the subtle differences that come with shifting the headset on my head by a millimeter. I just heard the really big stuff like: pre-burn - piercing and unbearable, post-burn - not piercing, a joy to listen to; pre-burn - ugly and frequently triggered sibilance, post-burn - tolerable and rarely triggered sibilance. And these were confirmed by my measured curves as well. There's no way I "got used to" that atrocious piercing sound through 3 5-minute listening sessions spaced about 3-4 weeks apart each time.


----------



## bfreedma

abm0 said:


> bfreedma said:
> 
> 
> > You used a phone mic to do analysis?  Phone mics are nowhere near accurate enough for that.
> ...





A phone mic is only intended to be accurate enough to capture the audible range of the spoken voice. In no way is it accurate enough or useful as a scientific measurement instrument.

Sorry, but I don't find your anecdotal evidence and testing methods compelling or sufficient to cause reconsideration of the results of actual controlled testing. I'm glad you like your headphones more now, but "huge differences" occurring and "atrocious piercing sound" becoming enjoyable due to break in? I'm not buying unless significantly more evidence from properly executed tests is presented.

BTW, The differences in perceived audio from moving headphones a few millimeters is measurable. It's certainly far more impactful than any break in changes measured in a proper study.


----------



## abm0

bfreedma said:


> Sorry, but I don't find your anecdotal evidence and testing methods compelling or sufficient to cause reconsideration of the results of actual controlled testing.


 
 What actual controlled testing? This? http://www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm
 Or maybe Tyll's little test at InnerFidelity, where he did not disprove burn-in and says as much in the article?
 What use is controlled testing if you're just going to ignore its results and stick to your dogma?


----------



## abm0

castleofargh said:


> I'm sorry but your test doesn't mean much to me. for it to be relevant I would at least need to know:


 
 And are you sure after you got that information you wouldn't ask for an even more tightly controlled experiment? You have to start getting a sense of the ridiculous when your criteria for proof become as demanding as if you were considering putting a new substance in the water supply.
   





> I have a pair of headphones here that are still in their original box, I could try to set up something


 
 If you've never experienced or measured any burn-in effects and you feel you need extraordinary evidence, I can't agree with using just any headphones for this - it has to be the Superlux HD668B, like I said in my first post here.
   





> also I don't understand what is so bad about the idea that the pads and positioning make most of the actual differences?


 
 Nothing wrong with the idea in general, it's just ridiculously implausible relative to my own particular burn-in method: pads getting softer absoutely cannot have anything to do with the sound changes I measured and experienced. Nothing was done to them during burn-in that would soften them up, they were not clamped onto anything.


----------



## castleofargh

abm0 said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > I'm sorry but your test doesn't mean much to me. for it to be relevant I would at least need to know:
> ...


 
  
 you seem to think I have something to disprove, an agenda or something, but that's what any wannabe scientist does. skepticism all the way and we stop only when the confidence from evidence is so high that we have little doubts left. what I try to force is what I also try to remind myself of as often as I can because I'm like anybody else, my objectivity hasn't turned me into a perfect rational robot just yet. the starting point of any objective test is to admit that I have preconceptions, I'm biased, I will try to get a result that complies with those preconceptions, I can't separate my senses from one another, and I can't control placebo. now what can I do to remove all that so my experience means something not just to me, but also to the other humans?
  
  
 if you had come here with 2 strictly identical measurements to show burn in didn't happen on your headphone, I would have had the same skepticism. and I would have also contested any idea that it was evidence that burn in didn't exist in general. obviously I wouldn't have asked if you moved, as it would be impossible to get exactly the same measurements if something moved. so my questions would have been different. like "what is the scale of the measurement?", because 2 perfectly identical graphs would trigger my fake proof alarm.
 it's when evidences and arguments can survive scrutiny that they become accepted truth.
  
 from the start what I contest is the confidence put into not so reliable evidence, from you or anybody else, pro or against burn in. I don't care what really happens to one pair of headphone, I care about people forcing what they believe onto others as fact when it doesn't comply with the requirements of a fact. 
 I can contest that something is really happening because it's happening in the world and should be verifiable. I can't contest that you feel something or that you believe in something. so it's all a matter of what people decide to say and how they say it. having an opinion is free for all, expressing an opinion has a few limitations, and stating a fact has a lot of requirements.
  
  
  
  


abm0 said:


> > I have a pair of headphones here that are still in their original box, I could try to set up something
> 
> 
> 
> If you've never experienced or measured any burn-in effects and you feel you need extraordinary evidence, I can't agree with using just any headphones for this - it has to be the Superlux HD668B, like I said in my first post here.


 
 oh experience the effect of burn in subjectively, of course I did. 100% of the time I get a new gear, my experience of it the first 10minutes and my experience of it a month later are always different! sometimes more than others but always different.
 but I have had both objective evidence that I was wrong, and objective evidence that some changes could be explained by other means than driver burn in. driver burn in is merely one of the possibilities. and from what I have seen so far, a minor possibility.
 and in case you're feeling that I'm unfair with you, I also felt like Tyll's experiment was wrong, the good thing going for him is that he saw it and didn't try to pretend it was a proper test and didn't make any claim based on it. so no harm no foul.
  
  
  


abm0 said:


> > also I don't understand what is so bad about the idea that the pads and positioning make most of the actual differences?
> 
> 
> 
> Nothing wrong with the idea in general, it's just ridiculously implausible relative to my own particular burn-in method: pads getting softer absoutely cannot have anything to do with the sound changes I measured and experienced. Nothing was done to them during burn-in that would soften them up, they were not clamped onto anything.


 
 about that, you just decided I was talking to you directly that time. you mentioned a video of somebody else, Ancipital also talked about perceived burn in, if I was going to reply to you specifically, I would have done it with your quote or right after your post.


----------



## abm0

castleofargh said:


> about that, you just decided I was talking to you directly that time.


 
 It's not about talking directly, it's about insisting on the same criticism ad nauseam even after new information has been published that the burn-in effects can manifest quite independently of any pad softening. Direct reply or not, you guys continuing to talk about pads like nothing happened gave me the impression you were simply ignoring new data (my posts) that was contradicting your preconceptions.


----------



## castleofargh

abm0 said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > about that, you just decided I was talking to you directly that time.
> ...


 

 I believe @bfreedma explained clearly why we don't accept your test with open arms. showing a change without making sure it doesn't come from somewhere else doesn't prove anything. and moving the headphone or microphone have a very direct and easy to prove relation with measurements. so if you did nothing to control that much, your results are irrelevant, it's expected to show a variation even if nothing else really changed when you move stuff around.
 it's a pity because I truly wish I could congratulate you for trying to demonstrate something instead of just making empty claims like so many do, but a bad measurement is a bad measurement, even when done with the bests of intentions.


----------



## voxie

The old debate re "burn in" returns! Its never ends. IMHO their is not a definitive answer. BUT...two years ago i bought my son a pair of V-Midas M80's True Bloods. He loved the design and wanted something different than his friends Beats. Just to stand out from the maddening crowd! Personally did not like the sq on first listen thought they were a bit cold and not engaging. Two years later gave them a listen and difference is night and day. Deffo a huge change in quality a lot warmer and harder hitting.


----------



## abm0

castleofargh said:


> so if you did nothing to control that much, your results are irrelevant, it's expected to show a variation even if nothing else really changed when you move stuff around.


 
 Funny how simple operations one can do out of negligence ended up providing consistent improvements to the sound though.  If only we could move our cheapo Monoprices around on our heads a bit and turn them into Sennheisers, what a wonderful world this would be. 
   





> a bad measurement is a bad measurement, even when done with the bests of intentions


 
 So it gets back to what I said initially (post #94): someone with good measuring equipment should test this hypothesis on a new pair of 668Bs. Then we can talk about "final verdicts" like in this thread's overconfident title. For me the "final verdict" is that headphones (like dynamic speakers in general) definitely definitely burn in and change their sound: some by a lot, some only a little, some not at all. You read enough reviews and discussions, you can even find out which model belongs to which category before you buy it (which is how it worked for me).


----------



## sonitus mirus

abm0 said:


> So it gets back to what I said initially (post #94): someone with good measuring equipment should test this hypothesis on a new pair of 668Bs. Then we can talk about "final verdicts" like in this thread's overconfident title. For me the "final verdict" is that headphones (like dynamic speakers in general) definitely definitely burn in and change their sound: some by a lot, some only a little, some not at all. You read enough reviews and discussions, you can even find out which model belongs to which category before you buy it (which is how it worked for me).


 
  
 Why not make consecutive tests, where you completely breakdown the entire setup and begin over again to see if the results are consistent or if there is any significant variation in your results?  Your process, as much as the cell phone's microphone quality, is suspect.  As was stated above, a tiny change in distance and angle could impact the results; some by a lot, some by only a little.  Also, you should consider every test result, and do not retest until you observe the results you might be expecting to see.  Providing the details from this step in the process might strengthen or weaken your position.  It won't change my mind about burn-in, but it might show you something.


----------



## abm0

sonitus mirus said:


> Why not make consecutive tests, where you completely breakdown the entire setup and begin over again to see if the results are consistent or if there is any significant variation in your results?


 
 I don't have proper equipment and it doesn't make financial sense to buy it just to convince a few denialists  about something that's not really life-changing. Especially with so many taking the anti-scientific attitude I'm seeing at the end of your post, that they will not change their minds no matter what new data is presented to them. 
   





> Also, you should consider every test result, and do not retest until you observe the results you might be expecting to see. Providing the details from this step in the process might strengthen or weaken your position.


 
 Not sure what you were even trying to say here. Something along the lines of "you will fail, but keep trying and after enough failures you will learn the effect is not real"? Nice omniscient condescension you've got going there, Master Yoda.


----------



## sonitus mirus

abm0 said:


> Not sure what you were even trying to say here. Something along the lines of "you will fail, but keep trying and after enough failures you will learn the effect is not real"? Nice omniscient condescension you've got going there, Master Yoda.


 
  
 What I was suggesting was that you take multiple tests to see if your results are consistent, and if the results are wildly different, keep all of those results and move on to the next test.   Don't throw away any results if they seem way off from the rest of the tests.  Aren't you curious to find out that you are capable of reproducing consistent results every time?  I don't mean set everything up and take multiple recording sessions, I meant picking up the phone and headphones, and attempting it again.  Are you always using the same exact positioning, even several months later?  My opinion is that your test results are inconclusive, and I doubt you would convince me otherwise with this particular testing methodology.  I was merely suggest that you might want to see how consistent your own testing might be, for yourself.   And for the record, I mostly resemble a cross between Yoda and Chewbacca from the Star Wars lore, so perhaps Dilettante Yobadda would be more appropriate.


----------



## Ancipital

abm0 said:


> I don't have proper equipment and it doesn't make financial sense to buy it just to convince a few denialists  about something that's not really life-changing. Especially with so many taking the anti-scientific attitude I'm seeing at the end of your post, that they will not change their minds no matter what new data is presented to them.
> Not sure what you were even trying to say here. Something along the lines of "you will fail, but keep trying and after enough failures you will learn the effect is not real"? Nice omniscient condescension you've got going there, Master Yoda.


 
  
 At the risk of stoking the fires here (as it's getting ugly), I feel like I have to stick my oar in again. Please wait until I am done blathering before you throw things.
  
 Like you, I very strongly feel that there's a burn-in effect, especially given my overwhelming experience with my new HE-400i (they sound amazing now, BTW, performing well out of their price range). It's jaw-dropping. However, I am aware that the senses serve very poorly as a calibrated measuring device. What you can very strongly perceive can simply not exist outside of your brain- here is a lovely example:
  
 http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/psychology/pages.php?i=212
  
Psychoacoustics is a very weird and counter-intuitive field sometimes. There are many examples that lavishly illustrate how little we can trust our ears.. another one:
  
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0
  
 No-one thinks you're lying, but please keep in mind that they might be a little frustrated too. Measuring things like this is hard, and does require some accuracy- as well as a good idea of what you're measuring and how to interpret the results objectively, while ensuring statistical significance. Hearing an effect and then measuring it badly is more or less a gift to confirmation bias.
  
 I believe you're hearing what you're hearing, and hell, that I am too. What I don't know is what's causing us to hear it..


----------



## castleofargh

abm0 said:


> sonitus mirus said:
> 
> 
> > Why not make consecutive tests, where you completely breakdown the entire setup and begin over again to see if the results are consistent or if there is any significant variation in your results?
> ...


 

 you just keep creating your own enemies. I never told you burn in couldn't exist to some levels or was proved not to exist, @bfreedma also didn't, he just talked about expected magnitudes and how your test has fatal flaws(like I explained too). @sonitus mirus suggest you do more measurements and experiments with positions and stuff so that you can see for yourself the flaws of your test and what needs to be addressed.
 you're the only one in denial here if you still believe your little experiment represents valid data even after 3 people explained to you why it isn't.  just strawmaning your way to make it look like a black&white fight where you're the only rational guy won't change reality and the requirements to make proper measurements.


----------



## abm0

ancipital said:


> Hearing an effect and then measuring it badly is more or less a gift to confirmation bias.


 
 Except I didn't hear and then measure, I just kept measuring and doing short listening sessions at long intervals until I finally liked what I heard. At 115 hours in I was still pretty disappointed and thinking the reviews had way overhyped this model and/or the benefits of burning headphones in, or that I just had a pair that was especially unresponsive to burn-in, that I would have to take the loss and re-sell them etc., but I kept going because the highest number of hours anyone had recommended for these was 400 or so. And 80-ish hours of pure sweeps later... boom! _There_'s a sound I can enjoy long-term. _There_'s that burn-in effect everyone was talking about. 
  
 And the coincidence of a better subjective experience, better measured graph, and a new burn-in method for the last leg (I'd never done pure sweeps until then; very short sweeps had been part of some mixed pink noise + sweeps sound that I used for the first 50 hours, but those added up to too little to be comparable to 80 hours of continuous pure sweeps, plus I got more confident/desperate with the volume as well toward the end) simply does not allow me to seriously doubt the effect was real - that the sound changed due to driver burn-in and that the best method to achieve that turned out to be playing 20-20k frequency sweeps at a volume somewhat louder than would be comfortable for long listening sessions.


----------



## abm0

castleofargh said:


> you just keep creating your own enemies.
> [...]
> reality and the requirements to make proper measurements.


 
 I've already agreed with everyone about what needs to happen for the hypothesis to be properly proven (maybe with some quibbles about how stringent the controls should be in order for the results to be considered convincing - I still highly doubt the part about millimeter-positioning; if that were true, all those best-in-class, highly expensive models out there could be turned to crap by moving them on your head slightly or, worse, by having the wrong shape of head or external ear. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





). What's creating enemies is continuing to bash my experiment past this point, past this admission.


----------



## sonitus mirus

I'm no enemy, friend.  I appreciate that you took the time to actually make an observation and shared these results with everyone.


----------



## castleofargh

abm0 said:


> castleofargh said:
> 
> 
> > you just keep creating your own enemies.
> ...


 

 but that can happen. not turning them into crap, but altering the signature measurably for sure. even more so when there are reflections on different surfaces at different angles, moving just a little can have a significant impact(comb effect and stuff like that). just look at innerfidelity's measurements, it's a special case as the headphone is put in kind of ideal situation to simulate a real head. but even then, Tyll always does several measurements(the grey lines on the frequency graph) at different positions for that very reason. and the measure shown in color is an average of all the other measurements. all those are done on a dummy head so within the possible movements of the headphone around the fake ears. and some have huge variations, others have a small ones. just like speakers, some have a steady signature only at one point, some sound relatively stable in a wider area(usually the expensive stuff for speakers 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




).
 on my hd650 for example, if I move both sides like 0.5cm toward the back of my head instead of centered(still with a good seal and not pressing on my ears), I get a louder 10khz that is IMO audible.


----------



## Yoshi948

han bao quan said:


> So, I'm not sure if anyone has posted this, but Tyll over at Innerfidelity did an article on breaking-in headphones. It's quite an interesting read.
> 
> http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/measurement-and-audibility-headphone-break
> 
> ...


I thought it also had a phycological factor. Your brain modifying the "sound signature" to fit to your liking. Although, not too dramatic. Since each headphone will sound different. So yea, burning-in is really a placebo. It's your brain making it feel like it's burn-in. That's why listening to music over and over will "change" a headphones sound.


----------



## Dulalala

Well, just to add my opinion here...
 (disclaimer: I didn't read the rest of the thread so apologies if I repeat any information already given) 
  
 In my experience, burn in is dependent on the headphone/IEM. I've only really experienced "burn in" that was drastic enough to convince me it wasn't a placebo once. I was helping a friend purchase an IEM a while back. I demoed the model at the shop but once we opened the new one, I noticed that it sounded rather different. About 2 months later, another friend of mine purchased the same IEM model, so I took that opportunity to AB them, the older pair and the newer one. The difference was enough that I was sure it wasn't a placebo effect. Now I have zero evidence for this, nor can I get any. I don't have a microphone good enough to make a frequency response and even if I did, it happened a while ago so I'm sure the "newer" pair has already been used up enough for any "burn in" to occur. 
  
 The IEM purchased was the Audio Technica IM50 for anyone interested.


----------



## LaughMoreDaily

yoshi948 said:


> So yea, burning-in is really a placebo. It's your brain making it feel like it's burn-in. That's why listening to music over and over will "change" a headphones sound.


 
 Burning in is a placebo? Lol. Yeah right, I knew it was real before I ever even knew what burning in was. If the brain is that smart to make something sound better just by playing it through a pair of headphones in another room when we're not even listening them, that'd be a joke in itself. It's possible but highly doubful. 
  
 We have to remember not all companies, brands, etc make their headphones the same way. Some sound amazing out of the box, while others sound terrible but eventually after burn in, sound better, much better, and some just sound a little better. It's really about the quality of materials.
  
 Maybe some people's ears just aren't smart enough to notice burn in? It's quite possible.


----------



## Yoshi948

laughmoredaily said:


> Burning in is a placebo? Lol. Yeah right, I knew it was real before I ever even knew what burning in was. If the brain is that smart to make something sound better just by playing it through a pair of headphones in another room when we're not even listening them, that'd be a joke in itself. It's possible but highly doubful.
> 
> We have to remember not all companies, brands, etc make their headphones the same way. Some sound amazing out of the box, while others sound terrible but eventually after burn in, sound better, much better, and some just sound a little better. It's really about the quality of materials.
> 
> Maybe some people's ears just aren't smart enough to notice burn in? It's quite possible.


It is placebo... The more you get used to them, the "better" they sound. It hasn't even been scientifically proven .


----------



## Intensecure

"Yeah right, I knew it was real before I ever even knew what burning in was."
Just a slight case of expectation bias there, possibly. 
"Some sound amazing out of the box, while others sound terrible but eventually after burn in, sound better, much better, and some just sound a little better."
OK, you have no proof of any of that, anecdotal evidence is not proof, before you bother offering any, and they always sound better huh? Even the "terrible" sounding ones.. Wow, quite magical properties this "burn-in" possesses.  Defies the law of averages, as well as common sense.
"It's really about the quality of materials" - well, yes... and no. You need to provide a bit more evidence of why you think that is the case. And how does it relate? The "terrible sounding" ones are the bad materials and take more "burn-in" or is it the other way around? 
"Maybe some people's ears just aren't smart enough to notice burn in? It's quite possible"
Actually it would be the brain that isn't smart enough to notice burn-in, and I would agree with you, but not in the way that you would conclude.  
All in a days laughs..Peace, out.


----------



## castleofargh

yoshi948 said:


> laughmoredaily said:
> 
> 
> > Burning in is a placebo? Lol. Yeah right, I knew it was real before I ever even knew what burning in was. If the brain is that smart to make something sound better just by playing it through a pair of headphones in another room when we're not even listening them, that'd be a joke in itself. It's possible but highly doubful.
> ...


 

 placebo doesn't mean a device can't also go through changes over time. they aren't mutually exclusive propositions.
 what is wrong is to entirely discard placebo thinking "I know what I heard" or "I remember how it sounded", because that's a little like the mad person in the asylum saying "I'm not mad". nobody believes it aside from maybe the guy himself. we all have memory failure and expectation biases, that's how humans are. self confidence doesn't change that, it only makes people claim false stuff more often. ^_^
  
 IMO the search for truth doesn't give us the luxury to just cherry pick the variable that agrees with us. proper measurements tell us if the sound changed over time, not a dude thinking his memory is accurate. most of this debate is really about people thinking they don't need a proper method to test things, or actual evidence to make claims.
 one doesn't demonstrate burn in with an opinion!


----------



## abm0

You don't get to pick and choose which InnerFidelity article to read and just declare that the "final verdict", much less "scientifically proven" (haha).
 Here:
 http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/evidence-headphone-break#quXyjIDdy5UOxmLS.97
 http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/testing-audibility-break-effects
  
 ... and even in the article posted earlier on this thread there was an objective improvement in terms of intermodulation distortion, so I can safely say that every single time Tyll Hertsens posted an article about burn-in it contained evidence in support of burn-in being a real effect.
  
 And of course he's not the only one:
 http://www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm
 http://rinchoi.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-effect-of-break-in-vsonic-vc02.html?m=1
 http://rinchoi.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-effect-of-break-in-creative-aurvana.html
  
 And a sort of round-up of the different claimed/possible types of burn-in:
 http://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/tutorials/burn-in/
  
 So knowing all this I maintain that there are two things to keep in mind if the issue is going to be "settled" or a verdict to be established in any kind of "final" way as regards _night and day / clearly audible_ changes in headphone drivers (not pads, not listener brains):
 1. not all drivers are the same, just because one driver doesn't change much with burn-in it doesn't mean no other driver will (the cheapest ones should have been the focus of these experiments, not expensive AKGs and Sennheisers and whatnot)
 2. if a rigorous InnerFidelity-style experiment is performed on a brand new Superlux HD668B there will be orders of magnitude more burn-in effect than what Tyll saw in his previous attempts.


----------



## hoanguyen

I'm new here and have not read most of the posts above.
  
 Few weeks ago I got the Grado PS1000e. listened a couple hours and then burned it over 200 continuously hours.  I could not tell the difference between before and after burning.  It is the same as I could not tell the difference between $5 and $1000 interconnection cables (or speaker wire as long as large gauge sizes.  had friends who spent several thousand dollars for cables and claimed that the sound was significantly improved but I did not heard the difference).
  
 Obviously, I do not have golden ears as many people.
  
 HN


----------



## Mr Rick

hoanguyen said:


> I'm new here and have not read most of the posts above.
> 
> Few weeks ago I got the Grado PS1000e. listened a couple hours and then burned it over 200 continuously hours.  I could not tell the difference between before and after burning.  It is the same as I could not tell the difference between $5 and $1000 interconnection cables (or speaker wire as long as large gauge sizes.  had friends who spent several thousand dollars for cables and claimed that the sound was significantly improved but I did not heard the difference).
> 
> ...


 
 Lucky for you. ( And me ) It saves us $$$ in the long run.


----------



## Petyot

abm0 said:


> *And a sort of round-up of the different claimed/possible types of burn-in*:
> http://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/tutorials/burn-in/


 
  
 From this article :
  
_*Conclusion:*_

_For* electronics* burn-in (as in changing the sound signature over the first time period) is *fiction* as in changing sonic signatures*.*_

_Some electronic circuits may need some time to *warm-up* and achieve their optimal operation points. In some cases this MAY be audible. Burn-in this is not._

_Cables and 99% of all passive components *do not need burn-in* nor will they actually* change* *electrical properties *over time, certainly not to levels that reach the audibility threshold. Some may feel their audible thresholds are MUCH lower than those of the ‘non-hearing’ crowd._

_Scientifically controled tests, however, have never shown that the thresholds differ that much between trained listeners and audiophiles._

_Some components do change with age but doubt that this will *increase* the perceived sound quality over time._

_It may take years or even* tens of years* before degradation may become noticeable._

_Parts that do *degrade* over time (*wear an tear, oxidise* or get *dirty*) will usually degrade the sound but also after a LONG period of time._

_For *electro-mechanical-acoustical components* like headphone drivers it is clear that *break-in exists* BUT …. the *audibility* of this remains to be seen._

_From a technical viewpoint *warm-up* and *break-in* is *real* but think *brain-in* is just as real._

_IMO the many ‘reports’ of ‘considerable’ changes in sonic signature are greatly *exaggerated* or could be attributed to other reasons than an actual change in performance/sound.
 Of course, what some may call substantial may be marginal, not worth mentioning or inaudible to others._

_So before one says .. *burn-in/break-in is real* and I can *clearly hear* the improvements one may have to wonder if these *perceived* improvements are ‘real’ and caused by actual changes in the driver or that they may be caused by one or more other reasons._

That's a good synthesis of what I think on that matter...


----------



## jagwap

petyot said:


> From this article :
> 
> _*Conclusion:*_
> 
> ...


 
  
 He makes good points.
  
 However I've seen graphs of the changing of ESR (Electrical Series Resistance) in electrolytic capacitors over the first few hundred of hours as the electrolyte settles to it's working voltage.
  
 I've measured the change in performance as class B amplifiers warm up over hours, depending on their thermal mass.  Not burn in as such, but:  Some use phase change thermal pads, which once flowed, will alter thermal gradients, and capacitance to chassis.
  
 Why does everyone think that only frequency response shows sonic differences?  Give someone an oscilloscope and they fix waveforms.  Give them an Audio Precision and they will fix frequency response and THD.  Give them a Klipple.... etc.   Mechanical materials will have difference transient responses if the break in.
  
 There is more going on than "it cannot be happening as frequency response is not different enough."


----------



## castleofargh

finally spent the time to read the article and there are also a few points I'm not entirely agreeing with. I mostly like what I read so it's more nitpicking than really thinking he's wrong. like saying that some electrical components cannot change behavior if checked at the same temperature. while for all intended purposes it's ok, extreme statements will always have something to prove them wrong at least a few times.
  
 also I half agree with that:


> The *impedance measurements* Tyll made (almost at the bottom) are more reliable IMO simply because they are measured in the electrical domain (signal path). The impedance has a direct relation to mechanical compliance and damping. I think Tyll did show that *driver properties* actually *changed* by these impedance measurements alone.
> Of course it doesn’t say anything about the* **audibility* of these small changes.


 
 I started writing about my concerns and half understood theory, but an actual example is better. click on graph for readable size:

 I just measured this right now for the cause. my hd650 with fairly new(a week old) pads on my head with earplugs for the measure. then the same impedance measurement with some 3year old pads, again on my head. and then one with the headphone lying on my desk and the cable however it fell when I put the headphone down.
 it's limited to impedance, obviously no burn in the all thing took 10mn including repeated measurements for control and the headphone is several years old. yet it's not hard to get a change and even a shift in the peak frequency. so I obviously don't agree that Tyll's impedance measurement is more conclusive for changes in the driver over time.
  
 for the sake of clarity, I did a few measurements and finished with another measure of the new pads to check if manipulation alone could have as much impact.I got a very tiny difference but for this scale, almost identical to the first measurement of new pad I did before changing them for old ones. just to say the variations on the graph seem significant and not simply the result of lack of precision in my measurement method.


----------



## Cold Train

I'm the kind of guy who always buy everything by pair from $10 to $100, most of my gaming headphones as well as they get in an ''unrepairable or repairs will cost as much as a new pair'' position quite often. When swapping from the old pair to a brand new one, there's a HUGE difference in terms of sound quality, I will have to use it at least 100 hours before matching the old pair.


----------



## sonitus mirus (May 26, 2017)

Cold Train said:


> I'm the kind of guy who always buy everything by pair from $10 to $100, most of my gaming headphones as well as they get in an ''unrepairable or repairs will cost as much as a new pair'' position quite often. When swapping from the old pair to a brand new one, there's a HUGE difference in terms of sound quality, I will have to use it at least 100 hours before matching the old pair.



Yeah, maybe.

This is what I can come up with from the top of my head.  I'm sure there are probably several other scenarios that could contribute to your experiences.

Several models of headphones costing between $10-$100 have to burn in for at least 100 hours and undergo huge sonic changes during this period.
The manufacturing process for several models of headphones costing between $10-$100 have build tolerances that allow for huge variations in performance and the user gets accustomed to the sound signature after 100 hours of use.
Several models of headphones costing between $10-$100 wear out over time with regards to the ear pads, clamping tightness or other fit, and at 100 hours of use, it is possible to have a huge change in the sound signature.
The differences between several models of headphones costing between $10-$100 are nearly identical in sonic performance immediately after being unboxed and after 100 hours of use.  Bias is responsible for any person believing they are hearing a huge difference between the new and old version.
Maybe a little of each: 1, 2, 3, 4


----------



## Cold Train

sonitus mirus said:


> Yeah, maybe.
> 
> This is what I can come up with from the top of my head.  I'm sure there are probably several other scenarios that could contribute to your experiences.
> 
> ...



I would choose the No1 but this actually applies to mostly every headphones, I also own headphones of up to $1700 (Audeze LCD X, Fostex TH900 and Ether C 1.1) the main difference with high end ones, would be a little improvement instead of a huge improvement (cf. Tyll Hertsens on page 1) , the technology does come into play, many people will *deny *that planar and balanced armature drivers requires break-in. The same applies to religions, everyone has an opinion and we shall be respectful.


----------



## sonitus mirus

Cold Train said:


> I would choose the No1 but this actually applies to mostly every headphones, I also own headphones of up to $1700 (Audeze LCD X, Fostex TH900 and Ether C 1.1) the main difference with high end ones, would be a little improvement instead of a huge improvement (cf. Tyll Hertsens on page 1) , the technology does come into play, many people will *deny *that planar and balanced armature drivers requires break-in. The same applies to religions, everyone has an opinion and we shall be respectful.



Sounds good, thanks for sharing.


----------



## castleofargh

I would add, random accidents and daily handling. I'm one to try and deal with my gear as nicely as possible, even for putting the headphone on the table for 10 seconds to go grab a drink, I have a dedicated old mouse pad that's fairly thick and very flexible? it has a gummy feeling? I don't know the proper word for that ^_^. just so that I never hits a solid surface with a headphone even when they're not stored properly on a stand because I'm lazy. but despite all my care, fact is I did drop the hd650 I measured above, maybe 4 or 5 times in the last 3years. it's never from a full height and I have some thick carpet on the floor, but still crap happened. and if we start talking IEMs.... guilt is all I have thinking how badly I treat some. 

but my little experience with having owned 2 pairs of BT headphones and a few pairs of cheap IEMs, they typically have an audible difference from the get go. the manufacturing accuracy isn't so great that I can't tell them apart when someone hands them to me with my eyes closed. so I would be careful about using audible differences between 2 pairs to draw conclusions on burn in. as @sonitus mirus put it, burn is but one of several possibilities. we cannot and shouldn't conclude anything about burn in without first having the testing means to control or remove the other possibilities. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but burn in discussions seem to be a constant reminder that the process of getting conclusive evidence isn't what most people think it is. burn in is just the subject revealing the logical flaw in most testing methods brought up by members.


----------



## jagwap

Cold Train said:


> I would choose the No1 but this actually applies to mostly every headphones, I also own headphones of up to $1700 (Audeze LCD X, Fostex TH900 and Ether C 1.1) the main difference with high end ones, would be a little improvement instead of a huge improvement (cf. Tyll Hertsens on page 1) , the technology does come into play, many people will *deny *that planar and balanced armature drivers requires break-in. The same applies to religions, everyone has an opinion and we shall be respectful.



I would add that cheap headphones get minimal testing, while high end headphones should get longer testing, and hopefully a long term (24 hours +?) test, sometimes unfortunately called "infant mortality" test, as most failures happen in the first few hours of use.  This will remove the most significant burn in hours from the users experience.


----------



## Cold Train

castleofargh said:


> I would add, random accidents and daily handling. I'm one to try and deal with my gear as nicely as possible, even for putting the headphone on the table for 10 seconds to go grab a drink, I have a dedicated old mouse pad that's fairly thick and very flexible? it has a gummy feeling? I don't know the proper word for that ^_^. just so that I never hits a solid surface with a headphone even when they're not stored properly on a stand because I'm lazy. but despite all my care, fact is I did drop the hd650 I measured above, maybe 4 or 5 times in the last 3years. it's never from a full height and I have some thick carpet on the floor, but still **** happened. and if we start talking IEMs.... guilt is all I have thinking how badly I treat some.
> 
> but my little experience with having owned 2 pairs of BT headphones and a few pairs of cheap IEMs, they typically have an audible difference from the get go.* the manufacturing accuracy isn't so great *that I can't tell them apart when someone hands them to me with my eyes closed. so I would be careful about using audible differences between 2 pairs to draw conclusions on burn in. as @sonitus mirus put it, burn is but one of several possibilities. we cannot and shouldn't conclude anything about burn in without first having the testing means to control or remove the other possibilities. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but burn in discussions seem to be a constant reminder that the process of getting conclusive evidence isn't what most people think it is. burn in is just the subject revealing the logical flaw in most testing methods brought up by members.



Totally agree with your statement, however the undeligned sentence applies only to lower/mid tier headphones. That would be a shame to hear such discrepancies on supposed '' hand matched drivers'' on $1500+ flagships


----------



## castleofargh

as I said somewhere(maybe here? ^_^) for the most part when they pay special attention it is indeed to get matched drivers. meaning they make sure that left and right driver are within whatever margin they decided to define(FR difference within 1 or 2dB inside a predetermined frequency range). but that doesn't mean you won't get 2 pairs of the same model with 2 or 3 db variations between them. that would be another measurement standard and I'm not sure who cares for that or which margin the manufacturer uses. 
so the assumption that 2 new pairs will sound the same could do with some objective verification before moving on to get one "burned in".


----------



## abm0

castleofargh said:


> when they pay special attention it is indeed to get matched drivers.


Sometimes they match them so strictly they give you a pair with two left cups. ) Sorry, still haven't stopped laughing about that "overmatched" 400i that popped up on Reddit.


----------



## dotrunghieu

hoanguyen said:


> I'm new here and have not read most of the posts above.
> 
> Few weeks ago I got the Grado PS1000e. listened a couple hours and then burned it over 200 continuously hours.  I could not tell the difference between before and after burning.  It is the same as I could not tell the difference between $5 and $1000 interconnection cables (or speaker wire as long as large gauge sizes.  had friends who spent several thousand dollars for cables and claimed that the sound was significantly improved but I did not heard the difference).
> 
> ...



I own $700 after market headphone cables. But I use stock cable most the time because stock longer and lighter than my after market cable. 

Why I buy after market cables. Because I thought I can tell the differences. 


But I can tell a brand new headphone difference with 100 hours burn in headphone for sure. Not even headphones, I can tell differents any type devices like laptop speakers, sound alarm devices, door bell systems, that what they are brand new or have many hours burn in sound.


----------



## EtherealPoetry

I've always assumed that it was me adjusting to headphones, not the other way around.


----------



## frodeni

castleofargh said:


> as I said somewhere(maybe here? ^_^) for the most part when they pay special attention it is indeed to get matched drivers. meaning they make sure that left and right driver are within whatever margin they decided to define(FR difference within 1 or 2dB inside a predetermined frequency range). but that doesn't mean you won't get 2 pairs of the same model with 2 or 3 db variations between them. that would be another measurement standard and I'm not sure who cares for that or which margin the manufacturer uses.
> so the assumption that 2 new pairs will sound the same could do with some objective verification before moving on to get one "burned in".



This assumes that the cans can be objectively measured, which is what is contested. That has serious implications. If you want to test any break-in, just hand out new and burned out sets, and use qualitative research methods.

This is naturally not about burn-in or not. Both the measurement tests and user listening experience is at question, as is clearly shown in the OP. If it is possible to target out a sonic trait, that consistently beats out the measuring device, that would be great. Not to ditch the machine, but hopefully to improve it, or to to understand what went wrong, as to use it more correctly. The worst thing that can happen, is if people beat the machine, but no quantification of why is found. If no vitrifaction of any audio able traits are found, and that continues to be the case, then we got a problem. Particularly if test are rigged to generate true positives, as to quantify what the positive might be.

If this is ever understood, then it might be useful to run a larger scale test, using the specific sonic traits. That would typically be used to support the original finding, or to test along with improved measuring techniques.

If psychology turns up as a major player, as it very well might do, an obvious choice would be to try to include that field as well.

Personally I do not get the rally going around these topics. I simply do not get why people spend time testing a headset for burn-in as reported in the OP. Amplitude readings and THD is not in correlation with peoples experience, and proving that over and over, is good for what really? I also struggle with those who ignore a ton of really solid research, and just dismisses it like it is useless. There clearly is something major that is not understood, and to be honest, doing what is needed to uncover that, is not where a lot of people is going. It actually hurt us badly, as a community.


----------



## castleofargh

man! be more like that and you'll have me as your number 1 fan.


----------



## Headzone

I have my Sony's burning in atm . going for 200hrs on this pair. besides they're going for sale soon. I also have put my AKG pads in a pad flattener machine. (two pieces of wood and a 20lbs pc.) I call that "break in".


----------



## turkayguner

I have never been a believer in breaking-in stuff. There was just one time though. I got the RHA MA750i from the package and plugged it in the phone's out. It was sounding like there was a lowpass filter at around 500Hz. I plugged off and in again, changed tracks but nope it was all the same like filtered out all the mids and highs. I was like what da..?!? And put them off of my ears because I was very frustrated and started digging the internet about issues with MA750. During my research phone was playing through MA750i unintentionally and when I wanted to give it another try, I put them in my ears and was shocked. There were no filtered-like sound anymore. I think it was something with the dynamic driver due to humidity or something. Still not an evidence to break-in though.


----------



## abm0

Zeos' new break-in test of the Sony MDR-Z1R: 

A viewer graphed his data here: http://imgur.com/a/qM9aU
The flatter curve is always the compensation or opposite of the changes in FR that had occured after that number of hours.

Looks quite audible, but he didn't account for pad compression, so it's not necessarily indicative of how much the drivers may have changed. :/


----------



## castleofargh

pads were never even a question. they totally matter and absolutely change the sound over time. but to me that's like the filters in my IEM. if changing for new ones reverts to the original signature, should that be called burn in? 
isn't burn in about the drivers changing over time?


----------



## Strangelove424

Is this a burn in or a torture test? I wonder if the sound changed over an unrealistically long 100hr cycle due not just to pad compression, but basic mechanical effects like heating up of the voice coil. Would the headphone change through the length of each 100 hr marathon session, regardless of age? And does all of this make enough difference to make judging the headphone impossible?

His headphones do sound good though. Or do mine sound good? Maybe it's his mics. The chicken, or the egg... or the rooster?


----------



## frodeni

turkayguner said:


> I have never been a believer in breaking-in stuff. There was just one time though. I got the RHA MA750i from the package and plugged it in the phone's out. It was sounding like there was a lowpass filter at around 500Hz. I plugged off and in again, changed tracks but nope it was all the same like filtered out all the mids and highs. I was like what da..?!? And put them off of my ears because I was very frustrated and started digging the internet about issues with MA750. During my research phone was playing through MA750i unintentionally and when I wanted to give it another try, I put them in my ears and was shocked. There were no filtered-like sound anymore. I think it was something with the dynamic driver due to humidity or something. Still not an evidence to break-in though.



This resembles my experience as well. I experience a change, but in all honesty, I do not comprehend why I do. It is so bloody hard to describe something I do not understand, and is also a bit socially intimating. Claiming something without even being close to reason for it, to me, often times feels like arguing a UFO sighting.

"Hey, people, listen, this USB-cable is awesome!" It just does not sit well, with my fellow ICT students. It still is my experience: In my experience, there is a distinct difference using different USB cables, and in all honesty, there really should not be. It just makes no sense at all. None what so ever. Signal loss over USB is simply insanely close to zero, it sort of is a stated design goal of the interconnect.

Some argue that humans learns to infer the sound, and improve that skill to infer the reproduction over time. There is probably something to that. I have used my HD800 extensively for two years now, and going back to my Denons, it takes some getting used to. The Denons also resembles the speakers I use, and the cans of my pasts. Yet, all my listening experiences cannot be reasonably explained by just that. I just had a re-solder job done on the cable for the HD800, and actually had to re-do the soldering as there were something completely off by the imaging rendering. After the second resoldering, the renedering appeared substantially improved, and more realistic. There was a completely different rendering of the higher end (the part that my ears are still able to hear though), as compared to my recollection of the rendering before the cable broke.

To me, this resembles my experience with any headphone cable I have broken. The reproduction at the end, actually resembles the reproduction if you use very thin cables, like the ones use in tiny transformers. Like when some slight resistance is added, which would be the physicist in me screaming. (I actually had two classes of physics at the University of Oslo). The thing is, if I tried to measure these cables, I most certainly do not posses any metering device that could tell any difference on this cable. Nor do I believe any instrument at the university would help me any. But I do experience a difference, and simply could not track voices like I used to, for a few days after the last soldering job. Right now, everything is incredibly tight for imaging, and separation is killing it. I just do not know why this is so. In one instance, I simply cannot separate instruments properly, and voices appear smudgy as for imaging. (not precisely placed on the soundstage). After a few days, everything falls into place.

What troubles me, is the insane number of soldering points inside the HA-1 of mine. That is a lot of mess, for just one soldering point. The implications are sort of mind blowing, if there is anything to this.

"Go For Broke" by MGK and James Arthur was puzzling. There's just so much multi dubbing of voices in that tune, and this soldering thing threw this completely off for me. I could not trace the voices properly. It improved by time. At times there is at least quadruple recordings of Arthur. Really funky artistic work, at least to me.

Do I claim that I know that the soldering needed to burn-in? No. Not really. But I am experiencing a clear shift in my skill as a listener after this soldering job. My claim is that I do have that experience, and that I know the physics, even have some schooling on it, yet I have no real explanation for my experience. Also, the physics appears dead sound. To me, there is a lack of understanding, bridging the gap of theory and experience. It is also bloody hard to describe what I am sensing, as the reasonable part of my head is screaming that this simply should not be. Yet I cannot escape, that this is, to me, a real experience. Bewildering as it is, describing it precise is hard.

Does the measuring in the OP answer any of my questions? No. There is a ton of people who report to experience what we are not even close to measure. Not much news in this test really. No smoking gun at all. The gap between experience and theory, is simply not closed merely by restating the obvious and the known.


----------



## Ramblinman (Jan 8, 2018)

xnor said:


> Quote:
> 
> 
> Nope, if the diaphragm and voice coil in a headphone driver loosen up it's broken. Headphone drivers are not like loudspeaker drivers, there's no big movement, actually there's hardly any movement at all unless you really crank the volume.




This seems very counterintuitive. Any diaphragm type device will loosen up just through regular use and very well may become more effective when it becomes more flexible. Not the diaphragm itself necessarily, but the surround or other portion that allows it to move and reset. I would think bass response would benefit the most (just thinking logically) because it takes greater movement of a diaphragm to create it. Even if the movement is small, the easier the diaphragm is to move the more efficient it will become.

But, then again, what I am describing sounds more like "break in" (like a baseball glove) than "burn in" which sounds downright destructive 

Am I way off base here?


----------



## bigshot

If a transducer isn't anchored properly the sound can certainly go to pot. But manufacturers aim for consistent performance, so they design the excursion so it doesn't change over time.


----------



## jagwap

Ramblinman said:


> This seems very counterintuitive. Any diaphragm type device will loosen up just through regular use and very well may become more effective when it becomes more flexible. Not the diaphragm itself necessarily, but the surround or other portion that allows it to move and reset. I would think bass response would benefit the most (just thinking logically) because it takes greater movement of a diaphragm to create it. Even if the movement is small, the easier the diaphragm is to move the more efficient it will become.
> 
> But, then again, what I am describing sounds more like "break in" (like a baseball glove) than "burn in" which sounds downright destructive
> 
> Am I way off base here?



You are not way off base. The problem here is that this does not show up in frequency response curves to any great extent, so it will not be believed here by many.

Any mechanical system can exhibit break in. But with high quality materials the measured performance will not be obvious until you look in more detail. Google: driver break-in klippel. Klippel make measurement equipment which can measure the change in stiffness of the driver parts through laser interferometry. They are not a psudo science outfit, but the most respected driver measurement manufacturer in the world. Their articles discuss this.

There is more to audio than frequency response.


----------



## bigshot

If performance changes over a period of a week or two, how do you keep it from continuing to degrade? Maybe headphones could come with expiration dates... replace after 500 hours. That sort of thing.


----------



## Ramblinman

jagwap said:


> You are not way off base. The problem here is that this does not show up in frequency response curves to any great extent, so it will not be believed here by many.
> 
> Any mechanical system can exhibit break in. But with high quality materials the measured performance will not be obvious until you look in more detail. Google: driver break-in klippel. Klippel make measurement equipment which can measure the change in stiffness of the driver parts through laser interferometry. They are not a psudo science outfit, but the most respected driver measurement manufacturer in the world. Their articles discuss this.
> 
> There is more to audio than frequency response.


Exactly, if there weren't, tube amps would sound like garbage.
They certainly don't measure well typically.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 8, 2018)

Tube amps can certainly sound as good as solid state amps. It's just easier and cheaper to make great sounding solid state amps. Most solid state amps perform far beyond the threshold of audible transparency. They measure better, but they don't necessarily sound better because your ears have limitations.


----------



## Ramblinman

bigshot said:


> Tube amps can certainly sound as good as solid state amps. It's just easier and cheaper to make great sounding solid state amps. Most solid state amps perform far beyond the threshold of audible transparency. They measure better, but they don't necessarily sound better because your ears have limitations.


totally agree, my point is that they typically do not measure very well on conventional measuring equipment even when they sound great. IMHO they often sound better than solid state.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> If performance changes over a period of a week or two, how do you keep it from continuing to degrade? Maybe headphones could come with expiration dates... replace after 500 hours. That sort of thing.



It is asymptotic. The burn in is a deminishing return until a steady state is achived. Of course the driver can also wear out, but the time frame for that is so much longer it has a miniscule contribution until near end of life occurs.

Now a good design team will not attempt fine tuning until break-in is completed (at least 90%), so that the production units will also end up sounding as desired.

I have worked at numerous audio companies, and ALL of them break-in drivers before tuning, or validation.  There always seems to be a pair of speakers, face to face and out of phase facing each other (cancelation lowers annoying sound leakage) with music playing each time you head home.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 8, 2018)

Who says burn in hits a static state? Change is change. If it changes, odds are it will continue changing. If burn in was a real thing, the manufacturer would burn in and test before they shipped, wouldn't they? I think burn in is just an excuse to get consumers to exceed their return window.

By the way, I was part of a test group for a darn good set of headphones, and they sent us copies to evaluate that were fresh off the boat. They didn't tell us to burn them in before evaluating. I tested two copies- one prototype that I had been using for a couple hundred hours over a period of weeks and one that was fresh out of the box from the production run. They both sounded exactly the same. I ran a tone sweep on them and they were identical.

I do think it's a good idea to run audio equipment a while when you first get it. If something is going to fail, it will likely do it sooner than later, and if it fails fast, it's easier to return. That is probably the core of the idea that got conflated with trying to get people to exceed their return window to create the myth of burn in.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Who says burn in hits a static state? Change is change. If it changes, odds are it will continue changing.



I said it is asymptotic, so it iterates to a final state. If you want to be pedantic (really? Here in this forum?) Then this means continuously changing, but less and less per unit of time until failure. But at some point the change settles to an amout undetectable.



> If burn in was a real thing, the manufacturer would burn in and test before they shipped, wouldn't they? I think burn in is just an excuse to get consumers to exceed their return window.



They do not need to as burn in does not affect basic functional testing enough to stop the test asserting the unit is good.



> By the way, I was part of a test group for a darn good set of headphones, and they sent us copies to evaluate that were fresh off the boat. They didn't tell us to burn them in before evaluating. I tested two copies- one prototype that I had been using for a couple hundred hours over a period of weeks and one that was fresh out of the box from the production run. They both sounded exactly the same. I ran a tone sweep on them and they were identical.
> 
> I do think it's a good idea to run audio equipment a while when you first get it. If something is going to fail, it will likely do it sooner than later, and if it fails fast, it's easier to return.



Agreed, this is a good policy.  Many manufactures cannot afford to do this, but high end products may be run for up to 24 hours to catch the unfortunately named "infant mortalities". This also serves to do most of the break-in. Perhaps the headphones you tested above had this as a standard test in manufacture?



> That is probably the core of the idea that got conflated with trying to get people to exceed their return window to create the myth of burn in.



Google the terms I put in the above reply.

Break-in is not a myth. There are many myths spoken about it, but it exists.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 9, 2018)

I read your comments but I have no clue what you're talking about. Sorry! Try to be clear, don't try to be erudite about it*. You don't have to impress me with anything but the strength of your argument. If you do that, I'll change my mind and agree with you. Clarity is the best way to convince people.

* we have too much of that around here already!


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I read your comments but I have no clue what you're talking about. Sorry! Try to be clear, don't try to be erudite about it. You don't have to impress me with anything but the strength of your argument. If you do that, I'll change my mind and agree with you. Clarity is the best way to convince people.



Google: driver break-in klippel

You will find some papers including references to break-in


----------



## bigshot (Jan 9, 2018)

Read my post again. It isn't good enough to just post scans of bits from books with yellow highlighter. You have to make your own point clearly. It's not my job to do your research for you.

No one should be here in this forum for the purpose of trying to impress other people. The purpose is to share information with people who have similar interests. Keep that in mind always.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Read my post again. It isn't good enough to just post scans of bits from books with yellow highlighter. You have to make your own point clearly. It's not my job to do your research for you.
> 
> No one should be here in this forum for the purpose of trying to impress other people. The purpose is to share information with people who have similar interests. Keep that in mind always.



Oh shush. I am sharing information: published data from reputable sources and my own experiences from multiple places. 

I am not an accoustic engineer but I have worked with and around some of the best in the industry, and I use their information. Klippel is the top measurement company available.

So I'm not here to impress you or anyone else. I am just agreeing and backing up another forum member's anecdotal findings.


----------



## bigshot

When you feel the urge to actually explain your points, I'm all ears!


----------



## rule42

I'm confused. Sure I get that any mechanical device that involves movement can over time settle down to very slightly different to when it came out of the box, that may or may not affect the sound heard but couldn't that go either way?. What I don't get is that (after having read most of this thread and various articles on the same or similar subjects) the vast majority of listening after the burn-in seem to be a positive experience. How come 50% don't think it sounds worse after 100 hours?


----------



## jagwap

rule42 said:


> I'm confused. Sure I get that any mechanical device that involves movement can over time settle down to very slightly different to when it came out of the box, that may or may not affect the sound heard but couldn't that go either way?. What I don't get is that (after having read most of this thread and various articles on the same or similar subjects) the vast majority of listening after the burn-in seem to be a positive experience. How come 50% don't think it sounds worse after 100 hours?



Consider it this way: Well if the change is relatively predicalble, and all the tuning is done after break-in, then the all headphones should head towards the designers preference, which given they know what they are doing should be an improvement.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 9, 2018)

What if the designers design it to be perfect right out of the box and make it solid so it doesn't change? I'll take that over a crap shoot to see if it settles down properly.



rule42 said:


> What I don't get is that (after having read most of this thread and various articles on the same or similar subjects) the vast majority of listening after the burn-in seem to be a positive experience. How come 50% don't think it sounds worse after 100 hours?



I like the way you think!


----------



## rule42

jagwap said:


> Consider it this way: Well if the change is relatively predicalble, and all the tuning is done after break-in, then the all headphones should head towards the designers preference, which given they know what they are doing should be an improvement.



Tuning is done after break-in?? How does that pan out?


----------



## bigshot

It adds the spice of randomness!


----------



## upstateguy

bigshot said:


> *I do think it's a good idea to run audio equipment a while when you first get it. If something is going to fail, it will likely do it sooner than later, and if it fails fast, it's easier to return.*



Sage Advice.


----------



## Ramblinman

WOW, kind of like watching tennis!


----------



## Killcomic

Butting in....
I think people underestimate the ability of humans ears to get used to sound. It's part of our biology otherwise we would go crazy at every little noise.
I'm in the firm belief that if break in does occur (and I do think it's logical that it does on a mechanical level), the effect is negligible. What we hear is our ears getting used to the sound of new headphones.
When I first got my ATH-M40X, I came from a really bassy pair of IEMs, and they sounded really bright. After while, they sounded perfect! I then got the ATH-LS70is and they sounded bassy and dark. After a while, they sounded perfect!
I put on my M40X again and they sounded really bright. After a while, they sounded perfect! I put on my ATH-LS70is again and they sounded bassy and dark....  and so on ad nauseam.


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## SilverEars (Jan 11, 2018)

Our auditory system is not reliable or consistent, it can be moody.  Some moments you may need greater volume than other times.  Sometimes the sound may sound a bit punchy or too forward, other times not.  You may hit a point when music sounds euphoric listening all night, and other times mediocre with the same setup.

When you switch headphone sigs, there is an interface point when contrast in headphone sig is felt the most.  If you give it time, you get used to the sound since you are giving your ears consistency over a prolonged duration.

If you think about it, burn-in is often pointed out after you get new stuff, and that's when you've switched over from something else.


----------



## bigshot

...and they want you to get used to it so you won't realize it really isn't what you want and return it!


----------



## Killcomic

bigshot said:


> ...and they want you to get used to it so you won't realize it really isn't what you want and return it!


Oh, those dastardly cads! Taking advantage of our biology and such!
CONSPIRACY!


----------



## jagwap

Sure we aclimatise to a new sound.

However I have heard break-in between examples of the same speaker. I have heard it repeatedly, sighted, blind and double blind (not everyone has a speakers ABX bow unfortunately). This is often testing and listening to a pilot run of a new product to check they sound like the sonic golden sample. ABX is the best way to confirm ths.

I'm sorry but I only have sighted experience on headphones, but it seems reasonable that when experts in this field tell me break-in also applies to headphones. My sighted experience comparing new and broken in models agrees.


----------



## SilverEars (Jan 11, 2018)

bigshot said:


> ...and they want you to get used to it so you won't realize it really isn't what you want and return it!


Sure, they want you to get used to the sig as it may sound better, but there other facets to this.  Audiophiles can have the wow period when they initially get new stuff as well, and as they used to it, sound becomes meh or bored of it due to not getting that high as you are used to it.

I do acknowledge that I should give it enough time or listening period before finalizing my opinion about the equipment as like pointed out, our hearing is not consistent.  I fully acknowledge that there is that contrasting interface point when equipment get switched over, and some headphones takes a bit of getting used to over others, and this depends on how much of a contrast there are between the two headphones when switching over.


----------



## SilverEars (Jan 11, 2018)

Comparisons are quite tricky I realized. You cannot go by memory, you'd have to do a direct comparison to be reliable.  Also, even direct comparisons can be tricky do to the immediate differences in sigs to be reliable.  On one hand, you'd need to get used to the sig, but also you are comparing directly and switching two different sounding stuff as contrasts are felt more if the differences in sigs are more signficant.

There are so many variables you'd have to take account of and question as you do comparisons.  

Alot of the audiophile tracks sound good due to the recordings, and those are the types of recordings they'd have for you when they demo their products.


----------



## Killcomic

Let us not forget also that people don't like wasting money and you will subconsciously make yourself like something.
I guess that's why you never hear anyone say "After 8 hours of pink noise everything sounded horrible"


----------



## SilverEars (Jan 11, 2018)

Killcomic said:


> Let us not forget also that people don't like wasting money and you will subconsciously make yourself like something.
> I guess that's why you never hear anyone say "After 8 hours of pink noise everything sounded horrible"


I wouldn't say make myself like something.  I try to listen attentively for faults(or weak aspects) as that's most useful info. This is partially the reason why I need to give things a bit of time to form an opinion.

Here's an interesting example.  At times I listen attentively to the tonality of audience clapping to notice if there is unnaturalness, and I had moments of hearing the clapping sounding not natural.  First thing that would come to mind was, they headphones are probably not tonally balanced.  But, other way to deduce this variable is to try several headphones until I run into one that sounds tonally correct(or the closest to real representation).  Something I realized is that, it's probably the recording. LOL.

My point is that there is things in consideration that people would pinpoint one variable that may not be it.  There are several variables you'd have to deduce to arrive at a reasonable culprit.


----------



## Killcomic

SilverEars said:


> I wouldn't say make myself like something.


But how would you know if you're doing it subconsciously?


----------



## rule42

@jagwap : Do the manufacturers of said speakers provide information that says they will audibly change over time to the expected level of tuning?
:
@SilverEars : You've lost me and seem to be talking about ear/brain break-in rather than the headphone stuff.


----------



## jagwap (Jan 11, 2018)

rule42 said:


> @jagwap : Do the manufacturers of said speakers provide information that says they will audibly change over time to the expected level of tuning?



Most of them (from memory) do. The manual will mention they may benefit from being played for a day or two.  The retailer will also suggest this.

Edit: http://www.klipsch.com/blog/how-and-why-to-break-in-your-new-speakers

https://www.marten.se/marketing/manuals/Marten_Coltrane_Supreme_2_manual.pdf


----------



## Killcomic

jagwap said:


> Most of them (from memory) do. The manual will mention they may benefit from being played for a day or two.  The retailer will also suggest this.
> 
> Edit: http://www.klipsch.com/blog/how-and-why-to-break-in-your-new-speakers


Of course they do. They don't want you to return it right away and put the suggestion in your head that it will sound better if you stick to it.
Mind you, I've neer seen anything anywhere from a manufacturer advising that there may be benefits after a couple of days of usage. But that could be because I never read the manuals.


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> However I have heard break-in between examples of the same speaker. I have heard it repeatedly, sighted, blind and double blind.




Tell us about how you conducted your double blind test of speaker burn in. I'm interesting how you would set up a test like that to account for all the variables.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Tell us about how you conducted your double blind test of speaker burn in. I'm interesting how you would set up a test like that to account for all the variables.



It is difficult... I didn't conduct them but took part. I did the electronics blind testing, which is easier to achieve.

One company: Using an ABX switching box to change between the samples, which are set up next to each other. The test is repeated with the positions swapped to null the spacial aspects.

Another: leaving the room while an assistant swaps or doesn't swap the samples. This needs longer accoustic memory, but removes the spacial cues.

This was also done on occasion with supposedly transparent material in front of the units, with less success. The conclusion was the acoustically transparent material was not transparent enough when units sounded quite close.

However it is easy to hear when the drivers are new. After break-in it gets harder not to imagine a difference so that is when ABX helps confirm the pre-production units.


----------



## rule42

@jagwap : I was going to ask the same quetion but @bigshot beat me to it. Additionally, how does the time factor allowed for break-in work in these tests?


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> It is difficult... I didn't conduct them but took part. I did the electronics blind testing, which is easier to achieve.
> 
> One company: Using an ABX switching box to change between the samples, which are set up next to each other. The test is repeated with the positions swapped to null the spacial aspects.


That's a sighted test, and the ABX switcher would be pointless.


jagwap said:


> Another: leaving the room while an assistant swaps or doesn't swap the samples. This needs longer accoustic memory, but removes the spacial cues.
> 
> This was also done on occasion with supposedly transparent material in front of the units, with less success. The conclusion was the acoustically transparent material was not transparent enough when units sounded quite close.


Echoic qualitative auditory memory is less than a second long with peak ability to discern small differences occurring with no switching gap, and decreasing radically with increased gap time.  The more similar the samples, the less gap time is required to reduce comparison ability to zero.

Unless the material in front of the units affected the samples unequally, or imposed a radical response modification that changed with frequency (and should never have been presumed acoustically transparent in the first place), the delta between samples was not affected by the material, and would still be apparent.  But the long switch time would invalidate the test anyway.


jagwap said:


> However it is easy to hear when the drivers are new. After break-in it gets harder not to imagine a difference so that is when ABX helps confirm the pre-production units.


What was being compared?  New drivers to broken-in ones?  New to other new?  Regardless, the long switch time would invalidate the comparison. 

In no case in the above description was there an actual ABX/DBT, the test protocol design seems quite amateur.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> That's a sighted test, and the ABX switcher would be pointless.
> Echoic qualitative auditory memory is less than a second long with peak ability to discern small differences occurring with no switching gap, and decreasing radically with increased gap time.  The more similar the samples, the less gap time is required to reduce comparison ability to zero.
> 
> Unless the material in front of the units affected the samples unequally, or imposed a radical response modification that changed with frequency (and should never have been presumed acoustically transparent in the first place), the delta between samples was not affected by the material, and would still be apparent.  But the long switch time would invalidate the test anyway.
> ...



I was wondeeing when you were going to jump in and p!ss on peoples' chips.

So the curtained ones weren't DBT?

Please give your method to verify if two aparently identical speakers sound the same?


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I was wondeeing when you were going to jump in and p!ss on peoples' chips.
> 
> So the curtained ones weren't DBT?


There's a positional "tell" that would tip off X.  I've actually done this, but it wasn't to determine difference (kind of silly with speakers, actually), it was to derive a qualitative preference ranking.  Position was periodically re-scrambled to null any positional advantage.  You just can't do an ABX test that way. 


jagwap said:


> Please give your method to verify if two aparently identical speakers sound the same?


Measurement.


----------



## jagwap

pinnahertz said:


> There's a positional "tell" that would tip off X.  I've actually done this, but it wasn't to determine difference (kind of silly with speakers, actually), it was to derive a qualitative preference ranking.  Position was periodically re-scrambled to null any positional advantage.  You just can't do an ABX test that way.



I said it was difficult.  The walk out the room and change is also blind, but you discount that one of course.

Measurement.[/QUOTE]

So as Klippel goes into the measured differences of break-in, that is good enough: See Fig 10 https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/kl...s/Aging of loudspeaker suspension_Klippel.pdf

We didn't have a Klippel then.  No one did and frequency response doesn't show it up.  Only B&W and Wharfedale had laser interferometer which they designed themselves.


----------



## gregorio

SilverEars said:


> Here's an interesting example. At times I listen attentively to the tonality of audience clapping to notice if there is unnaturalness, and I had moments of hearing the clapping sounding not natural. First thing that would come to mind was, they headphones are probably not tonally balanced. But, other way to deduce this variable is to try several headphones until I run into one that sounds tonally correct(or the closest to real representation). Something I realized is that, it's probably the recording. LOL.



Astute observation! Assuming it's real (rather than canned), then it's not uncommon to get phasing artefacts with live recorded applause. Sometimes such artefacts in the applause are overlooked and sometimes it's not overlooked but there's simply nothing much you can do to fix it.

G


----------



## pinnahertz

jagwap said:


> I said it was difficult.  The walk out the room and change is also blind, but you discount that one of course.


I didn't say it wasn't blind, I said the switch interval was too long for human comparison capabilities.  


jagwap said:


> So as Klippel goes into the measured differences of break-in, that is good enough: See Fig 10 https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/klippel/Files/Know_How/Literature/Papers/Aging of loudspeaker suspension_Klippel.pdf
> 
> We didn't have a Klippel then.  No one did and frequency response doesn't show it up.  Only B&W and Wharfedale had laser interferometer which they designed themselves.


There's no date on the paper, and he doesn't scale the detected change to audibility.  Otherwise, interesting.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 11, 2018)

jagwap said:


> However it is easy to hear when the drivers are new. After break-in it gets harder not to imagine a difference so that is when ABX helps confirm the pre-production units.



I'm guessing measuring would be better than a comparison test because the manufacturing tolerances wouldn't be less that +/- 3dB, so there would probably be an audible difference even between different copies of the same speaker. Did you try to match the response of the speakers at the beginning of the test, or did you just graduate the fresh ones into being burned in ones and test them again? Did you test multiple non-burned in units against each other and multiple burned in units against each other? How close in sound were they? Was there more difference between fresh speakers than used ones? Did they all settle down into the same sound after burn in? What exactly was changing? Specific frequency bands? Distortion?

Pinnahertz is right about the delay between samples. For a comparison between two similar sounding sources, you really need an instantaneous switch. Auditory memory for similar sounds is VERY short.


----------



## amirm

jagwap said:


> So as Klippel goes into the measured differences of break-in, that is good enough: See Fig 10 https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/kl...s/Aging of loudspeaker suspension_Klippel.pdf


Hi there.  I remember that paper when it came out.  It is a good read.  It was over the same argument then and it is now.  

It is definitely a fact that the larger drivers do change with use.  And that change can easily be measured.  However, once they are put in an enclosure and made into a full speakers, the measured in-room-frequency response shows nary of a change.  Harman tested this and when I was there, they showed me the before and after change.  It was a tiny, tiny change in response.  Needless to say, in controlled listening tests, there was no difference reported.  I looked but unfortunately I could not find a copy of the measurement in my library.  There is however a nice reference to it in Dr. Toole's book, Sound Reproduction: Loudspeakers and Rooms:









Thanks again for the link to Kippel paper.


----------



## jagwap

1


bigshot said:


> I'm guessing measuring would be better than a comparison test because the manufacturing tolerances wouldn't be less that +/- 3dB, so there would probably be an audible difference even between different copies of the same speaker.



As stated before it does not so up to any large degree in frequency response



> Did you try to match the response of the speakers at the beginning of the test



Someone else was doing this, but of course



> , or did you just graduate the fresh ones into being burned in ones and test them again? Did you test multiple non-burned in units against each other and multiple burned in units against each other?



Yes, and no as there is usually 0ne golden sample



> How close in sound were they? Was there more difference between fresh speakers than used ones?



Same age ones were similar[/QUOTE]



> Did they all settle down into the same sound after burn in?



Yes within usual tolerences.



> What exactly was changing? Specific frequency bands? Distortion?



The sound. I wasn't on the project, just the listening panel.  I was the electronic engineer.



> Pinnahertz is right about the delay between samples. For a comparison between two similar sounding sources, you really need an instantaneous switch. Auditory memory for similar sounds is VERY short.



Yes, but as he says, and I agree, that is difficult to DBT without a delay.  When the difference is marked the delay is not very significant.


----------



## jagwap (Jan 11, 2018)

amirm said:


> Hi there.  I remember that paper when it came out.  It is a good read.  It was over the same argument then and it is now.
> 
> It is definitely a fact that the larger drivers do change with use.  And that change can easily be measured.  However, once they are put in an enclosure and made into a full speakers, the measured in-room-frequency response shows nary of a change.  Harman tested this and when I was there, they showed me the before and after change.  It was a tiny, tiny change in response.  Needless to say, in controlled listening tests, there was no difference reported.  I looked but unfortunately I could not find a copy of the measurement in my library.  There is however a nice reference to it in Dr. Toole's book, Sound Reproduction: Loudspeakers and Rooms:
> 
> ...



I agree, frequency response did not change enough to explain any differences.  However there is more to audio than frequency response, and we did hear it, at several companies.  Also the materials used change the break-in time radically.  I remember the ScanSpeak kevlar units taking much longer and causing the team delays before they could sign them off.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 11, 2018)

I'm having trouble figuring out what the effect of the break in was. If it isn't frequency response, then it would have to be distortion, dynamics or timing. I'm also not sure the test was conducted carefully enough to eliminate the possibility of bias affecting the results. If you were just a participant, maybe they didn't tell you exactly what they were testing for.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I'm having trouble figuring out what the effect of the break in was. If it isn't frequency response, then it would have to be distortion, dynamics or timing. I'm also not sure the test was conducted carefully enough to eliminate the possibility of bias affecting the results. If you were just a participant, maybe they didn't tell you exactly what they were testing for.



I can imagine. I will leave that to accoustic engineers to explain in detail.

The difference can be marked and easy to hear. It depends on the the product and materials.

Sure you are often not told what you are listening to or for beforehand, but it may be discussed after. It all depends on the people involved.

Yes removal of bias is important. This is not directed at you in particular, but on this thread I see a lot of people saying there is no difference and they are not being called to prove it. But when someone says there is they are challenged. I think it should apply in both directions.


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> on this thread I see a lot of people saying there is no difference and they are not being called to prove it.



How do you go about proving a negative result?

I'm one of the ones saying there's no difference. All the times I've tried to detect burn in, it's dissolved into smoke once I remove the chance of bias and apply proper testing. That's why I was so interested in hearing about your test. I'd love to find out I'm wrong. It would teach me something. But if you aren't able to describe what the difference is and you have no idea what aspect of the sound was changed, I don't know how I can learn anything at all. Add that to the clearly inadequate testing controls you describe, and I'm back to smoke again.

I have a feeling that what they told you they were testing wasn't what they were actually testing. They might have been experimenting with how revealing little bits of info about the tests can introduce bias. I think they were testing testing, not speakers.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> How do you go about proving a negative result?



The same way as you prove a difference. 



> I'm one of the ones saying there's no difference. All the times I've tried to detect burn in, it's dissolved into smoke once I remove the chance of bias and apply proper testing. That's why I was so interested in hearing about your test. I'd love to find out I'm wrong. It would teach me something. But if you aren't able to describe what the difference is and you have no idea what aspect of the sound was changed, I don't know how I can learn anything at all.



I didn't say that. The difference varied, but generally the un-broken in units sounded less musical, as the timing was less transparent. There were other aspects to the presentation was slightly more effortless on the broken in sample. For how this relates to technical aspects please talk to an accoustic engineer, but you will need more than a description like this as a starting point.



> Add that to the clearly inadequate testing controls you describe, and I'm back to smoke again.



So how did you do it?



> I have a feeling that what they told you they were testing wasn't what they were actually testing. They might have been experimenting with how revealing little bits of info about the tests can introduce bias. I think they were testing testing, not speakers.



I already stated what the test was usually for: testing a new preproduction run sounded like a golden sample. The results would show that when all went well, they didn't before break-in and did after break-in. If they could still be identified after break-in, then something else was responsible. There were other tests, but this one is the useful one for this discussion as there is the least difference between samples.


----------



## castleofargh

well if something is audible, it should be trivial to measure it. FR is very important subjectively but as a measurement it's still limited. more so that we can acquire a FR graph using different methods leading potentially to different conclusions on what didn't change. 
I'm not a big believer when it comes to blind testing speakers. maybe the moving platforms at Harman can do it right, but most other options are at best arguable IMO. it's not the testers' fault, it's just that difficult to deal with the switching delays and position changes and the same time.

anyway I believe I've seen some evidence suggesting that big drivers could indeed show some changes over time. now how that is transferable to headphone drivers is another question. we're not dealing with the same sizes, weights, quantity of air to move... the requirements for solidity and power are completely different IMO. so would that lead to expect also a reduction in the magnitude of the changes? or is the difference even more radical? maybe with membrane so thin the break in pretty much happens in the first minute?
I admit I usually only looked for FR and impedance curve, and the degree of change I got was not bigger than the variability from repeating the measurements(including placement while trying to get as close as possible with reference points). so my very amateur and anecdotal tests tend to suggest it's irrelevant and very unlikely to be the cause of perceived difference. the pads on my headphone on the other hand, there isn't any doubt that the difference between new and old ones is audible, measurable, obvious in both cases.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 11, 2018)

jagwap said:


> The difference varied, but generally the un-broken in units sounded less musical, as the timing was less transparent. There were other aspects to the presentation was slightly more effortless on the broken in sample.



I'm afraid I have no idea what you're describing. In fact, the vague terms you're using are the sorts of descriptions we usually hear when bias and placebo are at play. Did they measure the results too? Because anything audible is going to be measurable as either frequency response imbalance (the tone- bass, midrange, treble), distortion (garbled sound), volume irregularity (louder or softer) or timing problems (phase cancellation, etc). If you can't be at all specific about the sort of change that you're talking about and you can only describe the difference in creative writing, your observation is an anecdotal impression, not proof that a specific difference actually existed.

I docontrolled comparison tests with every piece of equipment I buy, and my speaker system is equalized with pretty careful tolerances. I've done countless tests, and I do periodic spot checks to make sure everything is performing the way I want it to. I have yet to find any piece of equipment that I have owned (since around 1978) that has changed its sound over time. If I did find one, I would be VERY worried, because I want to calibrate my system and have it stay that way.

I can recommend the equipment I've used because all of it is clean and stable. That's what I look for when I go shopping for equipment. I could share details of my comparison tests, but since I've never found any effect of burn in, I don't know what it would prove to you. I would suggest that you'll probably be a better judge of sound equipment if you do a little bit of research into how sound works. At the very least, it would help you describe what you're hearing in ways that other people can understand.

I'm not intending to be dismissive. It's just that you started out talking about a controlled scientific test, and that interested me. But when you described the test, it didn't sound controlled or scientific any more. I still think they were testing for something different than they were telling you.

castleofargh, speakers don't generally use big drivers any more. They use multiple small drivers to avoid sloppy bass.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I'm afraid I have no idea what you're describing. In fact, the vague terms you're using are the sorts of descriptions we usually hear when bias and placebo are at play.



That's a very poor assumption.



> Did they measure the results too?



Yes, but as stated multiple times nothing within tolerance showed up



> Because anything audible is going to be measurable as either frequency response imbalance (the tone- bass, midrange, treble), distortion (garbled sound), volume irregularity (louder or softer) or timing problems (phase cancellation, etc). If you can't be at all specific about the sort of change that you're talking about and you can only describe the difference in creative writing, your observation is an anecdotal impression, not proof that a specific difference actually existed.



Sure, but you said could I describe it, so I did.



> I docontrolled comparison tests with every piece of equipment I buy, and my speaker system is equalized with pretty careful tolerances. I've done countless tests, and I do periodic spot checks to make sure everything is performing the way I want it to. I have yet to find any piece of equipment that I have owned (since around 1978) that has changed its sound over time. If I did find one, I would be VERY worried, because I want to calibrate my system and have it stay that way.
> 
> I can recommend the equipment I've used because all of it is clean and stable. That's what I look for when I go shopping for equipment. I could share details of my comparison tests, but since I've never found any effect of burn in, I don't know what it would prove to you. I would suggest that you'll probably be a better judge of sound equipment if you do a little bit of research into how sound works. At the very least, it would help you describe what you're hearing in ways that other people can understand.



But you haven't answered the question. How would you do a controlled listening test between two speakers to assertain if they are identical?



> I'm not intending to be dismissive.



As usual here, it does come across that way



> It's just that you started out talking about a controlled scientific test, and that interested me. But when you described the test, it didn't sound controlled or scientific any more. I still think they were testing for something different than they were telling you.



As I asked. i am interested in what would qualify to you. If there is a simple method that would be useful to everyone.

No they weren't. Those were other tests.

[/QUOTE]castleofargh, speakers don't generally use big drivers any more. They use multiple small drivers to avoid sloppy bass.[/QUOTE]

Allow me to say: Not always true. Many manufacturers like large efficient drivers, but are constained by form. It can help in many ways but it certainly helps in off axis response.


----------



## bigshot (Jan 12, 2018)

All you have to do is define what aspect of the sound you're talking about... frequency response, distortion, volume/gain, timing. It would help if it was measured to verify your impressions too.

Doing a controlled listening test with two sets of speakers isn't hard. Just set them side by side and blindfold the listener and tester. Make sure the distance is far enough that the space between the pairs isn't discernible, or do multiple tests randomly swapping them back and forth.

If something can't be measured, it can't be heard. Our ability to measure sound FAR exceeds our ability to hear it on every aspect of sound reproduction.


----------



## jagwap (Jan 12, 2018)

bigshot said:


> All you have to do is define what aspect of the sound you're talking about... frequency response, distortion, volume/gain, timing. It would help if it was measured to verify your impressions too.
> 
> Doing a controlled listening test with two sets of speakers isn't hard. Just set them side by side and blindfold the listener and tester. Make sure the distance is far enough that the space between the pairs isn't discernible, or do multiple tests randomly swapping them back and forth.



OK, then look at my description and you will see that we did that with an ABX box.  With identical looking speakers, with and without a curtain in front of them.



> If something can't be measured, it can't be heard. Our ability to measure sound FAR exceeds our ability to hear it on every aspect of sound reproduction.



Agreed, but sometimes it is beyond the measurement kit available at the time.


----------



## arescec

My take on this topic from my AKG K340 experience is that there are two things that are affecting the burn-in:
1) Psychological - you get used to the headphones with time and the sound signature. I previously had Audio Technica TAD400 for 3 years as only headphone
and after trying out the K340s I was disappointed. Now after spending 20 hours with them on my head I really like them - and I did nothing, still the same amp, config, etc.
2) Pads - if the pads are hard they take some time to conform to the head and good seal is very important with any headphone.

Now you have to notice that I am speaking about 30 year old headphones that were heavily used and still they sound much better after some time spent with them which 
is one thing to think about.


----------



## bigshot (Mar 20, 2018)

jagwap said:


> OK, then look at my description and you will see that we did that with an ABX box.  With identical looking speakers, with and without a curtain in front of them.



OK, so what specifically was the difference? Volume level? Frequency response? Dynamics? Distortion? Could you record the difference?


----------



## Glmoneydawg

bowei006 said:


> I believe in subtle differences, and your ear getting used to the sound signature of the headphone's as well as your music being played ON that headphone. It's a combonation of all of those including using your headphone's with different devices that may cause such a large perception of change as burn in.


Logic and intelligence will get you nowhere in here....sorry


----------



## skwoodwiva

Absolutely, leave em on 24/7, 2 weeks, very loud.


----------



## bigshot

I am having trouble figuring out what you're trying to say, skwoodwiva. You might want to slow down and make points rather than hit and run comments that only you understand.


----------



## skwoodwiva

bigshot said:


> I am having trouble figuring out what you're trying to say, skwoodwiva. You might want to slow down and make points rather than hit and run comments that only you understand.


Is
*Breaking-in headphones needed.*
*Yes 100 hrs min.*


----------



## castleofargh

source: Dude trust me.


----------



## skwoodwiva (Mar 28, 2018)

Opps, edit
Experience mostly.
Most reviewers I deem credible talk of it.


----------



## skwoodwiva

What does one have to lose ?
2 weeks of a routine is a hassle?
Try it.
Some improve some do not as much.


----------



## jagwap

skwoodwiva said:


> What does one have to lose ?
> 2 weeks of a routine is a hassle?
> Try it.
> Some improve some do not as much.



You are talking to the wrong crowd here. Even if you could convince them to try it, some would try not to hear the difference, as some do not want to.


----------



## tansand

Maybe I'm confused, or maybe I missed this earlier in the thread, but doesn't this show burn in?

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/evidence-headphone-break-page-2


----------



## sonitus mirus

tansand said:


> Maybe I'm confused, or maybe I missed this earlier in the thread, but doesn't this show burn in?
> 
> https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/evidence-headphone-break-page-2



From Tyll

*Summary* Did I show break-in exists? No. There are too many variables still. 
Read more at https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/evidence-headphone-break-page-2#oVk7I7wpvjE0zJtu.99


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> Maybe I'm confused, or maybe I missed this earlier in the thread, but doesn't this show burn in?
> 
> https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/evidence-headphone-break-page-2


Bingo


----------



## tansand (Mar 29, 2018)

> Summary Did I show break-in exists? No. There are too many variables still. Was it simply movement? I don't know. If I did it again to another brand new pair would I get the same results? I don't know. If I did it to an already broken in pair would I get the same results? I don't know.
> 
> What I do know is that during the course of these measurements some things changed. While the data showed only very small differences, the data was clearly above the noise, and a general trend observable. The data also showed a discontinuity around the 20 hour mark in both the FR and THD data. While, it seems to me, much of the change observed could easily be due to movement, especially in the frequencies above 5kHz, some changes seem more likely due to break-in. In particular, the changes in frequency response around the fundamental resonance of the driver at 80Hz, and in %THD+noise at the same frequency and at around 40Hz.



It's a total cop out, all his data shows change over time, and then he goes, "Gee, I just don't know! Did I prove anything? Nope!"

Are peaks and troughs over the entire frequency range going to lessen because of *movement*??

Gee, I just don't know!! :rolleyes:

He doesn't want to admit what his data shows!


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> It's a total cop out, all his data shows change over time, and then he goes, "Gee, I just don't know! Did I prove anything? Nope!"
> 
> Are peaks and troughs over the entire frequency range going to lessen because of *movement*??
> 
> ...


Breakin is a long long long standing normnorm in any speaker.
It just shows you what a narrow view some have of convention.


----------



## sonitus mirus

tansand said:


> It's a total cop out, all his data shows change over time, and then he goes, "Gee, I just don't know! Did I prove anything? Nope!"
> 
> Are peaks and troughs over the entire frequency range going to lessen because of *movement*??
> 
> ...



And yet there are too many variables in this test to determine if the drivers are solely responsible for the changes.  Maybe most headphones will see similar changes over a 90 hour test and repeat again from the beginning once they have been left to cool down?  How do we know what is causing the differences?   Why are some measurements inconsistent and opposite in some frequency ranges than in others?  Why do some get louder, softer, and then louder again and others get softer, louder, and then softer again?

Not enough controls and too few samples to verify with any certainty that burn-in is changing the sound produced by the drivers.


----------



## sonitus mirus

skwoodwiva said:


> Breakin is a long long long standing normnorm in any speaker.
> It just shows you what a narrow view some have of convention.


 Speakers, sure, to some extent.  But at the sizes of most headphone transducers, it is unlikely that changes will impact the audible response enough to make it obviously noticeable.   If it did, some headphones should sound worse over time, and they rarely ever do.


----------



## skwoodwiva

sonitus mirus said:


> Speakers, sure, to some extent.  But at the sizes of most headphone transducers, it is unlikely that changes will impact the audible response enough to make it obviously noticeable.   If it did, some headphones should sound worse over time, and they rarely ever do.


I am not buying, I have read many reviewers I respect and the breakin is always accounted for.
Material is material. The graph conisides with my experience. Luck? No way.
I eq my phones I always have to adjust over time.
Did I recommend 100 hr the graph shows flattening at 80, Duh.


----------



## skwoodwiva

skwoodwiva said:


> I am not buying, I have read many reviewers I respect and the breakin is always accounted for.
> Material is material. The graph conisides with my experience. Luck? No way.
> I eq my phones I always have to adjust over time.
> Did I recommend 100 hr the graph shows flattening at 80, Duh.


Is this not evidence, WT..True that,..


----------



## colonelkernel8

sonitus mirus said:


> Speakers, sure, to some extent.  But at the sizes of most headphone transducers, it is unlikely that changes will impact the audible response enough to make it obviously noticeable.   If it did, some headphones should sound worse over time, and they rarely ever do.


I’m willing to accept the notion of driver break in; this is after all a mechanical system, but it would be nice if Tyll expanded upon this test with more headphones, and follow up tests after some settling time to see if the results are repeatable after time.


----------



## bigshot (Mar 29, 2018)

I would categorize headphones changing sound over time to be a manufacturing defect. I would rather buy headphones that I can audition and if I like the way they sound, they stay that way. I don't want to buy a pig in a poke and find out what they really sound like months down the line.

I have Oppo PM-1s. They sound *exactly* the same now as they ever did. I'm glad for that because I liked them when I first heard them.

If the measured changes vary and don't shift in a particular direction, but rather randomly, I would immediately suspect a problem with the way the headphones are being measured.


----------



## colonelkernel8 (Mar 29, 2018)

bigshot said:


> I would categorize headphones changing sound over time to be a manufacturing defect. I would rather buy headphones that I can audition and if I like the way they sound, they stay that way. I don't want to buy a pig in a poke and find out what they really sound like months down the line.
> 
> I have Oppo PM-1s. They sound *exactly* the same now as they ever did. I'm glad for that because I liked them when I first heard them.


That may be a feature of planar magnetic headphones. Aside from that I agree with you, although maybe that’s the advantage of testing with a well used demo unit in a hi-fi store.


----------



## skwoodwiva

Magick Man said:


> It isn't as cut-and-dried as you want to think. From the same article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You bombed them science guys ooh such beauty & depth!
Bravo


----------



## Glmoneydawg

skwoodwiva said:


> You bombed them science guys ooh such beauty & depth!
> Bravo





skwoodwiva said:


> You bombed them science guys ooh such beauty & depth!
> Bravo


If anything its the woofer suspension comming into spec and adding a few hz on the bottom end...with the mass of speaker woofers i think this is plausible ....not so sure with the light diaphragms in headphones.


----------



## castleofargh

tansand said:


> Maybe I'm confused, or maybe I missed this earlier in the thread, but doesn't this show burn in?
> 
> https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/evidence-headphone-break-page-2


I get similar results if I simply leave new pads under pressure and don't play any signal. 
on the other hand, I once tried to remove pads and "burn in" my headphone, and the variations were small enough to be hardly different from the changes I get doing twice the same measurement. 
of course it doesn't mean there isn't some small changes from the mechanical movements and flexing of the diaphragm, only that each time I controlled for that, the changes were tiny. it also doesn't prove that when playing music, it cannot shake the headphone just enough to have it slide a little around the microphone's axis, because nether I nor Tyll for all I know, physically fixed the headphone in space.
but at the very least on the few headphones I've measured new, the wear of the pads was the obvious and most significant cause of change by far. second only to how we place the headphone on our head. so a big question becomes: is the foam in the pads part of burn in? I'd say no because I get new pads and my headphone is audibly "unburned". but then again anytime I ask for a clear definition of burn in, I get no answer. I've said it many times, if we all agree that pad wear is burn in then burn in is real and we can prove it on all headphones. but if it's only supposed to be the driver changing, then I expect the changes to be tiny on most headphones/IEMs(I leave speakers aside, different scale, forces, and weights), and are probably not what people hear or make up in their mind. 

but of course I only rely on a bunch of measurements, I don't have perfect hearing, perfect memory, and identical placement on the head like all those who make empty claims about burn in because they felt a change over time. I'm only human so I would never make claims suggesting I have mastered auditory memory and can use it as proof. I think you could say I'm jealous, because I certainly wish I was like those guys think they are.

if I had to claim something, I would say that of course a driver's physical integrity will change over time, of course that will result in some changes, up to a point when the headphone will simply break. but I'm so very confident that out of 100 people who will swear they heard the sound change, almost none would notice the actual change in sound from the driver alone. and also probably more than half just plain made up the change in their mind, because the way we listen to something brand new isn't the way we listen to something a few months old, the "new toy effect" is very real although in our head, and way easier to demonstrate than the audibility of a driver "burning in" for 100hours.  
as long as people refuse to even consider the more likely causes for their impressions, their opinions are worthless.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

castleofargh said:


> I get similar results if I simply leave new pads under pressure and don't play any signal.
> on the other hand, I once tried to remove pads and "burn in" my headphone, and the variations were small enough to be hardly different from the changes I get doing twice the same measurement.
> of course it doesn't mean there isn't some small changes from the mechanical movements and flexing of the diaphragm, only that each time I controlled for that, the changes were tiny. it also doesn't prove that when playing music, it cannot shake the headphone just enough to have it slide a little around the microphone's axis, because nether I nor Tyll for all I know, physically fixed the headphone in space.
> but at the very least on the few headphones I've measured new, the wear of the pads was the obvious and most significant cause of change by far. second only to how we place the headphone on our head. so a big question becomes: is the foam in the pads part of burn in? I'd say no because I get new pads and my headphone is audibly "unburned". but then again anytime I ask for a clear definition of burn in, I get no answer. I've said it many times, if we all agree that pad wear is burn in then burn in is real and we can prove it on all headphones. but if it's only supposed to be the driver changing, then I expect the changes to be tiny on most headphones/IEMs(I leave speakers aside, different scale, forces, and weights), and are probably not what people hear or make up in their mind.
> ...


Agreed....but not sure i'm comfortable with a mod who is "only human"


----------



## castleofargh

colonelkernel8 said:


> I’m willing to accept the notion of driver break in; this is after all a mechanical system, but it would be nice if Tyll expanded upon this test with more headphones, and follow up tests after some settling time to see if the results are repeatable after time.


if you move the headphone for the burn in and place it back on the head, you'll get changes probably bigger than the "burn in" of the driver alone. 
but if you get a good solid grip and leave the headphone on the mic for all the burn in time, and do that for several headphones, first you cant do anything else, and second, poor microphone. those are my 2 reasons not to bother too much with this. the third one being that I've never seen a reason to think the change would be massive, so who cares? only those who can't stomach having to second guess their own feelings. yet how often do you see them setting up measurements? 
it's all a joke.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

If burnin is a concern just leave them playing for a day....then get on with it....even if its an issue its gone in a few days of play time.


----------



## tansand (Mar 29, 2018)

Here's the claims from the OP, basically dancing around, and mischaracterizing the data. Peaks and troughs are resonances in the mechanical system, movement only accounts for the acoustic system. The data indicates, with high probability, resonances in the mechanical system becoming more damped. It's not very sciencey to try to obfuscate what's happening.

Or...is it?



> tl;dr:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## skwoodwiva

He gets credit for saying it can't hurt & loud.
More then our experts, hmm (our) am I not a troll now?


----------



## bigshot

tansand, further down that page, tel posts measurements showing huge random variation occurring a couple of dozen hours in. Can you accept that it might be due to errors in the way it's measured? why would stuff go all over the place like that?


----------



## castleofargh (Mar 30, 2018)

tansand said:


> Here's the claims from the OP, basically dancing around, and mischaracterizing the data. Peaks and troughs are resonances in the mechanical system, movement only accounts for the acoustic system. The data indicates, with high probability, resonances in the mechanical system becoming more damped. It's not very sciencey to try to obfuscate what's happening.
> 
> Or...is it?


it's not OP, I think those are quotes from Innerfidelity, cherry picked ones maybe ^_^.  the only real fault I see with OP is his click bait title, as of course there isn't and cannot be a definitive answer when discussing all shapes, all designs, all sizes, all materials of all the headphones.

else I agree that increased damping seems a likely reason to have smaller bumps on the graph. as for the cause, of course as I'm from the pad party, "vote pads!", my argument will be about them. but without more measurements and tests without the pads, there really is no way to be sure.
 testing speakers is much more straightforward. just check that they don't travel across the room as they "burn in" with loud signal, and we're good to measure what we want. with headphones IMO aside from just checking the drivers on their own in a solidly fixed position, we'll always have doubts about the headphone moving a little or the pads giving in , or some dirt on some filters increasing the damping if the headphone has some, or.....

Tyll demonstrated that there is measurable change over time, and that was never disputed. because "vote pads!" ^_^. but it doesn't answer anything about other causes of change as long as the pads are in play and under pressure.

edit: stroke a false assumption
while that behavior does tend to correspond to higher acoustic damping, the way this graph was made, manufactured the evolution through time making the observation invalid.


----------



## tansand (Mar 30, 2018)

Ok, let's hear the pad theory?

Loosely sealing pads would lower the Q and frequency of the resonance of the volume of air inside the shell/pad/whatever, like an aperiodic enclosure. Tightly sealing pads would raise Q and frequency. But, this is only one fundamental resonance, the others (higher) would be reflections inside the chamber (?), and would move little, if at all, up and down in frequency. They wouldn't just become more damped. And a soft, collapsing pad would make a better seal, raising Q and frequency, a hard one would not conform to the surface, and leak more.

Unless?

Pad theory seems pretty flaky as opposed to loosening up of moving materials theory, I have to say.

I mean, let's raise our hands. Who thinks there's at least a 50% chance the headphones under test are breaking in, as the term is generally understood, and this is exactly what the data is showing?


----------



## skwoodwiva (Mar 30, 2018)

tansand said:


> Ok, let's hear the pad theory?
> 
> Loosely sealing pads would lower the Q and frequency of the resonance of the volume of air inside the shell/pad/whatever, like an aperiodic enclosure. Tightly sealing pads would raise Q and frequency. But, this is only one fundamental resonance, the others (higher) would be reflections inside the chamber (?), and would move little, if at all, up and down in frequency. They wouldn't just become more damped. And a soft, collapsing pad would make a better seal, raising Q and frequency, a hard one would not conform to the surface, and leak more.
> 
> ...


 ✋



 ✋ for your Diplomacy too


----------



## tansand (Mar 30, 2018)

I can't take credit for any diplomacy, compared to many here!

Another thing though, aren't the K701's already aperiodic in design (semi open)> If so, this would tend to minimize the influence of the pad seal..


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> I can't take credit for any diplomacy, compared to many here!
> 
> Another thing though, aren't the K701's already aperiodic in design (semi open)> If so, this would tend to minimize the influence of the pad seal..


 ✋ ✋  ✋


----------



## bigshot

Headphones aren’t easy to get consistent measurements on. I’d say that results like this would require more careful test procedures before arriving at a conclusion. It’s certainly a possibility though.


----------



## sonitus mirus

On the premise that burn-in probably does not exist based on not seeing any reliable evidence and some headphone manufacturers claiming that their products are the same out of the box as they are some years later, I think it it ridiculous to make any conclusions based on the limited testing and the inconsistencies with the measured results.  Whatever is going on from the 10, 20, and 40 hour test points seems to contradict and invalidate the entire methodology.   It would be like seeing a flash of light in the sky and claiming that intelligent, extraterrestrial beings were responsible.  

These particular drivers used in the test are relatively large and there is a mechanical action involved, so there will be some slight measurable change that can take place over time.   The problem I have is that there is no reliable evidence to suggest these small changes are greater than other differences from head/ear placement or deviations in temperature and pressure.  For now, until further proof is provided, I am sticking with the idea that any change with the driver over time is too insignificant to matter and it would be practically impossible for a listener to identify any audible differences that could be attributed solely to the drivers.


----------



## castleofargh (Mar 30, 2018)

tansand said:


> Ok, let's hear the pad theory?
> 
> Loosely sealing pads would lower the Q and frequency of the resonance of the volume of air inside the shell/pad/whatever, like an aperiodic enclosure. Tightly sealing pads would raise Q and frequency. But, this is only one fundamental resonance, the others (higher) would be reflections inside the chamber (?), and would move little, if at all, up and down in frequency. They wouldn't just become more damped. And a soft, collapsing pad would make a better seal, raising Q and frequency, a hard one would not conform to the surface, and leak more.
> 
> ...


hey, please look at my edit in the previous post about the driver becoming more damped. my bad for not reading the all pages on the blog before posting. he aligned the graph with the last measure as the flat reference. so whatever change in whatever direction was going to look like it was going toward stability. it means nothing, or at the very least not what we thought it did. so further assumptions kind of collapse too.


----------



## Satir (Apr 1, 2018)

n/a


----------



## tansand (Mar 30, 2018)

Hi, castleofargh, I'm having trouble seeing the distinction you're making. This is the quote it seems to me is discussing this, please post a quote of what you're referring to. As far as I can see the trend is toward more damped resonances, flatter frequency response from more peaky.



> Once all the data was gathered, I really couldn't tell what the differences where by eye, so I plotted the data as differences. I used the 90 hour data as the reference, and plotted how the data in each set was different than the 90 hour data. My assumption was that the first measurement out of the box would be most problematic, and that the data should settle in the direction of the longest burn-in time.
> 
> Any good mathematician will tell you that this method is a recipe for making the data look like it's settling toward the reference set. Just because the line in these graphs is getting less wiggly over time, doesn't mean that the frequency response is getting smoother. It just means that the frequency response is changing over time and moving in the direction of the 90 hour data. That's fine, because all I'm looking for here is a clear trend where the data changes smoothly from the start to the end reference, which might indicate a change in the sound over time possibly due to break-in. Whether it is break-in or not is another story. I just want to see if I could see trend in the data.





https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/evidence-headphone-break


----------



## castleofargh

yes that's the one. to give an extreme example, imagine a headphone with a frequency response very even at the start, and very spiky at the end. as the ultimate measure is made to be the reference(so flat line), the series of variations over time would still show the same behavior as in the graph you show. because as time passes, each measure comes closer to whatever the ultimate measurement will be, and so they show smaller variations when presented in the form of this graph.


----------



## tansand

He measured it at the 90 hour reference, though. It's not spiky at the end, it's smoother than at the beginning.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> He measured it at the 90 hour reference, though. It's not spiky at the end, it's smoother than at the beginning.


nough said!
Close this thread, lol.


----------



## castleofargh

tansand said:


> He measured it at the 90 hour reference, though. It's not spiky at the end, it's smoother than at the beginning.


I think you got fooled by the same thing that first got me. we never see a FR of 90 hours, I don't have a clue what it looks like. on all those graphs, 90hours is set to be flat by convention instead of showing the raw FR you end up with variations relative to the 90hours measure. that's why he didn't bother drawing a line for 90hours on each, because it's supposed to be a flat line each time as the set reference.

so as far as I can tell, we don't actually know that there is more than just plain variations for ... reasons. burn in is one of them? maybe, maybe not. even the consistency of the variations doesn't hold over the entire experiment in the entire audible range, and Tyll had to zoom in on the graph to try and make up some hypothesis. which is a mistake, but then he couldn't just go "my test is invalid, the end". that wouldn't really make for a good article ^_^. I don't blame him for doing his job instead of an AES paper at the time. but the end result is that we do not know if the signature settles into anything from those graphs. well it settles into ending up being the 90hours FR. whatever that is for whatever reason. looking at the low end, I go back to "vote pads for real change!" the one politician that will never let you down on audible change. and the irregularities could just be change in seal quality and small movement, which in itself would invalidate any change in the high freqs. it quite hard to do relevant measurement unless we can really fix the headphone into a definitive position throughout the experiment. pads don't offer that.




skwoodwiva said:


> nough said!
> Close this thread, lol.


this is a good example of confirmation bias. if you're going to clap to anything said so long as it suggests burn in, you're not looking for facts, you just want to be right. 
that's not how we can hope to make any progress on a topic. the scientific method would suggest to do the opposite. once we have an idea, we should test it with the aim to disprove it. if we fail, that's when we can start to have more confidence in the idea.

otherwise, if looking for people who agree with us was proof that something is true, then pretty much anything and it's opposite would be true, flat earth, donut earth, frisbee shape with a giant elephant under it, it's all fake and we're in the matrix... we will find some people on the web to agree with pretty much any idea. it doesn't really prove we're right and it's a poor way to seek the truth.


----------



## skwoodwiva

castleofargh said:


> I think you got fooled by the same thing that first got me. we never see a FR of 90 hours, I don't have a clue what it looks like. on all those graphs, 90hours is set to be flat by convention instead of showing the raw FR you end up with variations relative to the 90hours measure. that's why he didn't bother drawing a line for 90hours on each, because it's supposed to be a flat line each time as the set reference.
> 
> so as far as I can tell, we don't actually know that there is more than just plain variations for ... reasons. burn in is one of them? maybe, maybe not. even the consistency of the variations doesn't hold over the entire experiment in the entire audible range, and Tyll had to zoom in on the graph to try and make up some hypothesis. which is a mistake, but then he couldn't just go "my test is invalid, the end". that wouldn't really make for a good article ^_^. I don't blame him for doing his job instead of an AES paper at the time. but the end result is that we do not know if the signature settles into anything from those graphs. well it settles into ending up being the 90hours FR. whatever that is for whatever reason. looking at the low end, I go back to "vote pads for real change!" the one politician that will never let you down on audible change. and the irregularities could just be change in seal quality and small movement, which in itself would invalidate any change in the high freqs. it quite hard to do relevant measurement unless we can really fix the headphone into a definitive position throughout the experiment. pads don't offer that.
> 
> ...


So you say pads are somehow responsible for these FR anomalies?
 Yet are these not open phones?


----------



## castleofargh

I claim nothing about variations having only one cause. but I do bet on pads and possible movement of the headphone on the dummy head as being the main cause. maybe burn in of the driver also participates. I don't know that, and this specific test doesn't tell us so.
  as a result I bet on what I know. I have seen evidence and measured myself that pad wear and moving the headphone will result in significant and probably audible changes. so that to me is factual. but I haven't seen much evidence that driver burn in alone usually makes a significant difference. and my very limited anecdotes on 2 headphones I measured over time(and plenty of IEMs), didn't give me significant changes. so at this point driver burn in to me is more of a vague possibility because mechanical movement isn't eternal. the material will wear out and ultimately break. I understand that and accept it as factual. what I don't know to be a fact is that it makes a significant change in sound after 100 or 200hours on most or even any headphone. it's possible, but I haven't seen proper evidence of it. 
so when I see a change in headphone measurement over time, my first idea isn't burn in. it's pretty basic logic based on what little evidence I have. 

if people start providing industry test results showing significant, or at least consistent changes for the driver alone held in a fixed position, then I would logically add driver burn in to the list of things causing a relevant change in sound. 

of course I also felt like the sound changed on my new gears, but then I also looked at my new pair of shoes with total love the day I bought them, and didn't care much after a week of wearing them. should I blame it all on the shoes?  there is a range of possible causes for feeling something changing over time. the only way to make sure burn in did it, we have to show the other potential causes weren't involved. otherwise we're not looking for the truth, we're again looking to agree with our idea of burn in.


----------



## tansand (Mar 31, 2018)

Sorry man, I think you're having the placebo effect.

Case one, the data gets more wiggly over time: Dude would tell us. Fairly big news for K701 to do that.

Case two, no change over time: not supported by the graphs, there is change over time. Dude would tell us, proves no break in.

Case three, data gets less wiggly over time: Graph would look like it does. Dude tries to play it off and minimize it.

I'm having trouble visualizing how the graphing castleofargh describes would not look like the graphs we see, I think the graphs would cross the invisible flat line in that case, if such a line exists, but I'm not sure. So I have to resort to reasoning like the above. Anybody wants to chime in for science and objectivity, now's a good time.


----------



## tansand

> so at this point driver burn in to me is more of a vague possibility because mechanical movement isn't eternal. the material will wear out and ultimately break. I understand that and accept it as factual.



It's just like your shoes breaking in.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> It's just like your shoes breaking in.


May I PM you?


----------



## Ramblinman

Hard to understand why some posters here are so adamant that they have the definitive answer. Same guys that are4 foot 2inches tall and drive huge lifted pickup trucks I suspect.


----------



## tansand

I prefer to keep my communications public, in the spirit of a forum.


----------



## skwoodwiva (Mar 31, 2018)

tansand said:


> I prefer to keep my communications public, in the spirit of a forum.


Well let me fess up I do have an Ignore list.
I never ever had to have one


----------



## gregorio

tansand said:


> It's just like your shoes breaking in.



It certainly would be, if your headphone drivers were made from leather.

G


----------



## bigshot

I need some kiwi shoe polish to polish my drivers!


----------



## tansand

> It certainly would be, if your headphone drivers were made from leather.



Or polyester and rubber. Just hand me the win already.


----------



## bigshot

Shoes wear out. I've never had a headphone that wears out.

I've seen cans that have been blown out by overdriving the voice coil. But if you use them properly, they should last pretty much forever. Why would something break in and not continue to break in and wear out? I would bet you could leave headphones plugged into a digital player running 24/7 and you wouldn't have any problems with them until age makes the plastic and rubber itself start to get brittle.

I have an antique phonograph with a vibrating diaphragm made of mica that produces the sound (LOUD sound too.) It can continue to work over 100 years after it was made. Yes, the rubber gasket around it ages and grows hard after exposure, but that is normal aging of the materials, breaking in. When you have fresh gaskets it sounds fine right away and it stays fine.

It's just simple logic to be suspicious of something that changes the way it sounds in a relatively short period of time. If it changes once, it can continue to change. You can set your cans down on a table roughly and knock it into a whole different sound signature. I want my cans to sound perfect out of the box, and I want them to sound perfect ten years down the road. Maybe other people aren't such sticklers for calibration as I am though.


----------



## colonelkernel8 (Mar 31, 2018)

gregorio said:


> It certainly would be, if your headphone drivers were made from leather.
> 
> G


Business opportunity. The audiophiles would love that. “The purity of natural materials”. They could compare the sound signatures of natural tanned leather and chrome tanned leather. The possibilities are endless.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> Or polyester and rubber. Just hand me the win already.


!


----------



## castleofargh

tansand said:


> Sorry man, I think you're having the placebo effect.
> 
> Case one, the data gets more wiggly over time: Dude would tell us. Fairly big news for K701 to do that.
> 
> ...


case one is a matter of calibration. again if the reference of flat line is the most wiggly, then when getting more wiggly the graph would show them coming closer to flat(as long as the variations are fairly consistent).

case two indeed doesn't exist. he measured changes. but we don't know the cause of those changes. could be pads, could be small movement, could be driver burn in. or a mix of all 3. this test is simply inconclusive in that respect.

case 3 less wiggly is possible of course. but it's also possible that the way the measurements are presented is causing the way we interpret something as being more or less wiggly.







if you zoom on this a little, you'll see it's not a consistent change. the first measure in red outlines most of the graph and the last measure at 90 is the flat one so it does suggest a general change going more or less in one direction. that's it. but that isn't really the case. look between 16 and 17khz where 4 measurements go below the red one. is that one an artifact? it it caused by something else? are the other random luck for this headphone? given where it is I'd bet on just a small movement over the dummy head, but that's just a guess, not something the DATA demonstrates.

then take the 10h and 40h graphs, they are fairly close for the most part. but the 20h graph? it shows much higher variations all over. why? doesn't that alone disprove the idea of a consistent settling toward a given response? again I would bet that it's an accident for whatever reason while doing the testing, but we can't just go on and dismiss what doesn't agree with us as accidents or artifacts until only what we like remains. those events are recorded and IMO as motives to invalidate the all test.

then presentation. if Tyll had picked 0hours as the flat line reference, after all it is the most obvious starting point. then the 16-17khz area would have shown the inversion around the zero axis you mention as not happening here. I don't know how to show that Tyll choice influences how we intuitively observe the graph. same thing for his choice to pick small portions of the audible range instead of sticking with the entire range. they are deliberate choices, whatever the motive. I don't imply that Tyll is an evil mastermind. he just tried to make some stuff more visible for the readers, I doubt there is anything else behind his choices. but they are still deliberate choices changing how we look at the graphs.




ok I got an idea, I'm way too lazy to go record hours of change with not too old pads under pressure right now, but here is an example of changing the way we look at the same thing.


those are measures of the FR variation using different Dirac settings for the Divine headphone that I untalentedly reviewed a wile back. I set a color progression easy to see and labelled the settings from "a" to "f". those are the basic variations while using those settings on the headphone, they are not the FR of the headphone itself! in this graph it is assumed that the headphone without any EQ would be a flat line. that's the reference.


I can show the same data from a different reference like this:

it keeps most of the interpretation identical. I just take "a" as the new reference. so now it feels like we can only increase the bass if we take it out of context.

I can just take "f" as reference

those a trivial things and the variations keep the proper amplitudes so they're all valid graphs. but the way we might interpret them could change without the proper information.
for the sake of my argument, imagine those different EQ are changes over time. on the first graph it doesn't look like the signature is settling toward anything. on the second A is flat so now it could feel like we lose stability over time. on the third it's the opposite and it now could feel like the signature settles in nicely with "a" being the wildest variation and "f" the flat line like Tyll is showing when picking the last measure as reference.


----------



## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

I appreciate you going to such trouble to explain the way the different graphs move around depending on which one you pick as the reference. I do understand that that is the case, it's hard to visualize in my head and you definitely helped with that. I just don't buy that the guy ****ed up so bad at presenting the data that he plain forgot to tell us the K701's 'became' more wiggly over time, and then also presented his graphs in such a way that they seem to suggest that the opposite occured. It's madness.

 Maybe the K701's have a reputation for extended break in because they actually get worse. The Benjamin Button edition, instead of Quincy Jones.

 So, since the 'no change' option is out, the only thing left is that the graphs 'became' less wiggly.

What I'm currently listening to, btw.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> I appreciate you going to such trouble to explain the way the different graphs move around depending on which one you pick as the reference. I do understand that that is the case, it's hard to visualize in my head and you definitely helped with that. I just don't buy that the guy ****ed up so bad at presenting the data that he plain forgot to tell us the K701's 'became' more wiggly over time, and then also presented his graphs in such a way that they seem to suggest that the opposite occured. It's madness.
> 
> Maybe the K701's have a reputation for extended break in because they actually get worse. The Benjamin Button edition, instead of Quincy Jones.
> 
> ...



Lol man lets end this thread on a good gif


----------



## tansand (Oct 19, 2018)

.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> I appreciate you going to such trouble to explain the way the different graphs move around depending on which one you pick as the reference. I do understand that that is the case, it's hard to visualize in my head and you definitely helped with that. I just don't buy that the guy ****ed up so bad at presenting the data that he plain forgot to tell us the K701's 'became' more wiggly over time, and then also presented his graphs in such a way that they seem to suggest that the opposite occured. It's madness.
> 
> Maybe the K701's have a reputation for extended break in because they actually get worse. The Benjamin Button edition, instead of Quincy Jones.
> 
> ...



Your composition?


----------



## tansand

Lol, no of course not, I just listen.


----------



## castleofargh

to me it's not so much that his experiment proves or disproves something, it's that we can't rely on it too much. some changes occurred, that much is sure, and part of those changes could very well be the driver burn in. but it could be a bunch of other things too (pads? ^_^). we just have no mean to tell because the experience lacks in controls 

if all the measures had been moving toward the same direction without exception, then I would have been tempted to draw some conclusions about that pair of headphones. when I increase the resistance between my amp and multidriver IEM, the change in response always goes in the same direction there isn't a moment when adding another 10ohm suddenly moves the signature in the opposite direction. so I see a cause and effect relation, because of the consistency, and because of how easy it is to find a model to explain it(ohm's law in this case). 
for Tyll's graph, the small anomalies here and there stop us from having such confidence IMO. in any case, what I tried to explain was that we don't know for sure, not that the changes in FR couldn't make the signature more balanced on that headphone. I don't know it did, and I don't know it didn't ^_^.


----------



## sonitus mirus

castleofargh said:


> to me it's not so much that his experiment proves or disproves something, it's that we can't rely on it too much. some changes occurred, that much is sure, and part of those changes could very well be the driver burn in. but it could be a bunch of other things too (pads? ^_^). we just have no mean to tell because the experience lacks in controls
> 
> if all the measures had been moving toward the same direction without exception, then I would have been tempted to draw some conclusions about that pair of headphones. when I increase the resistance between my amp and multidriver IEM, the change in response always goes in the same direction there isn't a moment when adding another 10ohm suddenly moves the signature in the opposite direction. so I see a cause and effect relation, because of the consistency, and because of how easy it is to find a model to explain it(ohm's law in this case).
> for Tyll's graph, the small anomalies here and there stop us from having such confidence IMO. in any case, what I tried to explain was that we don't know for sure, not that the changes in FR couldn't make the signature more balanced on that headphone. I don't know it did, and I don't know it didn't ^_^.



The changes are small enough that it could be heat, too, as the transducers are continually dissipating power from the amplifier while Tyll left the headphones on the dummy during the test with a signal playing the entire time.  If part or the measured results were heat related, it might also explain the odd 20-hour reading, as perhaps the AC kicked in or the room temp otherwise cooled and countered the temps impacting the results from the headphones alone.  

Anyway, it would have been nice to remove the temperature changes and ear pads from potentially interacting with the drivers being tested.  The temps could have been regulated by starting the test for 12 hours at the same ambient temperature and then allowing 12 hours to cool off before repeating again.  The ear pads would have to be removed completely, as any attempt to remove and replace the headphones with the pads on would most likely have a much larger impact on the overall results with regards to the FR.  Even then, it is possible that the material used for the ear pads was simply being worked-in over time and may have resulted in a slight difference in clamping force, moving the driver position slightly and perhaps allowing some frequencies to reflect and interact in a measurably altered way.


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## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

Let's hear the pad theory then. How's it work?



> Ok, let's hear the pad theory?
> 
> Loosely sealing pads would lower the Q and frequency of the resonance of the volume of air inside the shell/pad/whatever, like an aperiodic enclosure. Tightly sealing pads would raise Q and frequency. But, this is only one fundamental resonance, the others (higher) would be reflections inside the chamber (?), and would move little, if at all, up and down in frequency. They wouldn't just become more damped. And a soft, collapsing pad would make a better seal, raising Q and frequency, a hard one would not conform to the surface, and leak more.
> 
> ...



Do you think that with the available evidence the chance that the data shows headphone break in is greater, or lesser than 50%? Do you admit that the theory of headphone break in is supported by this data?


----------



## bigshot

I would expect that "breaking in" would ideally shift in a specific direction and then settle into a signature and stop shifting. If it randomly changes or continues changing without ever settling in, I would suspect inconsistent measuring or perhaps a defective unit that isn't able to maintain a consistent output. Establishing the settling in and stopping shifting is of primary importance, and secondly you would need to prove that the shift is heading in a specific direction. Those two things are more important than the fact that the measurements change. There are other reasons that changes in measurements might occur that have nothing to do with breaking in.


----------



## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

This wasn't just for sonitus mirus, you can feel free to answer too, "bigshot".





> Do you think that, with the available evidence, the chance that the data shows headphone break in is greater, or lesser than 50%?
> 
> Do you admit that the theory of headphone break in is supported by this data?


----------



## sonitus mirus

tansand said:


> Let's hear the pad theory then. How's it work?



I don't know enough about the materials used to make the ear pads to know how they might interact with the measurements taken.  Without understanding how they may be changing the sound, anything would just be a guess.  Not mentioned is the effect of the driver moving in as the material might be settling, like the fill in a pillow.  How much is the driver moving?  A fraction of a millimeter over 90 hours?  A centimeter or more?  Is one are of the pad more susceptible to collapsing over time than another section?  How would such a tilt affect the test measurements if something like this occurred?



tansand said:


> Do you think that with the available evidence the chance that the data shows headphone break in is greater, or lesser than 50%? Do you admit that the theory of headphone break in is supported by this data?


  There are far too many variable to make any responsible guess, and there are other resources that suggest break in is not occurring that counter this one test.  With speakers and large transducers, it is possible to have some change in mechanical movement over time.  But whether this is indicative of a necessary break in period is unknown.  This test does not support any idea in my opinion.


----------



## tansand

So, you think the chance that this data shows headphone break in is less than 50%?

You believe the theory of headphone break in is not supported by this data?

Noted!


----------



## skwoodwiva

This is brave....


----------



## sonitus mirus

tansand said:


> So, you think the chance that this data shows headphone break in is less than 50%?
> 
> You believe the theory of headphone break in is not supported by this data?
> 
> Noted!



It isn't something that can be assigned an arbitrary percentage.  It is "yes or no".  I said "no" and provided some reasons for my opinion.  I think my position was made crystal clear.   Are you still unsure?   If I see a flash of light in the sky, I don't automatically assume it is evidence to support intelligent life visiting from another planet.  It would seem rather shallow and ridiculous to ask anyone if they thought there was a 50% chance the flash of light supported the idea that E.T. flew by to stir up trouble.


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## bigshot (Apr 1, 2018)

tansand said:


> This wasn't just for sonitus mirus, you can feel free to answer too, "bigshot".



You want a percentage of probability? What would I base that estimate on? I think you would have to do further measurements, increase the sample size and eliminate some variables to be able to find out what causes the variation in the measurements. Anything else would just be a guess. One example isn't enough to base a conclusion or probability of a conclusion on.

I've heard a lot of people who do measurements of headphones comment on how there's lots of room for variation in the results. Pads are one way. If you clamp the measuring device onto the ear cup and it depresses the pad over time, the distance and orientation of the measurement device can cause big differences in the measurements. I don't do this stuff myself so I don't know the specifics. But a few months ago there was a guy in here who was talking about ways to try to make more consistent ways to measure headphones. He might know better.

I do know that how I seat headphones on my head makes a big difference to the way they sound to my ears. I used to not believe that pads made much of a difference because the materials didn't have enough space to absorb or reflect sound, but I do think altering the orientation of the drivers does. It's very likely that pads might affect that. I've rethought my opinion on that. I wasn't considering how pads affect how the driver sits on the ear.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> So, you think the chance that this data shows headphone break in is less than 50%?
> 
> You believe the theory of headphone break in is not supported by this data?
> 
> Noted!


Public, ehh, 
Ok 
No spine!


----------



## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

> It isn't something that can be assigned an arbitrary percentage. It is "yes or no". I said "no" and provided some reasons for my opinion. I think my position was made crystal clear. Are you still unsure? If I see a flash of light in the sky, I don't automatically assume it is evidence to support intelligent life visiting from another planet. It would seem rather shallow and ridiculous to ask anyone if they thought there was a 50% chance the flash of light supported the idea that E.T. flew by to stir up trouble.




OK, so now we've gone from "the final verdict" to "it's like if I said I saw ET". 

Solipsism rears it's ugly head yet again, right bigshot?


----------



## bigshot

tansand said:


> Solipsism rears it's ugly head yet again, right bigshot?



Solipsism is related to subjectivity. It would be solipsist to interpret every bit of evidence to try to force it to prove a preconceived conclusion. It would be solipsist to cherry pick one measurement and focus on that just because it tends to indicate one's preconceived conclusion. To be honest, I don't care if burn in exists or if it doesn't. I'd just like to see a pattern of clear evidence to prove it if it does. In fact, if burn in does exist, I would want to see if there was a way to prevent it and it would change the way I evaluate my headphones because I want them to stay in precise calibration. Thankfully, with my Oppo PM-1s, it isn't an issue. They didn't change at all after using them for a while. They still sound exactly the same as when I got them. They are as close to perfect as I've ever heard.


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## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

I think headphone break-in exists, and the guy's tests showed it, but he didn't want to admit it for some reason. Perhaps he's never heard it, and was looking to prove it didn't exist, with great triumph and accolades, but got disappointed.


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## bigshot (Apr 1, 2018)

If it exists there must be other examples that show it. Maybe another test would have fewer question marks. Do you know of any more?

If someone performed a test with a specific result in mind so they would get famous, I wouldn't trust their results either way it would come out. Science is about discovering the truth, not discovering what we want the truth to be. I'm open to it either way. I've dug around and can't find much evidence that burn in exists. Maybe it exists in badly designed or defective headphones the way some amps and players might sound different if they are badly designed or defective.


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## tansand

I saw a UFO one time. there was a small light in the sky, like a tiny star. But it was moving, so I assumed it was a sattelite. Then it's trajectory curved quite a bit, and it dimmed and disappeared.

Visitors.


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## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

> If it exists there must be other examples that show it. Maybe another test would have fewer question marks. Do you know of any more?




Why would I need another? I've 'heard' it, and this guy found it, his tests indicate it, and then he tried to play it off. That says that both he and I now know that break-in happens. Do you know of a test that disproves it?


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## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> I think headphone break-in exists, and the guy's tests showed it, but he didn't want to admit it for some reason. Perhaps he's never heard it, and was looking to prove it didn't exist, with great triumph and accolades, but got disappointed.


You psychic, too.


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## bigshot (Apr 1, 2018)

Oh no! Now you're going down the solipsist route! You don't want to look for evidence just to prove your subjective impression. You want to look at ALL the evidence and see what ALL of it indicates, regardless of what your impression is. Your impression is just a clue to figure out what questions to ask to come up with the answer. You should be interested in finding out if burn in exists with all subjectivity and all variables controlled. You should also want to see a pattern in a fairly large sample to indicate that it isn't just a one off with defective headphones.

If you want to prove your subjective impressions by cherry picking data, you are in the wrong forum for that. The rest of HeadFi is more open to that sort of thing than we are here.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> Why would I need another? I've 'heard' it, and this guy found it, his tests indicate it, and then he tried to play it off. That says that both he and I now know that break-in happens. Do you know of a test that disproves it?


Numb, me is.


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## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

> Your impression is just a clue to figure out what questions to ask to come up with the answer. You should be interested in finding out if burn in exists with all subjectivity and all variables controlled. You should also want to see a pattern in a fairly large sample to indicate that it isn't just a one off with defective headphones.




I'm generally interested, but not greatly motivated. Mine are broken in, like the K701's are. Would you say there's a 50% or greater chance that the K701's tested sound different now then at the beginning of the testing, given the graphs posted?


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## skwoodwiva (Apr 1, 2018)

tansand said:


> I'm generally interested, but not greatly motivated. Mine are broken in, like the K701's are now.


Wow I did not realize your true motivation Solipsism, 
Are they as great as they look? Rather sound for real as they appear on paper? 
Envy...True that,
No modded Sony better


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## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

No No No. The K701's in the test! I don't have any. K240 though  They are not the greatest, but they are ok, I paid like 50 bucks new for them.


----------



## bigshot

tansand said:


> Would you say there's a 50% or greater chance that the K701's tested sound different now then at the beginning of the testing, given the graphs posted?



I already said that one test isn't enough to base an estimate of probability on. I would say that your K701s likely sound audibly different than the ones they used in that test. Most headphones are manufactured to about a +/- 3dB response tolerance. It's quite likely that one set of K701s would sound different than another. I wouldn't be able to give you a percentage on that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is the case.

If those measurements are accurate, it would be useful to continue measuring those cans. I would bet if they shift signature consistently for a couple of hundred hours, they will continue to shift. Another option is that the ear pads might have broken in. Have you noticed a change in the pads since you got your headphones? Do they fit better now?


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## tansand (Apr 1, 2018)

Ack, I'm sorry I gave the impression I have K701! I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the K240, I haven't noticed any pad changes, maybe they're softer. I think they're the same pads as the K701. Honestly they are not my favorite, but they are better than the Grado SR60 I bought first. 

By 'mine' are already broken in, I meant the Soundmagic E50 I listen to most, at the beginning they had a lot of bass, but they settled in and sound more flat now (lmao). I'm so sorry I made what I was saying so unclear!


----------



## bigshot

I don't have in ear monitors, so I'm not up on them... but does the angle and depth you put them into your ear affect the sound quality at all? If so, which frequencies are most affected? Were these your first in ear monitors? How do they customize the fit to different people's shaped ears?


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## tansand (Apr 11, 2018)

......


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## tansand (Apr 11, 2018)

....


----------



## bigshot

I have a kickass speaker system, so I don't really need a lot of cans. If I need them, I have Oppo PM-1s and beater mono price cans for work. The tips make a difference? If you use three different ones and they affect the bass, are you sure the change in bass is due to burn in and not just comparing the sound of different tips at different times?


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## tansand (Apr 11, 2018)

.....


----------



## castleofargh

tansand said:


> I'm generally interested, but not greatly motivated. Mine are broken in, like the K701's are. Would you say there's a 50% or greater chance that the K701's tested sound different now then at the beginning of the testing, given the graphs posted?


how would anybody find a percentage of chance from 1 test with incomplete controls?

you asked about "my" pad idea. here is my *"super short not burn in experiment 2018"*.


the shape reminds you of something? ^_^
maybe something like this





did I just replicate the experiment and prove driver burn in?
sorry no.
 I placed my on ear BT headphone on my measurement thingy(minidsp EARS), and just took a few measurements over 90mn of time. touching nothing, and playing no music, just letting the natural clamping force of the headphone do its thing on the pads. 
if you click on the graph, at the bottom you have a t value giving the time in minutes for each color. the reference(flat) is as I said 90mn.

the headphone is 2 or 3 years old and get some use so long as it's not too hot outside, so I'd say, well burned in^_^.  so the pads are far from brand new, but I still got enough changes to make my point I believe.
I applied differences like Tyll did using the last measure as reference of flat.
I zoomed on the 3khz-20khz like he did. and voila!


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## tansand (Apr 2, 2018)

I like it! Thank you for getting back to me.

There are two differences. First, the time. What you have shown happened over 90 minutes not 90 hours. And, the peaks are reduced more than the nulls, while the K701 test the peaks and nulls reduce evenly. Did you notice my experience above?



> The foam tips have a very even sound, I think the lack of leaks flattens the frequency response in the highs as well as the bass. That's what I hear.



This supports your pad theory, too.


----------



## castleofargh

oh of course, the time is different, the magnitudes, the headphones are different. I measured in totally different conditions using different gears. I'm certainly not claiming it's identical, only that the similarities do give a few points to team pads and my argument that it's a bad way to show data. if I have to claim only one thing, it's that the pads need to be removed to test driver burn in, otherwise we'll never know which part of the variations came from the driver itself. 

about the reduction being more important for peaks, sadly it's again just a game of representation. the actual data doesn't care. I just didn't bother to align the frequency responses before applying the difference to get this resulting graph. while Tyll did align all the graphs at 300hz(meaning 300hz is at zero for all measurements). imagine what he did, he made a graphic representation of differences between measurements, but before showing the results, he changed the values of those difference based on a a frequency he hand picked. that's double wrong. I imitated his presentation really just to show that it's misleading and not really evidence of burn in. it's better not to legitimize anything presented that way, be it his or my graph. 

just raw measurements would have made so much more sense. although they probably wouldn't have helped make a case for burn in. but at least we could have observed the variations as they really occurred. I guess it would mostly have showed the sound getting louder and some small variations due to the position of the driver respectively to the ear, and the reduction in volume of the acoustic chamber. or maybe the pads making a better seal so the subs would increase. that sort of stuff where driver burn in wouldn't be the first suspect. of course we can't exclude burn in based on such experiences, but we also can't really say they show it to exist.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tips affect the sound, in how they extend the tube of the IEM, to how they occupy more or less space in the ear canal, and also a little by how they're shaped or how much they will absorb and reflect sound. that's very easy to measure, the only issue being that the measurement defines the sound as experienced by the mic. once inserted differently in my ears, the result will be different. so I don't believe we should rely on measured differences to say how some tips will sound when used on us. but at least measurements can confirm that there are indeed differences measured simply by having different tips. 
I think foam tips have better chances to allow for a fine seal, while silicon may go from impeccable seal and more subs than foam, just leave a clear gap and rolled off subs if pressed the wrong way by the ear. maybe for that reason we can expect a little more stability in the subs with foam? but an even sound, IDK. different IEMs will have different responses and I'm not sure foam tips are a panacea. the trebles will be affected a good deal by almost anything, starting with insertion depth, so I won't even try to guess something in that area. I really don't know.


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## jagwap (Apr 2, 2018)

I think the title of this thread is misleading. Nothing final yet.

This is about speaker drivers, but is interesting:
http://www.gr-research.com/myths.htm
Edit: and this:
http://www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm


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## bigshot (Apr 2, 2018)

tansand said:


> With 1200 dollar magnetic planars and monoprice beaters, I guess I'm not surprised you don't hear break in  . Do you have others, How many headphones have you owned?



I have a set of Sennheiser HD590s around here somewhere. They got put in the drawer when I got the Oppos. I had some AKGs a million years ago. Senn PX-200s for portable... I think I had Sony cans at one point too, but I don't remember the model. I'm not big on churning my equipment, so my sample size for cans isn't as big as those who have a few dozen pairs. But because I'm not swapping sound signatures all the time, I am probably more focused on the fine points of how a particular set of headphones sound. I also am extremely picky about response curves and I've trained myself to EQ. That might help in being able to identify changes too. If something had shifted, I would have known it.

Here's what I've been listening to lately...





jagwap said:


> I think the title of this thread is misleading. Nothing final yet.



You can't prove a negative result I guess.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> You can't prove a negative result I guess.



You have repeatedly claimed to have proved a negative: that all uncoloured DACs sound the same. Also from memory I think you agreed with the regulars here that 44..1khz/16bit cannot be distiguished from higher resolutions, also stated as a proved negative. So I'm surprised to see you write that you cannot prove a negative, as you have spent so muct time and effort on doing excactly that.

So, and this us the wider audience in sound science, now I have given three examples from two sources (including the paper from Klippel further up the thread) of measured differences in speaker drive units, do you still have the stance that run-in/burn-in/break-in cannot exist? True a woofer is larger than a headphone driver, but a sensible argument is that the effect scales, rather than disappears.

A 10-20% change in Fs is not trival, and that is just one parameter. Lets have a better debate on this.


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> I think the title of this thread is misleading. Nothing final yet.
> 
> This is about speaker drivers, but is interesting:
> http://www.gr-research.com/myths.htm
> ...


I made the same observation about the title. with all the gears, all the sizes, materials, etc. it's a little silly to use one weak experiment on one pair of headphones and call it a final verdict. Tyll certainly didn't say anything of the sort. only OP read what he wanted in the article. 

maybe this will look like another attempt to reject facts, but I believe speakers shouldn't be mixed with headphones for this. I happen to believe that speakers do change over time. belief I hold because I've seen consistent evidence suggesting that much on more than one model of driver. but so far I can't say the same for headphones where what little evidence I've seen was unclear or showing tiny changes that could pretty much have come from anywhere. as for IEMs, just the way to measure them has consistently given me more variations than any apparent change in the driver itself. be it on dynamic or balanced armatures. 
so I came to think that size does matter. ^_^
also it's fairly obvious that the amplitude of movement, the air that needs to be moved, the forces exercised on the diaphragm, they all tend to be significantly bigger on speakers. so I'd expect mechanical wear to be more noticeable there.
I see speakers as a good case to say that indeed something can happen over time when stuff are pushed and bent, which really nobody can argue against. but it will give a false idea about the magnitudes involved in most headphones. people shouldn't expect the sound of a headphone to somehow clearly transform on a new pair thanks to "burn in". that's just poor thinking given the actual evidence we've had so far.
until I see at least some evidence of the contrary on at least a few pairs, I'll keep suggesting placebo, new toy effect(getting used to the gear and signature), non perfect memory(how dare you?), taking some time to find the best placement on our head, and of course my friends the pads wearing off and maybe conforming a little bit to the shape of our skull over time, as the more relevant and more likely causes of perceived change on headphones and IEMs. and TBH even on speakers, I wouldn't blame driver burn in for my feelings of change in sound. at best I'd admit it can be part of the causes. which is a long way from guys coming here saying "I felt a change in headphone X, so I know burn in is real".


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> I made the same observation about the title. with all the gears, all the sizes, materials, etc. it's a little silly to use one weak experiment on one pair of headphones and call it a final verdict. Tyll certainly didn't say anything of the sort. only OP read what he wanted in the article.
> 
> maybe this will look like another attempt to reject facts, but I believe speakers shouldn't be mixed with headphones for this. I happen to believe that speakers do change over time. belief I hold because I've seen consistent evidence suggesting that much on more than one model of driver. but so far I can't say the same for headphones where what little evidence I've seen was unclear or showing tiny changes that could pretty much have come from anywhere. as for IEMs, just the way to measure them has consistently given me more variations than any apparent change in the driver itself. be it on dynamic or balanced armatures.
> so I came to think that size does matter. ^_^
> ...



Reasonably argued, but it is equally easy to argue that if a headphone driver of a fifth of the diameter has a fifth of the mechanical movement, with have a fifth of the burn-in effect. That in turn may be proportional to the size of the output, resulting in a similar effect to that of a speaker driver.  As you say, no one here has presented the hard evidense yet. 

I returned a pair of headphones and got a brand new replacement. The difference was noticable. So I tried the demo pair, which sounded like I remember my broken pair sounding. I know this is inadmissible evidence here m'lud, and it could be down to tolerances, but it could be break-in. 

Oh and anyone who accepts +-3dB tolerance on a decent headphone in the midband is not very fussy. +-1.5dB is a reasonable tolerance except the frequency extremes, and manufactures can do better if they spend the money.


----------



## skwoodwiva

jagwap said:


> You have repeatedly claimed to have proved a negative: that all uncoloured DACs sound the same. Also from memory I think you agreed with the regulars here that 44..1khz/16bit cannot be distiguished from higher resolutions, also stated as a proved negative. So I'm surprised to see you write that you cannot prove a negative, as you have spent so muct time and effort on doing excactly that.
> 
> So, and this us the wider audience in sound science, now I have given three examples from two sources (including the paper from Klippel further up the thread) of measured differences in speaker drive units, do you still have the stance that run-in/burn-in/break-in cannot exist? True a woofer is larger than a headphone driver, but a sensible argument is that the effect scales, rather than disappears.
> 
> A 10-20% change in Fs is not trival, and that is just one parameter. Lets have a better debate on this.


Some sanity in the midst of in...


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Reasonably argued, but it is equally easy to argue that if a headphone driver of a fifth of the diameter has a fifth of the mechanical movement, with have a fifth of the burn-in effect. That in turn may be proportional to the size of the output, resulting in a similar effect to that of a speaker driver.  As you say, no one here has presented the hard evidense yet.
> 
> I returned a pair of headphones and got a brand new replacement. The difference was noticable. So I tried the demo pair, which sounded like I remember my broken pair sounding. I know this is inadmissible evidence here m'lud, and it could be down to tolerances, but it could be break-in.
> 
> Oh and anyone who accepts +-3dB tolerance on a decent headphone in the midband is not very fussy. +-1.5dB is a reasonable tolerance except the frequency extremes, and manufactures can do better if they spend the money.


well yes and no. the practical amplitudes necessary in a headphone's dynamic driver are so small, the designers usually don't bother with ... how is it called in English... a surround suspension? the "stuff around the diaphragm", to talk like an expert^_^. (step one, convince the readers that you know your subject by using impressive lingo: check!)

but in general, what I reject is really just "I felt a change in headphone X, so I know burn in is real". I don't have a special desire to disprove that driver burn in exists in headphones, we agree that we need proper evidence to draw conclusions and that's where we should all be. in a multi variable system, we can't just go and decide on one clear cause for no reason without proper control over the other known variables. even less so when a one of those variables is a dude and his mind. 

to follow on up on a previous post, more repeatable evidence, fewer empty claims. if we just do that we should be good and I'll stop whining.


----------



## colonelkernel8

skwoodwiva said:


> Some sanity in the midst of in...


An argument in favor of your bias is meaningless in determining the argument’s validity.


----------



## jagwap

colonelkernel8 said:


> An argument in favor of your bias is meaningless in determining the argument’s validity.



Your assumption that is the way he evaluated my argument is also meaningless.


----------



## ScubadudeSA

Did not read the whole thing, but if we take burn-in seriously, at what point does wear-out start deteriorating sound? Not just earpads but the drivers as well.


----------



## jagwap

ScubadudeSA said:


> Did not read the whole thing, but if we take burn-in seriously, at what point does wear-out start deteriorating sound? Not just earpads but the drivers as well.



Well if the majority of burn-in happens in the first 20 hours, and asymtotes to a steady state in 50 - 200 hours, but the drivers wear out after serveral thousand hours if played at their rated output (unlikely in domestic use. Your neighbour would call the police): I think there is a section in the middle of the lifetime of the driver where it stabilizes to a useful and predictable set of parameters.


----------



## tansand (Oct 19, 2018)

.


----------



## bigshot

That is some funky ****![/QUOTE]

When I was a kid, my dad listened to Wayne King albums. They always sounded to me like he was playing them at the wrong speed.


----------



## bigshot (Apr 3, 2018)

jagwap said:


> You have repeatedly claimed to have proved a negative: that all uncoloured DACs sound the same.



Contradiction in terms? Uncolored DACs should sound the same, shouldn't they? The coloration is what would make them sound different!

Speakers would be more easily calibrated with EQ. I have trouble finding a good EQ app for my mobile devices


----------



## tansand (Apr 3, 2018)

That's insane. I mean really insane music.  it makes me want to run and hide, at the same time so calming.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Contradiction in terms? Uncolored DACs should sound the same, shouldn't they? The coloration is what would make them sound different!
> 
> Speakers would be more easily calibrated with EQ. I have trouble finding a good EQ app for my mobile devices



I was trying to remember your definition. I do not agree with your statement, just trying to show that you have stated you have proved a negative to your own satisfaction.

If colouration definition is restricted to frequency response or harmonic distortion then all DACs do not sound the same.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> That is some funky ****!



When I was a kid, my dad listened to Wayne King albums. They always sounded to me like he was playing them at the wrong speed.

[/QUOTE]

I have a feeling he wouldn't have called himself "Wayne King" if he were British...


----------



## tansand

Lmao. So, I just got it.


----------



## jagwap

tansand said:


> Lmao. So, I just got it.



Ironically this lot are British. They must have known:

http://www.waynekerrtest.com

Always made me snigger...


----------



## bigshot (Apr 3, 2018)

jagwap said:


> I have a feeling he wouldn't have called himself "Wayne King" if he were British...



The music industry has British queens too.



jagwap said:


> Always made me snigger...



Sadly, that guy's best friend passed away...

https://www.gofundme.com/2n8rqpc7


----------



## castleofargh

tansand said:


> That is some funky ****!



it's like a sleep mode for depression. when it reaches peak speed, it's just barely turning into The Cure at slow speed.


----------



## tansand (Oct 19, 2018)

.


----------



## skwoodwiva

bigshot said:


> Contradiction in terms? Uncolored DACs should sound the same, shouldn't they? The coloration is what would make them sound different!
> 
> Speakers would be more easily calibrated with EQ. I have trouble finding a good EQ app for my mobile devices





 
UAPP


----------



## jagwap

When I want a overly slow mood piece I go here:


----------



## skwoodwiva

skwoodwiva said:


> UAPP


Android must be set to these for power to play a hog like UAPP in DSD, but this for others as we know BS does not need DSD.


----------



## tansand

Well, anyway, thanks to this thread I'm going to make the effort to get 100 hours of pink noise through my headphones in the future.

So thanks everyone for that!


----------



## castleofargh

everybody should do whatever he wants with his property. even if I said the opposite, it's not like I can stop you from deep frying your headphones if that's you're style. we're not here to tell people what to do. at best we try to find out if there is a reason behind what they do. 


"when you believe in things, that you don't understand, then you suffer. superstition ain't the way. "


----------



## jagwap

It is not going to do any harm if the level is at comfortable listening level. If anything does break then you found a fault that would have happened soon anyway, and you can get them back within any return period.

It will also reassure you that you are hearing them run-in if that exists (hint: it does) and you can judge if you want to keep them within the return period.

So everyone is happy, except some here on sound science (otherwise know as the denied theory team)


----------



## bigshot (Apr 3, 2018)

tansand said:


> Well, anyway, thanks to this thread I'm going to make the effort to get 100 hours of pink noise through my headphones in the future.



I've read that burn in only works if you are wearing the headphones during the pink noise. Something about the open ear cups not doing the job... The shape of your ear canals affect the burn in and customize it for your head. Also you need to turn the volume up to 80dB. Go for it!


----------



## castleofargh

indeed I'm not a big fan of that general line of thought. I don't carry a rabbit foot, don't buy lottery tickets and don't use homeopathic sugar pills. just because it's cheap and doesn't have much of a side effects isn't to me a valid justification to go for it. (well homeopathy should maybe not be in here because many take it instead of the proper drug, which might not be side effect free). 

TBH doing it to get rapidly past the "infancy death period" for a given product, that sounds to me like a very valid reason. it's probably the best reason I've ever seen written in a burn in topic. except I don't have the nice hyperbolic curve from manufacturer's data about my headphone showing how after X hours of use the risk of it breaking goes down by 20%. so we're kind of back to the perfectly legitimate point applied by random guessing. for my new headphone, should I stop at 2hours? 50hours? 300hours? 2000? no idea. I could play music for an insignificant amount of time relatively to the statistic point where I can expect minimum issues, or I could be long into stability hours and basically be aging my headphone for no reason. it's the same issue as burn in, with proper data for a given headphone, of course I'd be with you. because we make a model based on reliable data and when that model is showed to work well enough, we use it to predict a behavior and make the best of it. very rational, very effective. Science! 
but random rituals at random loudness with random signal for a random amount of time based on a guess, with no clue about the actual consequences... why? and then that weird arbitrary ritual somehow becomes the reference of what to do to all new headphones and maybe all new gears. at least that's how it looks when I read burn in propaganda. all that ultimately determined how? not through measurements, no, that's no fun at all. instead some dudes thought real hard about the problem at hand and went "hey let's trust our memory over anything else, because memory has never let anybody down in the history of mankind!!!". yeahhh! 

the amount of fallacy and malpractice needed to arrive to some audiophile claims about burn in and burn in methods is just staggering. I can't. not with the amount of data we have(pretty much nothing). 
but as I said, my issue is about making empty claims and all the people who think there is nothing wrong with that. I have no issue with people burning in their gears using whatever method they like. if it makes them happier, it's a job well done. 



bigshot said:


> I've read that burn in only works if you are wearing the headphones during the pink noise. Something about the open ear cups not doing the job... The shape of your ear canals affect the burn in and customize it for your head. Also you need to turn the volume up to 80dB. Go for it!


the sad thing is that your argument is just as legitimate as any other. but pink noise is too boring, it will make your headphone boring too. I suggest square waves then sine sweeps(that way the driver learn to make all sounds at once and also one clear tone at a time. accurate, and versatile!). and as we keep it on our head while burning in the headphone, as Samuel L Jackson said in Loaded Weapon, if it's tingling, "that means it's working!"


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I've read that burn in only works if you are wearing the headphones during the pink noise. Something about the open ear cups not doing the job... The shape of your ear canals affect the burn in and customize it for your head. Also you need to turn the volume up to 80dB. Go for it!



80dB at 100 hours is possible permanent hearing damage. I know you don't like some of these opinions but there's no need for retaliation! Naughty.


----------



## skwoodwiva (Apr 4, 2018)

jagwap said:


> 80dB at 100 hours is possible permanent hearing damage. I know you don't like some of these opinions but there's no need for retaliation! Naughty.


BS makes boydbrain comments, not that often, but a doosey that one was.


----------



## bigshot (Apr 4, 2018)

jagwap said:


> 80dB at 100 hours is possible permanent hearing damage.



Not if you do it five minutes a day for 3 1/2 years!



Spoiler



(The extra half a year is just to be on the safe side!)


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Not if you do it five minutes a day for 3 1/2 years!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You didn't mention that.  I thought you guys were sticklers for details.


----------



## skwoodwiva (Apr 4, 2018)

jagwap said:


> You didn't mention that.  I thought you guys were sticklers for details.


Jelly Fish he is now, @amn, he funny, does he know it?
Do I even need a herring?


----------



## sonitus mirus

Here is what Oscar at SoundMagic had to say about the E50.  Seems like there would be some noticeable difference with refurbished headphones, but apparently that is not the case and they sound identical to new versions.

SoundMAGIC Headphones <support@soundmagicheadphones.com>
To:Shopify Notification
Apr 3 at 5:31 AM
Hi,

Burn-in is a debated subject, but I would not expect huge changes, also drivers rarely fail, and they would not go out of spec from normal usage. Many people still have full size headphones that are 20 or more years old that still work fine, it is usually the physical construction that fails first.

The refurbished will sound the same as the new ones,

Thanks,
Oscar


----------



## tansand (Apr 4, 2018)

Oscar's makes some good iem's, I appreciate that. I almost bought some refurbished. But, you know, ears. I don't worry about bigshot, he just feels a need to express his anger his pov got disregarded. Cast aside. Abandoned. Some people can't deal with that.

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, bigshot.


----------



## bigshot

Ha ha! I'm having fun. If you aren't enjoying yourself, then you're doing it wrong!


----------



## tansand

Uh huh. Somebody is always doing it wrong, right bigshot? Lmao.


----------



## Ramblinman

The loosening up of moving materials is just common sense and silly to deny. The less energy it takes to move a diaphragm, the more efficient the diaphragms are. This results in greater detail in the the sound given the same source. 

Does anyone really disagree with that? 



tansand said:


> Ok, let's hear the pad theory?
> 
> Loosely sealing pads would lower the Q and frequency of the resonance of the volume of air inside the shell/pad/whatever, like an aperiodic enclosure. Tightly sealing pads would raise Q and frequency. But, this is only one fundamental resonance, the others (higher) would be reflections inside the chamber (?), and would move little, if at all, up and down in frequency. They wouldn't just become more damped. And a soft, collapsing pad would make a better seal, raising Q and frequency, a hard one would not conform to the surface, and leak more.
> 
> ...


T


----------



## bigshot

If something is “loosening up” what makes it stop loosening up? ...and if it did stop, how could you guarantee that it stops right on the proper calibration? The thing that suggests to me that breaking in is placebo is the fact that no one ever seems to think break in sounds worse than new. That sounds to me like people’s ears are just acclimating to a new sound.


----------



## colonelkernel8 (Apr 4, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> The loosening up of moving materials is just common sense and silly to deny. The less energy it takes to move a diaphragm, the more efficient the diaphragms are. This results in greater detail in the the sound given the same source.
> 
> Does anyone really disagree with that?



Who says “loosening up” the diaphragm doesn’t cause more IMD? Efficiency != “detail”.


----------



## upstateguy

bigshot said:


> *If something is “loosening up” what makes it stop loosening up?* ..*.and if it did stop, how could you guarantee that it stops right on the proper calibration?* The thing that suggests to me that breaking in is placebo is the fact that no one ever seems to think break in sounds worse than new. That sounds to me like people’s ears are just acclimating to a new sound.



I never thought of it that way, you're absolutely right.


----------



## upstateguy

skwoodwiva said:


> *BS makes boydbrain comments, not that often, but a doosey that one was*.





skwoodwiva said:


> *Jelly Fish he is now, @amn, he funny, does he know it?*
> *Do I even need a herring?*



I know you're trying to say something here but I can't make out what it is.  Maybe you can help?


----------



## Ramblinman (Apr 4, 2018)

bigshot said:


> If something is “loosening up” what makes it stop loosening up? ...and if it did stop, how could you guarantee that it stops right on the proper calibration? The thing that suggests to me that breaking in is placebo is the fact that no one ever seems to think break in sounds worse than new. That sounds to me like people’s ears are just acclimating to a new sound.


So are you aware of speaker cones becoming “too loose” ? What would you define as too loose?
So Is a baseball glove better when brand new or after it has been flexed repeatedly and loosens up?
Why?

In the case of a speaker cone, the surround stops it from loosening up beyond an engineerable point.


----------



## jagwap

Replying to the wrong message.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> If something is “loosening up” what makes it stop loosening up? ...and if it did stop, how could you guarantee that it stops right on the proper calibration? The thing that suggests to me that breaking in is placebo is the fact that no one ever seems to think break in sounds worse than new. That sounds to me like people’s ears are just acclimating to a new sound.



We went over this. You were reading it. Is this an example of that short term inability to remember details when listening that was discussed before?


----------



## bigshot (Apr 4, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> So are you aware of speaker cones becoming “too loose” ? In the case of a speaker cone, the surround stops it from loosening up beyond an engineerable point.



No, never saw a speaker cone get too loose. The surrounds deteriorate, but that isn't breaking in, it's wearing out. I would think it would be very hard to predict how far something is going to shift, if it's prone to shifting. You'd want to pick materials that don't deform as you use them, so it stays in spec. Maybe we're talking about cheap headphones here. Maybe $20 beaters evolve like that. I just got some $60 Monoprice cans and I've been using them for about $60 hours and I haven't noticed any difference. I guess it wouldn't matter though because they're nowhere near flat.


----------



## Ramblinman

bigshot said:


> No, never saw a speaker cone get too loose. The surrounds deteriorate, but that isn't breaking in, it's wearing out. I would think it would be very hard to predict how far something is going to shift, if it's prone to shifting. I would think that you'd want to pick materials that don't deform as you use them.



Sure they eventually disintegrate, but first they break in and allow the cone to move more freely.  I don’t think it would be very hard to predict what the break in flexibility would be in a specified rubber compound used in a speaker surround.

You seem to be misunderstanding, I am talking about increasing flexibility, not deformation.


----------



## skwoodwiva

upstateguy said:


> I know you're trying to say something here but I can't make out what it is.  Maybe you can help?


Turn on your PMs


----------



## bigshot (Apr 4, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> Sure they eventually disintegrate, but first they break in and allow the cone to move more freely.  I don’t think it would be very hard to predict what the break in flexibility would be in a specified rubber compound used in a speaker surround.



My JBL woofers have cloth surrounds. So do the midrange drivers. The tweeter is a slot tweeter. I don't think any of that would break in. Maybe my Sunfire sub. It has heavy foam surround. But I haven't noticed any difference over time. Not that I would down at the bottom of the spectrum like that. Since only woofers have foam surrounds, I'm guessing that the change if they burn in would only affect the bass.

Assuming that headphones burn in, what frequencies do people hear changing? Would it be the frequencies that require the biggest excursion? That would be the bass. Is there any consensus among people who think they've experienced burn in about precisely what is changing? Is it distortion or response? What specific frequencies? If it's random, I would again lean towards placebo.


----------



## Ramblinman

Ok, but cloth surrounds are not only rare, but are actually weird. Foam and rubber compounds are the norm. I believe it is engineered, and all diaphragm drivers gain flexibility with use. Whether that makes a positive or negative difference is a matter of opinion, but there is no question the change happens. 




bigshot said:


> My JBL woofers have cloth surrounds. So do the midrange drivers. The tweeter is a slot tweeter. I don't think any of that would break in. Maybe my Sunfire sub. It has heavy foam surround. But I haven't noticed any difference over time. Not that I would down at the bottom of the spectrum like that. Since only woofers have foam surrounds, I'm guessing that the change if they burn in would only affect the bass.
> 
> Assuming that headphones burn in, what frequencies do people hear changing? Would it be the frequencies that require the biggest excursion? That would be the bass. Is there any consensus among people who think they've experienced burn in about precisely what is changing? Is it distortion or response? What specific frequencies? If it's random, I would again lean towards placebo.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I don't think any of that would break in.





> I'm guessing



This is the sound science forum. This is inadmissible.



> Assuming that headphones burn in, what frequencies do people hear changing? Would it be the frequencies that require the biggest excursion? That would be the bass. Is there any consensus among people who think they've experienced burn in about precisely what is changing? Is it distortion or response? What specific frequencies? If it's random, I would again lean towards placebo.



You can lean, but it is only opinion.

Why is it always about frequency response or THD?  Just because amateurs and less well equiped "experts" can measure it easily it isn't the only factor that matters.

I linked to the measurement company that measures this and how much effect it has over time.  Why do you doubt Klippel? It's like saying Audio Precision do not know what they are doing.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Ramblinman said:


> Ok, but cloth surrounds are not only rare, but are actually weird. Foam and rubber compounds are the norm. I believe it is engineered, and all diaphragm drivers gain flexibility with use. Whether that makes a positive or negative difference is a matter of opinion, but there is no question the change happens.



I do believe you’d have a slightly shifting frequency response over the life of the speaker due to this very thing, but I’m more certain that it’s extremely gradual and ends effectively when the surround fails 20-odd years down the line. Measuring it would be interesting. I’d like to see if there were “inflection” points where the material properties change in some fashion that possibly creates a more noticeable frequency response change. Alas, this kind of testing would require some serious gear and some serious time to measure.


----------



## tansand (Apr 4, 2018)

It's like your hat, more damped. Or socks.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> It's like your hat, more damped. Or socks.


Lol, guys.
You feed BS by all this , well I guess his brain may just need breaking...


----------



## sonitus mirus

I don't think we have learned anything new about this topic since this article was written.

https://www.wired.com/2013/11/tnhyui-earphone-burn-in/

I'm confident that it would be a waste of my time with no benefit to the sound quality.


----------



## bigshot (Apr 4, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> Ok, but cloth surrounds are not only rare, but are actually weird. Foam and rubber compounds are the norm. I believe it is engineered, and all diaphragm drivers gain flexibility with use. Whether that makes a positive or negative difference is a matter of opinion, but there is no question the change happens.



Why can't people prove that there is a definite change then?

It's important to start out an investigation with openness to any conclusion. You don't want to cherry pick and try to force the hand. Once a pattern has been established, you can generalize. We are well into the range where we can generalize on this subject.

Jagwap, if you are going to pull quotes out of context, you'll not get much interaction with me. The fundamental aspects of reproduced sound are frequency response, amplitude and distortion. Those three elements in the broadest sense of the terms cover everything we can hear. That's why everything comes down to those three things.



colonelkernel8 said:


> I do believe you’d have a slightly shifting frequency response over the life of the speaker due to this very thing, but I’m more certain that it’s extremely gradual and ends effectively when the surround fails 20-odd years down the line..



I don't see any reason to think it's gradual or even. Once things start to fail, they shift big. I would think that a change would be a pretty good indicator that something is going to fail big soon. It's more likely at the end of life than the beginning. I can't see how manufacturers that care about the calibration of their products would send something out that is going to change over the first couple of weeks of use.


----------



## jagwap

sonitus mirus said:


> I don't think we have learned anything new about this topic since this article was written.
> 
> https://www.wired.com/2013/11/tnhyui-earphone-burn-in/
> 
> I'm confident that it would be a waste of my time with no benefit to the sound quality.



You must be using the royal "we" because others may have been reading less selectively. Your article even sites a guy at Shure who agrees that larger headphones may change during burn in.

Your confidence is not shared by myself, especially as I have experienced in blind listening and those figures I linked to showing substancial changes in driver performance measurements in the first 20-100 hours. Perhaps you don't want to take this information into account over your own beliefs.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Jagwap, if you are going to pull quotes out of context, you'll not get much interaction with me. The fundamental aspects of reproduced sound are frequency response, amplitude and distortion. Those three elements in the broadest sense of the terms cover everything we can hear. That's why everything comes down to those three things.



Not everything no. There is phase, inpulse, group delay, diffraction, resonance, noise, modulation, compression... and that's without going into the details of frequency response over distance, angle, time, or distortion type, modulation, frequency, masking. You need a larger view to have make creditable statement that something is unlikely.



> I don't see any reason to think it's gradual or even. Once things start to fail, they shift big. I would think that a change would be a pretty good indicator that something is going to fail big soon. It's more likely at the end of life than the beginning. I can't see how manufacturers that care about the calibration of their products would send something out that is going to change over the first couple of weeks of use.



I've already linked to the figures that show it starts with a moderately large change that slows to an asymptotic long term state. Why are you still holding on to the idea this cannot happen? Others have tried to convince you with their baseball analogues. It happens in many materials without causing catestrophic fatigue. Also on the surrounds: the articles all state the spider is the most influential in their (expert as manufactures and engineers) opinion.


----------



## colonelkernel8 (Apr 5, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Not everything no. There is phase, inpulse, group delay, diffraction, resonance, noise, modulation, compression... and that's without going into the details of frequency response over distance, angle, time, or distortion type, modulation, frequency, masking. You need a larger view to have make creditable statement that something is unlikely.


“Phase”, resonance, “modulation”, compression, diffraction, and group delay would all manifest themselves as distortion, either intermodulation or harmonic. I’m not 100% on what you mean by phase though, or group delay, unless you mean phase delay, in which case it would manifest itself as harmonic distortion...but these are both just measurements of a specific type of harmonic distortion.


----------



## castleofargh

Ramblinman said:


> The loosening up of moving materials is just common sense and silly to deny. The less energy it takes to move a diaphragm, the more efficient the diaphragms are. This results in greater detail in the the sound given the same source.
> 
> Does anyone really disagree with that?
> 
> ...


should we just accept an effect, and even better, accept it is audible and significant because it seems reasonable? is that the modern way of finding evidence? 
for speakers, I've seen a bunch of data like @jagwap posted, those seem convincing(with the assumption that the experiments were done properly) and suggest measurable impact on various speaker drivers. with much fewer possible causes for sound change on speakers, it becomes easier to suggest causality. but while I've seen evidence suggesting change, I haven't seen much of anything about the greater details you see as an obvious result. 
I also haven't seen the same sort of data for headphones. all I seem to find are poorly done experiments that neglect to consider other known causes of change by ignorance or on purpose to try and prove a point no matter what. what I've seen done with a little more care, always confirms change in sound over time for the headphone as a whole, but nothing of significance for the driver itself. my own attempt resulted in getting more significant changes from pretty much anything other than the driver alone. measuring at night would get me more variations than what I seem to be able to identify otherwise as being solely caused by the driver. so when I read claims of causality between audible difference and driver burn in based on subjective impressions, I can't help but facepalm. even if I was to ignore all the biases, placebo, and memory inaccuracy, I would still facepalm when reading those comments because they are measurably irrational. changes do happen for plenty of reasons, driver burn in is only one of them and seems to be consistently less significant than new pads, the room temperature, the source, if we played music too loud for the headphone specs, or if we dropped the headphone on the floor a few times. 

as for your post specifically, the diaphragm becoming easier to move and bend over time, again that seems logical. how that will lead to the driver being more efficient should absolutely be measurable, but where are those measures for headphones? when I get consistent data on that, then and only then I'll agree with you and move on to the next step, finding out if and how audible those typical changes can be for a listener. but when you decide that this effect results in greater details. where did you get that idea? 
why not lower mechanical damping leading to worst control, increased ringing and distortions, or plain shift in the resonance frequency leading to a change that isn't necessarily better or worst? that would seem just as reasonable to me it if were to happen. I guess how strong an electrical damping we have, how light the diaphragm is, and how open the headphone design is, would ultimately decide if we go toward better or worst fidelity. but all that is conjecture based on the hastily picked axiom that we'd get significant impact from the loosening of the material on a headphone. we can have ideas and make guesses all day long, and we should, but that alone doesn't demonstrate anything. experiment and measurements will provide the data for that. yet, not much to be seen as evidence of something so apparently obvious when following your reasoning. 



jagwap said:


> You must be using the royal "we" because others may have been reading less selectively. Your article even sites a guy at Shure who agrees that larger headphones may change during burn in.
> 
> Your confidence is not shared by myself, especially as I have experienced in blind listening and those figures I linked to showing substancial changes in driver performance measurements in the first 20-100 hours. Perhaps you don't want to take this information into account over your own beliefs.


are you talking about headphones? I know I'm annoying but I could easily confirm small changes in my speakers with measurements, I never had such an easy time with headphones and IEMs once I removed pads, tips and placement from the equation. so I feel that headphone do deserve to be treated separately. maybe even individual drivers would deserve their own study, as more and more have shapes to reinforce the diaphragm at key places and facilitate movements at others. it's a little frustrating to think that manufacturers have all the data we need, but I'm here playing with one or 2 samples of a model at a time, never getting any statistically relevant result. and debating with people who mistake gut feeling for evidence is really not helping us going anywhere productive.


----------



## tansand (Apr 5, 2018)

More flexible = lower Q, less flexible = higher Q.

"In physics and engineering, the quality factor or Q factor is a dimensionless parameter that describes how underdamped an oscillator or resonator is, and characterizes a resonator's bandwidth relative to its centre frequency. Higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy loss relative to the stored energy of the resonator; the oscillations die out more slowly. A pendulum suspended from a high-quality bearing, oscillating in air, has a high Q, while a pendulum immersed in oil has a low one. Resonators with high quality factors have low damping, so that they ring or vibrate longer."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_factor


----------



## tansand (Apr 5, 2018)

> are you talking about headphones? I know I'm annoying but I could easily confirm small changes in my speakers with measurements, I never had such an easy time with headphones and IEMs once I removed pads, tips and placement from the equation. so I feel that headphone do deserve to be treated separately.... and debating with people who mistake gut feeling for evidence is really not helping us going anywhere productive.



That's exactly what you're doing though, man. A big speaker is a big small speaker, also a big medium size, but you're saying there's _something_ about the small speaker that makes it different, just because you've found them hard to measure. That's not a reason. The two things, size and difficulty measuring aren't proven to be related, let alone difficulty measuring and whether they break in or not. All that's a 'gut feeling' on your part.


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## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> That's exactly what you're doing though, man. A big speaker is a big small speaker, also a big medium size, but you're saying there's _something_ about the small speaker that makes it different, just because you've found them hard to measure. That's not a reason. The two things, size and difficulty measuring aren't proven to be related, let alone difficulty measuring and whether they break in or not. All that's a 'gut feeling' on your part.


Material properties do not scale linearly with size. A big speaker is categorically not a big, small speaker.


----------



## jagwap

colonelkernel8 said:


> Material properties do not scale linearly with size. A big speaker is categorically not a big, small speaker.



Sure. There's probably an inverse square law in there. There usually is when things don't line up at first glance.

I'd also agree that balanced armature iems, ribbons and planars also follow different degrees of effect. But they are all still mechanical. Only an ionophone is not inherently mechanical, and maybe there the plasma does something, but I'll leave that to a more imaginative forum.

So we are still speculating and giving anecdotally unconvincing accounts to the unbelievers. I hope in the next few months to be able to talk with a design team of very high reputation and see if they have any evidence. They are well known for their scientific rigour, and well executed double blind listening tests. Unfortunately I may not be able name them and publish results, which will give riggle room for the nay-sayers.


----------



## tansand (Apr 5, 2018)

> Material properties do not scale linearly with size. A big speaker is categorically not a big, small speaker.



Lmao, nice use of the word 'linearly' there. Please restate your reasoning.


----------



## bigshot (Apr 5, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Not everything no. There is phase, inpulse, group delay, diffraction, resonance, noise, modulation, compression.



Distortion is defined as sound that is not a part of the original signal. Response relates to frequencies. Dynamics are related to amplitude. Some things are blends of a couple of these aspects. I suppose you could argue noise is a separate thing. I'll accept that.

I think you guys are so dedicated to your conclusion, you aren't thinking logically. Show me some evidence that a pattern exists indicating burn in is real. Measurements, controlled listening tests, etc. I'm happy to change my position if you can point to a more convincing argument. Until then, I'll stick with the most likely answer to the question. It may be right. It may be wrong. But it's more likely to be correct until evidence to the contrary is presented.

Just claiming someone else told you something and you believe them may be enough for you. You can feel free to believe them. Don't expect anyone else to without all the information though.



tansand said:


> Lmao, nice use of the word 'linearly' there. Please restate your reasoning.



How about a molehill isn't the same as a mountain? Scale counts.



jagwap said:


> I have experienced in blind listening and those figures I linked to showing substancial changes in driver performance measurements in the first 20-100 hours.



What frequencies? What amplitude? Distortion? Size of sample? Citation please.

Next question... How does this prove headphones burn in? See above.


----------



## tansand (Apr 5, 2018)

> Just claiming someone else told you something and you believe them may be enough for you. You can feel free to believe them. Don't expect anyone else to without all the information though.



Guess you must have missed this. Maybe you forgot. Attack it all you want, it's more evidence than you actually have to support your belief, isn't it?


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## bigshot (Apr 5, 2018)

What is "this"?

EDIT: Ah. You added that after I dozed off. We already discussed that. It raises more questions. The shift isn't progressive. There's one point where it reacts more like a mistake in measurement than burning in. I'd like to see that test repeated with some additional constraints to eliminate the problem of achieving consistent measurements without pads interfering. I'd also like to see the test done with a bigger sample. It's possible that this particular set of headphones was defective and would continue shifting and degrading as time went on.

By the way, as a chart, it looks pretty jaggy. But if you look at the dB scale there, only the biggest spikes would be audible at all. In music the threshold is around 3dB.

heading to bed now.


----------



## tansand

Goodnight.


----------



## skwoodwiva

tansand said:


> Goodnight.


Goodnight too,
Hey all I going to post a youtube of a a previously unreleased "Diamonds on the soles..." by Simon.
See music...
It is quite different from the Graceland v...


----------



## castleofargh

tansand said:


> That's exactly what you're doing though, man. A big speaker is a big small speaker, also a big medium size, but you're saying there's _something_ about the small speaker that makes it different, just because you've found them hard to measure. That's not a reason. The two things, size and difficulty measuring aren't proven to be related, let alone difficulty measuring and whether they break in or not. All that's a 'gut feeling' on your part.


not gut feeling, lack of evidence or even some anecdotal evidence suggesting they may not behave the same way after all. I also expect the foundations to be the same for all dynamic drivers obviously, but I can't just dismiss the changes I got from experiment being so small I can't be sure they're real or my rig acting up. in comparison, pad wear and moving the headphone on the head have impacts on sound that are much more significant. that's why I have no issue measuring them. so I try to think about a reason but that's only conjecture. I'm thinking about all the differences in size, material, shapes, how headphones need to move a lot less off axis to provide the same level of sound at the ear... all that may change what's going on over time, maybe it takes much longer, maybe it's a done deal after 1mn and just the tests at the factory get us over that period. maybe it happens the same way just at much lower magnitude and that's why there isn't much measurement to be found on the subject. the idea of driver burn in could still be somehow valid, but it's not a cult(I think?), I don't have to believe without any sort of evidence and I don't find unreasonable to treat headphone and loudspeakers differently. the dramatic lack of evidence for headphones probably isn't explained only by how it's a little annoying to remove the pads before making measurements. I'm inclined to think there is more to it. 

in any case, I'm a scientist wannabe, bring me evidence and I'll consider it. bring me consistent repeatable evidence and I'll think of a new model including it. changing my mind is both as difficult and as simple as that. bring me empty claims and you're wrong no matter what the claim is. because empty claims shouldn't exist.


----------



## sonitus mirus

jagwap said:


> You must be using the royal "we" because others may have been reading less selectively. Your article even sites a guy at Shure who agrees that larger headphones may change during burn in.
> 
> Your confidence is not shared by myself, especially as I have experienced in blind listening and those figures I linked to showing substancial changes in driver performance measurements in the first 20-100 hours. Perhaps you don't want to take this information into account over your own beliefs.



I don't claim that all speakers can't experience some changes over time.  Some large home speakers might see considerable changes, but these variations typically occur in the first few hours or even minutes of use according to what I have read by some manufacturers.  This is not the same thing as a 100 hour burn-in with pink noise of a headphone driver that is typically no more than 50mm in diameter or much smaller and using different material than would be found in a home speaker. 

Sure, some larger headphone drivers made with certain materials could see measurable changes over time, but I have not seen any reliable evidence to suggest with any confidence that these changes could be audibly identifiable when adding in head placement and pad wear.  We don't even know if a new haircut causes a greater measurable change that might overshadow any small changes with the driver.  Over and over the information that I find shows that the headphones are basically measuring the same from day one unless something breaks or noticeably wears out. 

It seems like burn-in of headphones is a clear waste of my time and I would not recommend it.    Anyone can have their own opinion, but I haven't seen any proof to change my mind about it.  The problem that I see is that many people conflate what can occur with larger home speakers to their tiny headphone drivers.


----------



## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> Lmao, nice use of the word 'linearly' there. Please restate your reasoning.



A 50% larger speaker has to have a cone that is much more than 50% more rigid to exhibit the same breakup. The mass of the cone will also increase more than 50%, requiring a more powerful voice coil and permanent magnet setup. Its power consumption will scale up more than 50% as well. That's what I mean by non-linearly.


----------



## Ramblinman

castleofargh said:


> should we just accept an effect, and even better, accept it is audible and significant because it seems reasonable? is that the modern way of finding evidence?
> for speakers, I've seen a bunch of data like @jagwap posted, those seem convincing(with the assumption that the experiments were done properly) and suggest measurable impact on various speaker drivers. with much fewer possible causes for sound change on speakers, it becomes easier to suggest causality. but while I've seen evidence suggesting change, I haven't seen much of anything about the greater details you see as an obvious result.
> I also haven't seen the same sort of data for headphones. all I seem to find are poorly done experiments that neglect to consider other known causes of change by ignorance or on purpose to try and prove a point no matter what. what I've seen done with a little more care, always confirms change in sound over time for the headphone as a whole, but nothing of significance for the driver itself. my own attempt resulted in getting more significant changes from pretty much anything other than the driver alone. measuring at night would get me more variations than what I seem to be able to identify otherwise as being solely caused by the driver. so when I read claims of causality between audible difference and driver burn in based on subjective impressions, I can't help but facepalm. even if I was to ignore all the biases, placebo, and memory inaccuracy, I would still facepalm when reading those comments because they are measurably irrational. changes do happen for plenty of reasons, driver burn in is only one of them and seems to be consistently less significant than new pads, the room temperature, the source, if we played music too loud for the headphone specs, or if we dropped the headphone on the floor a few times.
> 
> ...


Well that was extremely verbose. In my opinion the logic applies to headphones as well as it does to speakers or any other moving diaphragm. As far as evidence goes, when it comes to sound measurements don’t tell the whole story. Exceptionally flat measured response has sounded extremely dry and lifeless in numerous pieces of equipment I have heard. Perception in actually reality when it comes to audio, get used to it.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Ramblinman said:


> Well that was extremely verbose. In my opinion the logic applies to headphones as well as it does to speakers or any other moving diaphragm. As far as evidence goes, when it comes to sound measurements don’t tell the whole story. Exceptionally flat measured response has sounded extremely dry and lifeless in numerous pieces of equipment I have heard. Perception in actually reality when it comes to audio, get used to it.



This is a load of crap. This is exactly the kind of crap not tolerated in "Sound Science". *Perception is NOT reality in audio, get used to it.*

*It's amazing to me, utterly amazing that the audiophile world is essentially an exploitation of one of humanity's most fallible senses; defrauding people of *millions* of dollars and people will continue to defend it and not in any way attempt to validate it.*


----------



## sonitus mirus

colonelkernel8 said:


> This is a load of ****. This is exactly the kind of **** not tolerated in "Sound Science". *Perception is NOT reality in audio, get used to it.*
> 
> *It's amazing to me, utterly amazing that the audiophile world is essentially an exploitation of one of humanity's most fallible senses; defrauding people of *millions* of dollars and people will continue to defend it and not in any way attempt to validate it.*


  Amen!


----------



## castleofargh

Ramblinman said:


> Well that was extremely verbose. In my opinion the logic applies to headphones as well as it does to speakers or any other moving diaphragm. As far as evidence goes, when it comes to sound measurements don’t tell the whole story. Exceptionally flat measured response has sounded extremely dry and lifeless in numerous pieces of equipment I have heard. Perception in actually reality when it comes to audio, get used to it.


so we just accept a concept without any clue about the actual impact or magnitude of said impact. and when we have a hard time measuring change to support this allegedly audible improvement, we just go make up some excuse about how measurements don't tell the whole story. that way we're always right, and there is certainly no need to ever second guess ourselves. "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". meanwhile our newly acquired gear is spending days or weeks on a headstand playing loud noise instead of us enjoying it. all quite possibly for the glory of his majesty placebo the third. 
seems like a really great plan, but I think I'll stick with skepticism and wait for actual evidence that I would benefit from getting in on the rituals.


ps: I've already asked this to someone else not long ago, if you know of a variation in sound that can be positively identified under controlled listening test but fails to be measured, please tell me all about it. this seems to be one of those creatures of legend, everybody talks of it, but nobody seems to have actually encountered one.


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## bigshot

You can tell when someone is reacting to the sounds of words when they describe flat response as "dry and lifeless". Flat is just a calibration. You could just as well use the word "balanced", but balanced doesn't feel dry and lifeless. Somebody doesn't know what flat response that measures well sounds like!



jagwap said:


> I have experienced in blind listening and those figures I linked to showing substancial changes in driver performance measurements in the first 20-100 hours.



I can see that an initial shift might be possible if it's the first time you're putting sound through a pair of cans and everything has to jog into place. I can even see how if you left your cans on the shelf for a couple of years, it might take a minute or so for them to jog back into place. The thing I have trouble with is the slow gradual shift towards a specific goal response. I don't know how you'd achieve that without a big sample variance at the end of burn in. I would think it would be a lot easier and more consistent to just design the headphones using materials that don't deform over time. Maybe there are headphones that do shift over time. But if I bought a pair I would probably return them, because I want equipment that performs consistently. I don't want to have to worry that the process of burn in would continue until burn out. When I buy a set of headphones, I judge them when I take them out of the box. If they are what I'm looking for, I keep them. If they change into something else, I return them. I've never run into a set of cans that did that though.


----------



## gregorio

Ramblinman said:


> As far as evidence goes, when it comes to sound measurements don’t tell the whole story.



Not understanding the difference between perception and reality is bad enough but not understanding evidence? What evidence are you referring to? Reviews in magazines by reviewers paid by the advertising revenue from the products/manufacturers they are reviewing? Posts online from shills and those suckered by the marketing? At worst, the "evidence" you're talking about isn't even vaguely related to evidence, it just marketing BS and even at best, the evidence you're talking about is anecdotal evidence, which is the very worst and least reliable of all evidence types and unacceptable as evidence as far as science is concerned!

Furthermore, just a little basic knowledge and the application of some basic logic should make it obvious that your statement is false: Audio recording, since the dawn of it's invention and up to the present day, ONLY operates on sound measurements/conversions, nothing else. If we can't measure it, then we can't record it! In other words, if there is something in "the whole story" which we cannot measure, then we cannot record that something and it cannot exist on any recording you've ever heard! ... It's really not difficult to understand this fundamental audio recording fact.

G


----------



## gregorio

castleofargh said:


> I've already asked this to someone else not long ago, if you know of a variation in sound that can be positively identified under controlled listening test but fails to be measured, please tell me all about it. this seems to be one of those creatures of legend, everybody talks of it, but nobody seems to have actually encountered one.



Well actually there are quite a few, but all of them rely on the peculiarities/inaccuracies of human perception. I first came across this phenomena in music conservertoire in the 1980s. A note is sustained and then a particular chord sequence is played over the top. At a particular point near the end of the sequence the sustained note changes pitch, except it doesn't, it never changes, it's an aural illusion. BTW, it's particularly entertaining to do this to someone with perfect pitch, if you want to screw with their heads! There are many other examples; the "Shepard tone", the missing fundamental and implied harmony to name a few. If we include sight, obviously there's the McGurk Effect, plus a few others.

G


----------



## sonitus mirus

If burn-in was particularly worrisome for small transducers, microphones should be considered over headphones.  A microphone is always picking up sounds.  Why wouldn't a microphone be just as susceptible to burn-in?   How come the microphone I use to measure my room came with a precise calibration file?  How much different is the microphone going to measure after 100 hours of use?  Is the calibration file going to become completely invalid?


----------



## gregorio

sonitus mirus said:


> Why wouldn't a microphone be just as susceptible to burn-in?



Actually burn-in on a mic should be many times more noticeable. The signal levels from studio mics are tiny and need to be amplified many times, in some cases up to 1,000 times. Burn-in on mics should therefore be massively obvious but err ... nada.

G


----------



## castleofargh

gregorio said:


> Well actually there are quite a few, but all of them rely on the peculiarities/inaccuracies of human perception. I first came across this phenomena in music conservertoire in the 1980s. A note is sustained and then a particular chord sequence is played over the top. At a particular point near the end of the sequence the sustained note changes pitch, except it doesn't, it never changes, it's an aural illusion. BTW, it's particularly entertaining to do this to someone with perfect pitch, if you want to screw with their heads! There are many other examples; the "Shepard tone", the missing fundamental and implied harmony to name a few. If we include sight, obviously there's the McGurk Effect, plus a few others.
> 
> G


I don't think any of those fit. the McGurk effect isn't about a change in sound at all, and the rest is clearly caused by a specific signal we can measure. so it's not about detecting a variation, but more about human interpreting stuff wrongly. of those I already have a seemingly endless supply ^_^. 
I'm talking in the context of driver burn in, or like last time with usb cable. we'd have a signal, then something would affect it in a way that is audible compared to the original, but somehow we would fail to measure a change between those two signal. something I'm not sure exists aside of purposefully looking only at one unrelated variable instead of looking for variations in the signal.


----------



## gregorio (Apr 5, 2018)

castleofargh said:


> I don't think any of those fit. the McGurk effect isn't about a change in sound at al



True. But you asked if anyone knew of "a variation in sound which can be positively identified under controlled listening test but fails to be measured". The McGurk Effect fulfils that requirement; a variation in sound (between "baa" and "faa") can be positively identified under controlled listening test conditions but cannot be measured. There obviously is a variation in sound, depending on how and where we define "sound", are we talking about an air pressure wave which enters our ears or are we talking about the resultant perception in our brain of that pressure wave, which we call "a sound" (or "a noise" or music)? And similarly, what do we mean by "hearing"? Is it what enters our ears, how our ears respond to what's entering them or how our brain interprets our ears' response? Of course, to an extent I'm playing with you, with the McGurk Effect and other aural illusions I mentioned there is no difference in the air pressure waves entering our ears, there is no variation, no "faa", it exists only in our perception.

The problem here, as in so many cases, is audiophiles who have no understanding or concept whatsoever of perception. What enters their ears and what they perceive is, as far as they are concerned, exactly the same thing! So much audiophile discussion is effectively: This cable, this burn-in method, this femto clock, this audio file format, this USB regenerator, this capacitor, etc., makes the "Faa" so much clearer/defined/detailed/transparent/neutral/musical/realistic, etc. To us, this is all just complete ridiculous nonsense because there is no "Faa" in the first place!

Isn't the real battle here about the difference between perception and reality? If we could address that issue, almost all the other nonsense audiophile issues would disappear, including those convinced that burn-in absolutely is real because they have clearly heard it.

G

PS In case there is anyone reading who hasn't seen the McGurk Effect, none of this post will make any sense. So just in case, click here to see it.


----------



## Ramblinman

colonelkernel8 said:


> This is a load of ****. This is exactly the kind of **** not tolerated in "Sound Science". *Perception is NOT reality in audio, get used to it.*
> 
> *It's amazing to me, utterly amazing that the audiophile world is essentially an exploitation of one of humanity's most fallible senses; defrauding people of *millions* of dollars and people will continue to defend it and not in any way attempt to validate it.*


LOL, this is absolutely hilarious. So we should determine what sounds good by reading the specs? Not listening to it? 
Sorry but this just cracks me up.


----------



## Ramblinman

castleofargh said:


> so we just accept a concept without any clue about the actual impact or magnitude of said impact. and when we have a hard time measuring change to support this allegedly audible improvement, we just go make up some excuse about how measurements don't tell the whole story. that way we're always right, and there is certainly no need to ever second guess ourselves. "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". meanwhile our newly acquired gear is spending days or weeks on a headstand playing loud noise instead of us enjoying it. all quite possibly for the glory of his majesty placebo the third.
> seems like a really great plan, but I think I'll stick with skepticism and wait for actual evidence that I would benefit from getting in on the rituals.
> 
> 
> ps: I've already asked this to someone else not long ago, if you know of a variation in sound that can be positively identified under controlled listening test but fails to be measured, please tell me all about it. this seems to be one of those creatures of legend, everybody talks of it, but nobody seems to have actually encountered one.


If you hear a difference,that difference is real. If you don’t, there is none.


----------



## bigshot

Ramblinman said:


> If you hear a difference,that difference is real. If you don’t, there is none.



I see dead people.


----------



## bfreedma

Ramblinman said:


> If you hear a difference,that difference is real. If you don’t, there is none.



You’re in the wrong sub-forum.  

Humans are subject to all manner of psychoacoustics including the placebo effect.  Believing you hear a difference certainly doesn’t guarantee that there is one, despite what the sales and marketing departments have led you to think in order to facilitate emptying your wallet into theirs.


----------



## skwoodwiva

sonitus mirus said:


> If burn-in was particularly worrisome for small transducers, microphones should be considered over headphones.  A microphone is always picking up sounds.  Why wouldn't a microphone be just as susceptible to burn-in?   How come the microphone I use to measure my room came with a precise calibration file?  How much different is the microphone going to measure after 100 hours of use?  Is the calibration file going to become completely invalid?


Mike transducers are passive lol.
Not picking on but the continuous objections with no merit.
 Here to learn ok but I must comment here.
This thread is outrageous


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## gregorio (Apr 5, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> If you hear a difference,that difference is real. If you don’t, there is none.



Look at the video already posted (click here to see it.). Now answer this exceedingly simple question: Are you saying that you don't hear "Faa" or that because you do hear it, it must be real?



skwoodwiva said:


> [1] Mike transducers are passive lol.
> [2] This thread is outrageous



1. Utter nonsense! Have you never heard of phantom power, condenser or capacitor mics? You cannot continue just making up complete nonsense with absolutely zero regard for the facts or science, don't you even know what forum you're in?
2. Then why don't you stop posting utter nonsense and making it so outrageous? Jeeez!!!!

G


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## tansand (Apr 5, 2018)

Molehills and mountains are not drivers and drivers. Can somone point me out the 'linear' differences, and cough up a cogent theory about why they would mean one would break in and the other wouldn't? No?


----------



## Ramblinman

bigshot said:


> I see dead people.


Well you’re a mortician, so.......


----------



## Ramblinman (Apr 5, 2018)

bfreedma said:


> You’re in the wrong sub-forum.
> 
> Humans are subject to all manner of psychoacoustics including the placebo effect.  Believing you hear a difference certainly doesn’t guarantee that there is one, despite what the sales and marketing departments have led you to think in order to facilitate emptying your wallet into theirs.


So we should never audition a peice of equipment, our ears will just lie to us. We should just review the specs and buy based on that?


What movie was that where the guy was caught cheating and he says “ who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”

And you don’t think there is marketing involved in the posted specs? Dont you remember Volkswagen a few years back tweaking mileage specs?

:crazy:


----------



## skwoodwiva (Apr 5, 2018)

gregorio said:


> Look at the video already posted (click here to see it.). Now answer this exceedingly simple question: Are you saying that you don't hear "Faa" or that because you do hear it, it must be real?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ok , I am ignorant about mikes, I 'fess up.

I spoke rashly.

Yet they are less active in the following way:
A speaker is "burdened" in high level reproduction just as & more so then the  amplifier.
The driver is stressed haveing to produce all the sound pressure.

Where as a mike has an easy burden, all its output never need be much, the gain stage has all the burden.

Do you see this?  I am a mechanical /electrical "engineer" of many overlaping specialties / systems, HVACR is my profession.


----------



## bfreedma

I own a pair of subs with an XMAX just short of 4”.  If any transducer was a candidate for audible break-in, I would think these would be close to the top of the list.  I never noticed any audible changes, nor did I notice anything of substance in the original or subsequent measurements taken while EQing them.

Unfortunately, I did not take measurements specifically focused around break-in, so don’t consider this objective proof but if break-in was ever going to be audible, I’d think it would have been fairly dramatic here.


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## bigshot (Apr 5, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> So we should never audition a peice of equipment, our ears will just lie to us. We should just review the specs and buy based on that?



They really should put classes on logic and debate back into the public schools. It would make internet forums a lot more peaceful.



bfreedma said:


> I own a pair of subs with an XMAX just short of 4”.  If any transducer was a candidate for audible break-in, I would think these would be close to the top of the list.



I was thinking the same thing. I have a 12 inch Sunfire TrueSub. It has foam surrounds and has a whole bunch of excursion. I calibrated it six years ago and it still checks out as being in proper spec. If it ever did start changing its sound I would start worrying, because that would most likely be a sign that it was getting ready to break down.


----------



## bfreedma

Ramblinman said:


> So we should never audition a peice of equipment, our ears will just lie to us. We should just review the specs and buy based on that?
> 
> 
> What movie was that where the guy was caught cheating and he says “ who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?”
> ...




I’ve never seen the need to audition electronics, the specs on modern components are so far beyond human hearing that it would require an absurd level falsification from the manufacturer to be audible.  If I came across a device fitting that category, I’d return it as faulty.  

Transducers are worth auditioning - for speakers, I’d need to listen in the same room to have any value.

If you understand specs, it’s easy to identify the frauds.  For example, any speaker frequency response without a “+/- dB” for that spec is immediately open for question.  Definitive Technology used to market their bass response this way in the past.


----------



## Ramblinman

bigshot said:


> They really should put classes on logic and debate back into the public schools. It would make internet forums a lot more peaceful.


So you want to school people on logic, but you cannot even understand the concept of a question? Interesting.


----------



## bigshot

Would you welcome some lessons in logic? You're in the right forum for it.


----------



## Ramblinman

bfreedma said:


> I’ve never seen the need to audition electronics, the specs on modern components are so far beyond human hearing that it would require an absurd level falsification from the manufacturer to be audible.  If I came across a device fitting that category, I’d return it as faulty.
> 
> Transducers are worth auditioning - for speakers, I’d need to listen in the same room to have any value.
> 
> If you understand specs, it’s easy to identify the frauds.  For example, any speaker frequency response without a “+/- dB” for that spec is immediately open for question.  Definitive Technology used to market their bass response this way in the past.


Interesting, don’t think I could get real excited about buying a sound producing product without hearing it first.


----------



## Ramblinman (Apr 5, 2018)

bigshot said:


> Would you welcome some lessons in logic? You're in the right forum for it.


From someone who himself understands it, yes.

No lapses in logic in my posts, so not sure why you are running off on your pompous tangent.


----------



## bfreedma (Apr 5, 2018)

bigshot said:


> They really should put classes on logic and debate back into the public schools. It would make internet forums a lot more peaceful.
> 
> 
> 
> I was thinking the same thing. I have a 12 inch Sunfire TrueSub. It has foam surrounds and has a whole bunch of excursion. I calibrated it six years ago and it still checks out as being in proper spec. If it ever did start changing its sound I would start worrying, because that would most likely be a sign that it was getting ready to break down.



Nice sub. Mine are JL Audio F113s.  I had a number of discussions with their lead engineer when I purchased the first one on how to best integrate it into my system as they have on board EQ and I also use Audyssey XT32 Pro - never once did he intimate that subsequent EQ runs would be necessary due to break-in.


----------



## bfreedma

Ramblinman said:


> Interesting, don’t think I could get real excited about buying a sound producing product without hearing it first.



I purchase electronics based on their feature set aligning with my requirements.  Once that criteria is met, I also consider reliability, potential resale value, and how much I like the aesthetics.  For me, other than feature alignment, I’m more than willing to admit the elements in the second sentance of this post are largely subjective.


----------



## bigshot

Ramblinman said:


> From someone who himself understands it, yes.



Well before you said that if you hear something then it is real. Would you require someone to agree with your reality in order to teach you about logic?


----------



## bigshot

bfreedma said:


> I purchase electronics based on their feature set aligning with my requirements.  Once that criteria is met, I also consider reliability, potential resale value, and how much I like the aesthetics.  For me, other than feature alignment, I’m more than willing to admit the elements in the second sentance of this post are largely subjective.



Deciding on a purchase based on how something sounds and deciding based on specs and measurements aren't mutually exclusive. You can look at specs and have a very good idea of whether something will sound good or not. The two go hand in hand.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

bigshot said:


> They really should put classes on logic and debate back into the public schools. It would make internet forums a lot more peaceful.
> 
> 
> 
> I was thinking the same thing. I have a 12 inch Sunfire TrueSub. It has foam surrounds and has a whole bunch of excursion. I calibrated it six years ago and it still checks out as being in proper spec. If it ever did start changing its sound I would start worrying, because that would most likely be a sign that it was getting ready to break down.


I suspect if there was a break-in effect on woofers the result would likely show itself in lowest frequencies they can produce...my Quatros have powered equalised bass sections....i re-checked them a few times after installation. ..no difference i could measure at any frequency.


----------



## skwoodwiva (Apr 5, 2018)

bfreedma said:


> I’ve never seen the need to audition electronics, the specs on modern components are so far beyond human hearing that it would require an absurd level falsification from the manufacturer to be audible.  If I came across a device fitting that category, I’d return it as faulty.
> 
> Transducers are worth auditioning - for speakers, I’d need to listen in the same room to have any value.
> 
> If you understand specs, it’s easy to identify the frauds.  For example, any speaker frequency response without a “+/- dB” for that spec is immediately open for question.  Definitive Technology used to market their bass response this way in the past.


Sir I am dumbfounded at this
"I’ve never seen the need to audition electronics, the specs on modern components are so far beyond human hearing that it would require an absurd level falsification from the manufacturer to be audible. If I came across a device fitting that category, I’d return it as faulty. "

All amps let alone other equipment, amps HAVE A VOICE! PERIOD.
 When the Sony TA/n's blew me away, I had A/B'ed then in showrooms of other dealers, 4 or 5 big name amps, against the Sonys.Top, the ES dealer gave me 30 day return!  I was no contest. Some were close, some foggy as 'ell.
SMH....


----------



## bfreedma

skwoodwiva said:


> Sir I am dumbfounded at this
> "I’ve never seen the need to audition electronics, the specs on modern components are so far beyond human hearing that it would require an absurd level falsification from the manufacturer to be audible. If I came across a device fitting that category, I’d return it as faulty. "
> 
> All amps let alone other equipment, amps HAVE A VOICE! PERIOD.
> ...



I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt yesterday and make what I thought were some helpful posts in your cable thread.

Yet here you are continuing to spout absolutely unsupported baloney.  And that’s being kind.


----------



## skwoodwiva

bfreedma said:


> I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt yesterday and make what I thought were some helpful posts in your cable thread.
> 
> Yet here you are continuing to spout absolutely unsupported baloney.  And that’s being kind.


Wow I do not know what to say. except you could never...? Audiophile you cannot be.


----------



## skwoodwiva

I later compared the Sony to a Pass amp costing twice the Sony retail I was no contest the Pass was sharper


----------



## bfreedma

skwoodwiva said:


> Wow I do not know what to say. except you could never...? Audiophile you cannot be.



I appreciate the compliment


----------



## colonelkernel8

skwoodwiva said:


> I later compared the Sony to a Pass amp costing twice the Sony retail I was no contest the Pass was sharper


Sounds like a nice objective test. How does one quantify "sharpness"?

I'm just kidding, you're hopeless.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

colonelkernel8 said:


> Sounds like a nice objective test. How does one quantify "sharpness"?
> 
> I'm just kidding, you're hopeless.


I knew he couldnt break you !!


----------



## bigshot

colonelkernel8 said:


> How does one quantify "sharpness"?



I know some people are sharper than others...


----------



## skwoodwiva

Glmoneydawg said:


> I knew he couldnt break you !!


Well aren't we all one happy bunch, colonelkernel8 too it seems


----------



## Glmoneydawg

skwoodwiva said:


> Well aren't we all one happy bunch, colonelkernel8 too it seems


Still getting the Hannibal Lecter vibe.


----------



## skwoodwiva

Bayless is mesmerizing us all


----------



## skwoodwiva

Rather, Bernstein.
He is good at this feel good stuff.


----------



## skwoodwiva

Glmoneydawg said:


> Still getting the Hannibal Lecter vibe.


Well I am spooked too, I think the C misread you!


----------



## skwoodwiva

skwoodwiva said:


> Well I am spooked too, I think the C misread you!


Lol.
So we give him credit either way 
Win win for him


----------



## bigshot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitposting


----------



## jagwap

Well this is all getting rather colourful while I was busy. 



gregorio said:


> 1. Utter nonsense! Have you never heard of phantom power, condenser or capacitor mics? You cannot continue just making up complete nonsense with absolutely zero regard for the facts or science, don't you even know what forum you're in?
> 2. Then why don't you stop posting utter nonsense and making it so outrageous? Jeeez!!!!
> 
> G



The transducer in a an active microphone is passive. It just has a small FET amplifier inside it run from the phantom power. If you are going to chastise people on the internet at least be well informed... Outrageous.

There are plenty of things we could hear in the past, that were not yet measured. For instance the type of measurements Kippel does on drivers, were previously done by playing tones on a driver with talcum powder on it. Probably didn't do well on headphone or microphone transducers. But now we can in some detail. Or TIM distortion, or MLSSA.

So is it reasonable that there are still factors in reproduction that are yet to measure? "No! We know everthing right now! Everything is perfect. People who listen cannot hear anything because I measured it, or someone did because I'm an armchair expert.

Do people listen correctly: double blind tests? Usually not. But some do. Many innovations come from new measurement, so do many from listening, and the important thing when doing that is not to go in to a double blind test with "there can be no difference" in you mind, or you may miss it.


----------



## skwoodwiva

bigshot said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/****posting


Ok 


 

Is this what?


----------



## skwoodwiva

jagwap said:


> Well this is all getting rather colourful while I was busy.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"We know everthing right now! "
What did you say? Are you sure that is wise?


----------



## jagwap

skwoodwiva said:


> "We know everthing right now! "
> What did you say? Are you sure that is wise?


I was paraphrasing the anti-audiophile side.


----------



## tansand

So, I rotated one of the pics to make it easier to answer.




> Molehills and mountains are not drivers and drivers. Can somone point me out the 'linear' differences, and cough up a cogent theory about why they would mean one would break in and the other wouldn't? No?


----------



## skwoodwiva (Apr 5, 2018)

skwoodwiva said:


> "We know everthing right now! "
> What did you say? Are you sure that is wise?


Ok yes 
I am unblocking a all.
And THIS


 

Is my summary of my thought to the opposition's data.
I was saving this for BigShot but...


----------



## skwoodwiva

jagwap said:


> I was paraphrasing the anti-audiophile side.


Thank you for defending my herring.
Also
I do still stand by the "less burdened" mike theory is postulated earlier.


----------



## bigshot

There seems to be a concerted effort to shut this thread down.


----------



## tansand

Quantify 'concerted'.


----------



## bigshot

Three.


----------



## tansand (Apr 6, 2018)

Whoa! Patient has a pulse! Now that you're on a roll, do you want to quantify the differences between those two drivers, and also state why those differences allow one to break in, but the other not? Eh? TIA!

Enlighten the populace. Crafted in a jiffy.


----------



## castleofargh

Ramblinman said:


> If you hear a difference,that difference is real. If you don’t, there is none.


you can perfectly fail to hear some measurable differences. so there goes half of your point. about hearing something as evidence that it's real, I agree. it certainly is one way. but how do you assess that you heard a difference? what if you saw a difference? what if your memory of how the sound originally was, has been altered with time and things other people said, or how often you recalled that memory? your position is acceptable only after we are absolutely sure that the perception of difference can only have sound as its cause. 
it is the foundation behind blind tests. to make a listening test that is only about sound and listening. 

explained and justified better than I can hope to do:
http://seanolive.blogspot.fr/2009/04/dishonesty-of-sighted-audio-product.html




tansand said:


> Molehills and mountains are not drivers and drivers. Can somone point me out the 'linear' differences, and cough up a cogent theory about why they would mean one would break in and the other wouldn't? No?


seems different enough to me. + size, power needed, diaphragm material and shape completely changing other variables like weight, rigidity, resonance frequency...  if you can't think of potential causes for differences in how different drivers will age, you haven't been looking very hard. 
as for break in vs no break in, that's a strawman argument. how many people have claimed that no change, measurable or otherwise, could occur, that you felt the need to challenge that claim?












*quasi-modo action:*
I've locked @skwoodwiva out of this topic. unless you guys miss his clear and pertinent comments about burn-in too much. I think we'll leave it at that.


----------



## tansand

Ok, unless there is an objection, all present agree that in terms of break in (as the term is commonly understood), headphone drivers and Lowthers are similar, and what is true of one can be expected to be true of the other?


----------



## gregorio (Apr 6, 2018)

jagwap said:


> [1] The transducer in a an active microphone is passive. It just has a small FET amplifier inside it run from the phantom power.
> [1a] If you are going to chastise people on the internet at least be well informed... Outrageous.
> [2] So is it reasonable that there are still factors in reproduction that are yet to measure? "No! We know everthing right now! Everything is perfect.



1. And how is that different from a passive or active speaker? The difference between an active speaker and a passive one is that an active speaker has an amp built-in! It all depends on how we define active and passive: In a condenser/capacitor mic, we have an electrically charged plate (from the phantom power) and a diaphragm moving relative to that charged plate, causing changes in capacitance and an electrical current analogous to the sound pressure wave. The use of electrical capacitance, instead of the mechanical movement of a coil relative to a magnet, provides greater sensitivity, how is that not active?? Furthermore, a dynamic type mic is essentially identical to a speaker driver, a fixed magnet and a moving coil attached to diaphragm/cone. As they are essentially mechanically identical, why should a speaker burn-in but not a dynamic mic? And, as mentioned, how come no one has ever noticed any burn-in on a dynamic mic considering the resultant signal from the mic is amplified many times?
1a. Right back at you, plus, isn't hypocrisy a wonderful thing? Thank god science and this forum values hypocrisy so highly, otherwise your post would be considered trolling! Outrageous indeed!

2. Oh dear, so now you want to demonstrate that you don't even know the basics of what audio recording is, despite it already being explained just a couple of pages ago! Let's try again, it really is so simple that even children can be (and are) taught this: Audio recording is defined by the measurement(quantification)/conversion and storage of sound wave properties. If we can't measure/quantify it, we cannot record it. Since the dawn of audio recording right up to the present day we measure/convert and store just two properties, frequency and amplitude. In the nearly two centuries since audio recording was invented, there is zero evidence of the existence of any other properties of sound waves but as we don't know absolutely everything we cannot be absolutely, 100% certain that there isn't something else out there we don't know about and cannot measure. However, even if this "something" we don't know about and cannot measure does exist, it's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT ANYWAY because we cannot record it and it does not exist in any recording you are attempting to reproduce!! None of this is difficult to understand, so why are you having such difficulty understanding it?

G

EDIT: I did not see castleofargh's post before I responded, so I've deleted the part of my post responding to skawoodwiva. BTW castle, not that my opinion does or should matter but I fully support your action, skawoodwiva effectively admitted to trolling this thread and banning him from it was therefore entirely appropriate IMHO.


----------



## tansand (Apr 6, 2018)

Well, honestly you're talking about planar microphones, capacitor and ribbon, it's an easy mistake for skwoodwiver to make that all mikes are dynamic, and they are similar to headphone drivers. They probably break in just like headphone drivers and Lowthers.


----------



## jagwap (Apr 6, 2018)

gregorio said:


> 1. And how is that different from a passive or active speaker? The difference between an active speaker and a passive one is that an active speaker has an amp built-in! It all depends on how we define active and passive: In a condenser/capacitor mic, we have an electrically charged plate (from the phantom power) and a diaphragm moving relative to that charged plate, causing changes in capacitance and an electrical current analogous to the sound pressure wave. The use of electrical capacitance, instead of the mechanical movement of a coil relative to a magnet, provides greater sensitivity, how is that not active?? Furthermore, a dynamic type mic is essentially identical to a speaker driver, a fixed magnet and a moving coil attached to diaphragm/cone. As they are essentially mechanically identical, why should a speaker burn-in but not a dynamic mic? And, as mentioned, how come no one has ever noticed any burn-in on a dynamic mic considering the resultant signal from the mic is amplified many times?
> 1a. Right back at you, plus, isn't hypocrisy a wonderful thing? Thank god science and this forum values hypocrisy so highly, otherwise your post would be considered trolling! Outrageous indeed!
> 
> 2. Oh dear, so now you want to demonstrate that you don't even know the basics of what audio recording is, despite it already being explained just a couple of pages ago! Let's try again, it really is so simple that even children can be (and are) taught this: Audio recording is defined by the measurement(quantification)/conversion and storage of sound wave properties. If we can't measure/quantify it, we cannot record it. Since the dawn of audio recording right up to the present day we measure/convert and store just two properties, frequency and amplitude. In the nearly two centuries since audio recording was invented, there is zero evidence of the existence of any other properties of sound waves but as we don't know absolutely everything we cannot be absolutely, 100% certain that there isn't something else out there we don't know about and cannot measure. However, even if this "something" we don't know about and cannot measure does exist, it's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT ANYWAY because we cannot record it and it does not exist in any recording you are attempting to reproduce!! None of this is difficult to understand, so why are you having such difficulty understanding it.



That is not true, and not relavant to this discussion. Recording is one part of the audio chain. We are talking about headphones and using speakers that have been proven to break-in as a comparison. You can discuss recording with experience, but you donnot appear to understand some of the subtlety involved in designing the equipement. That is to be understood, but you should not assume you know better. There are new measurement discoveries all the time. I was reading an AES paper that was fairly convincing that frequency response and traditional distortion are a poor correlation to audio perceived quality. It was done by a reputable reaserch team. I'll dig it out later if I can be bothered. But you appear to be out of the loop when it comes to design work.

Oh and capacitive electret microphones are still mechanical. No one mentions burn in there perhaps for the same reason you don't: they do not want to upset an institutional idea. Or it doesn't exist. That is what we are debating here. But you aren't debating, you are insulting people who don't agree with you. It's like an evangelical tv show. You are being just like the people you don't like.


----------



## gregorio

tansand said:


> [1] Well, honestly you're talking about planar microphones, capacitor and ribbon, it's an easy mistake for skwoodwiver to make that all mikes are dynamic
> [2] and they are similar to headphone drivers. They probably break in just like headphone drivers and Lowthers.



1. Condenser, ribbon and the various types of electret mics. It's not an easy mistake for anyone who knows the basics of mic types but you seem to have missed where skwoodwiva openly admitted he was ignorant of mics and effectively just made it up!

2. Now you're doing it too! Without any evidence at all that dynamic mics burn-in, you're just making up nonsense? And I use the word "nonsense" advisedly, just think about it logically for a moment. Dynamic mics are used in countless tens of thousands of music studios around the world and have been for decades. Music studios specifically designed for accurate reproduction and, they are reproducing a signal which has been amplified many times and therefore any effect such as burn-in should be particularly noticeable and yet .... nothing, no burn-in effect measured or noticed!



jagwap said:


> That is not true, and not relavant to this discussion. Recording is one part of the audio chain.



That's clearly ridiculous! You are talking about audio reproduction are you not? What is it you are trying to reproduce, isn't it audio recordings? As audio recordings ONLY contain measurements/quantifications/conversions of frequency and amplitude, what else is there to reproduce? How can you RE-produce something that wasn't "produced" in the first place? 

I don't get it, is basic logic and common sense some sort of unwanted infection to which audiophiles are immune?

G


----------



## colonelkernel8

skwoodwiva said:


> Well aren't we all one happy bunch, colonelkernel8 too it seems





skwoodwiva said:


> Ok
> 
> Is this what?



Do us all a huge favor and stop posting on every goddamn thread in the Sound Science forum with your incoherent bull. There, I said what EVERYONE was thinking.


----------



## bigshot

gregorio said:


> skwoodwiva openly admitted he was ignorant of mics and effectively just made it up!



There's a lot of that going around.



colonelkernel8 said:


> Do us all a huge favor and stop posting on every goddamn thread in the Sound Science forum with your incoherent bull****. There, I said what EVERYONE was thinking.



Click on his name. A pop up comes up. Click on IGNORE. That will guarantee that he won't be crapping up the threads you want to read.


----------



## tansand (Apr 6, 2018)

Jeez, you guys are so sensitive.



> Now you're doing it too! Without any evidence at all that dynamic mics burn-in, you're just making up nonsense? And I use the word "nonsense" advisedly, just think about it logically for a moment. Dynamic mics are used in countless tens of thousands of music studios around the world and have been for decades. Music studios specifically designed for accurate reproduction and, they are reproducing a signal which has been amplified many times and therefore any effect such as burn-in should be particularly noticeable and yet .... nothing, no burn-in effect measured or noticed!



This is not a very sciency reason, mike placement is a huge factor, so i doubt they pay as much attention to the exact differences of a mike they use mainly for drums, guitar amps, or live vocals. And studios are competitive, if you know something your competitor doesn't, you don't go blabbing it on the internet. Plus, hard to measure a mike, you'd need an an anechoic chamber and a perfect, or perfectly characterised transducer to emit the sweeps. And you'd need to be sure it's well broken in.

I think I'll stick with, 'If the physics are the same as a speaker driver, and a speaker driver breaks in, then it probably breaks in too."

It's just sound science.


----------



## bigshot

We're not sensitive. We just get tired of people with no interest in the science of sound coming in and talking *at* us and trying to dominate threads.


----------



## castleofargh

tansand said:


> Jeez, you guys are so sensitive.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 why would you need an anechoic chamber or super special speaker? we're looking for variations in sound, you only have to leave things the same and look for changes between 2 recorded signals over time while making whatever random noise you think is relevant to burn in for whatever duration you think is relevant. even a Justin Bieber song played in reverse on a boombox in the toilets would still let us null 2 recordings and find out how significant the change is. then we could abx the 2 tracks to check if people notice the change. 

anyway, I argue that headphones and even more so IEMs deserve to be checked without assuming everything we found out on speakers to apply the same way. in fact I argue that we would first need to focus on one model of headphone and find out stuff about it, then move on to another etc, and only after a while could we determine the trend and if we can be satisfied with one super generic model for burn in. so that people doing random stuff for an arbitrary amount of time to their new headphones, can sleep reassured that it's not a cult but something with actual benefits. 
instead speakers aren't gone, now we even have microphones. :'( 
maybe you're right and it's all the same when it comes to transducer burn in of any kind and any size. but you don't know that, yet you have decided it is so. because they're dynamic driver and have a diaphragm. do you find that to be a reasonable standpoint?  then what about saying that all transducers can output the same frequency range, with the same signature, have the same distortions too. I mean they're so similar, they have a coil and a magnet, and a diaphragm. they're basically identical aside form everything that is not. but it's fine to disregard all those other parameters apparently, and just jump to conclusion that they'll burn in the same way because ... you think that's how it should be. 
wear exists on all drivers, I see no reason to contest that. but that's really only as far as I go with you. if the end result is a change 10 times smaller, you'll still say that it's the same? if we end up measuring changes that show peak stability after 10hours on one and after 200hours on another driver, will you still argue that it's basically the same stuff just so you can say you were right all along? if one has a significant resonance shift, but another doesn't because the shape of the diaphragm was made to keep it where it is, will you still argue that it's the same? 
I don't think those situations are more unreasonable than expecting the same stuff to happen on a driver 1/20th of the surface with a diaphragm not made of paper and not suspended the same way.


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> why would you need an anechoic chamber or super special speaker? we're looking for variations in sound, you only have to leave things the same and look for changes between 2 recorded signals over time while making whatever random noise you think is relevant to burn in for whatever duration you think is relevant. even a Justin Bieber song played in reverse on a boombox in the toilets would still let us null 2 recordings and find out how significant the change is. then we could abx the 2 tracks to check if people notice the change.
> 
> anyway, I argue that headphones and even more so IEMs deserve to be checked without assuming everything we found out on speakers to apply the same way. in fact I argue that we would first need to focus on one model of headphone and find out stuff about it, then move on to another etc, and only after a while could we determine the trend and if we can be satisfied with one super generic model for burn in. so that people doing random stuff for an arbitrary amount of time to their new headphones, can sleep reassured that it's not a cult but something with actual benefits.
> instead speakers aren't gone, now we even have microphones. :'(
> ...



The thing is, speaking for myself and possibly others, we are not arguing with you. We may be debating a point of view with you, but not as the style you say. Those comments are directed at the ones here who have stated speaker burn-in doesn't exist, we can measure everything in audio, all DACs are the same or wrong, and that audiophiles are idiots and pointless. These are to some as rediculous as burn in is to the others. It is a shame it is getting insulting, and I don't wish to rise to the insults here, but I have a tendancy to rise to the challenge when others who to me seem well meaning are bullied by the usual suspects.


----------



## bigshot (Apr 7, 2018)

You're mistaking our tendency to go with the accepted facts as a point of view. If the accepted facts suddenly changed, we would happily go along with it. If you want us to change our mind, you need to stack up convincing evidence. I've never seen that headphone burn in is an established fact. I haven't seen that long term speaker burn in is significant enough to be audible in normal conditions. That is the difference of opinion here, not dogma.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> You're mistaking our tendency to go with the accepted facts as a point of view. If the accepted facts suddenly changed, we would happily go along with it. If you want us to change your mind, you need to stack up convincing evidence. I've never seen that headphone burn in is an established fact. I haven't seen that speaker burn in is significant to be easily audible in normal conditions. That is the difference of opinion here, not dogma.



Well I did with speaker drivers, and it was mostly ignored by those who didn't want to hear it. The "Scientist" regulars here are not easy to communicate with if you have slightly different views. I have been designing audio equipment for so long, and I have only met one person with similar views to this. I consider him a good friend, and he is well respected in the industry, and I like to believe he respects me too, but he is frustratingly intractable. I did manage to convince him his Audio Precision cannot tell him everything though... That was a lightbulb moment for him.


----------



## bigshot

How much of a difference and in what frequencies? How many speakers did you test? Different brands? How did you determine that they weren't already burned in? Speakers are a LOT easier to measure than headphones. I will accept with speakers if the proof is published. But that doesn't mean that headphones are the same thing. A microphone is the same as a speaker, but it behaves quite differently.

All it takes is proof.


----------



## tansand (Apr 7, 2018)

> A microphone is the same as a speaker, but it behaves quite differently.



They don't behave quite differently, they behave quite the same. Hook your midrange up to a mike amp and enjoy! Same with your headphone.



> All it takes is proof.



I'm glad that's settled, then.



> Using a headphone as a microphone is one of the oldest tricks in the book for many working DJs – but we know there’s a whole group of younger DJs who may never have had to figure out this for themselves.



http://djtechtools.com/2015/10/08/using-headphones-as-a-microphone-throwback-thursday-dj-technique/

Are you by chance a younger dj, bigshot?

DJ Bigshot?


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## gregorio (Apr 7, 2018)

tansand said:


> Jeez, you guys are so sensitive. ... It's just sound science.



Yes, we are sensitive! We are sensitive to incorrect assumptions, myths and made-up nonsense which are peddled as facts and science. That is effectively why this sub-forum exists in the first place and why we are so intolerant of people who peddle nonsense as fact. This is in fact exactly what you have just done, your post was incorrect assumption/made-up nonsense and certainly NOT "just sound science"!  ...



tansand said:


> [1] ... mike placement is a huge factor, so i doubt they pay as much attention to the exact differences of a mike they use mainly for drums, guitar amps, or live vocals.
> [2] And studios are competitive, if you know something your competitor doesn't, you don't go blabbing it on the internet.
> [3] Plus, hard to measure a mike, you'd need an an anechoic chamber and a perfect, or perfectly characterised transducer to emit the sweeps.
> [4] And you'd need to be sure it's well broken in.
> [5] I think I'll stick with, 'If the physics are the same as a speaker driver, and a speaker driver breaks in, then it probably breaks in too."



1. What you assume, believe or "doubt" is irrelevant! Yes, mic placement is a huge factor but your assumption is incorrect, a great deal of attention is also placed on mic choice!
2. Again, you are correct that studios are very competitive but incorrect in your following assumption, because you apparently have little actual knowledge of how commercial recording studios work/operate! Commercial studios are hired by the record label, Producers or the artists themselves, all of whom work in various different studios and so do some of the better and/or specialist engineers. Working practices, tricks of the trade and knowledge/discoveries therefore transfer between the commercial studios fairly rapidly. They don't typically "go blabbing it on the internet" but within the community of commercial studios and engineers, even commercial secrets don't last long, let alone basic information which has little/no competitive value!
3. That depends on what aspect of a mic's performance one is trying to measure. Certainly published specs are vital but ultimately it's about desired performance under certain specific conditions and desired performance typically does not mean linear. In fact, the most prized mic is not at all linear, it has rather poor performance if we define performance as transparency, accuracy, dynamic range and freq response.
4. As if the incorrect assumptions above are not bad enough, now you've gone and added just completely made-up nonsense! There is no such thing as mic burn-in/brake-in, you've just made that up. There is no measured evidence of mic burn-in and there is not even any anecdotal evidence from reliable sources. In fact, even mention mic burn-in to a seasoned commercial music or sound engineer and you'll be treated at best as an ignorant noob and at worst as a complete idiot. So where did you get this information that a mic needs to be well broken in, if it's not from the science or from those who make their living specifically from recording with mics? What other source is there for this information? It's nonsense which you've just made up!
5. The actual logic should therefore be: "If the physics are the same as a speaker driver, and mics do NOT break in, then speakers probably don't either". You of course are free to "stick with" whatever you want to believe but this isn't the "whatever you want to believe" forum, it's the sound science forum and it is UNACCEPTABLE here to keep posting made-up or incorrectly assumed nonsense as fact!!!

G


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## tansand

You need to calm down, gregorio. This is the sound science forum, we do sound science here, not a bunch of yelling.



> As you may recall from your school science, when a magnet is moved near a coil of wire an electrical current is generated in the wire. Using this electromagnet principle, the dynamic microphone uses a wire coil and magnet to create the audio signal.
> 
> The diaphragm is attached to the coil. When the diaphragm vibrates in response to incoming sound waves, the coil moves backwards and forwards past the magnet. This creates a current in the coil which is channeled from the microphone along wires. A common configuration is shown below.



https://www.mediacollege.com/audio/microphones/dynamic.html



> All Speakers are Microphones: Strange as it may seem, a loudspeaker can be re-tasked as a microphone. Just about any speaker can be converted to be used as a microphone. It seems an odd statement at first sight, because speakers and microphones look quite different, and it seems to defy everyday perception that you could conceivably use a speaker designed for outputting sound into something that can pick up sound. But, there it is, it's true!



For more about this see www.zyra.org.uk/sp-mic.htm


----------



## gregorio

tansand said:


> You need to calm down, gregorio. This is the sound science forum, we do sound science here ...



Exactly my point, this is the sound science forum and we do facts and science here, so why are you doing the exact opposite? This isn't the "incorrect assumption and made-up nonsense" forum, you are posting in the wrong forum!

G


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## Ramblinman

bigshot said:


> Well before you said that if you hear something then it is real. Would you require someone to agree with your reality in order to teach you about logic?


So, obywan, explain to me what makes something real. It seems you may be confusing philosophy with logic.


----------



## bigshot

That is VERY easy to answer. Real is observable AND repeatable AND independently verifiable. We prove things are real by testing and measuring, making sure we isolate variables so we know exactly what we're testing for. Then we repeat our tests among a larger sample to make sure that it isn't an anomaly. Then we find other people to duplicate our results and subject them to peer review to question or validate them. That's the scientific method.

Now you may not be interested to go to all that trouble just to buy a piece of audio equipment for your home stereo. I totally understand that. And to you, only your own perception is what counts. I understand that too. But if you want to tell other people about what reality is, the degree of trouble you're willing to go to to eliminate bias and placebo, is the degree of reality your advice represents. Cherry picking data to support a preconceived conclusion would be very low on that spectrum. Doing your own controlled blind listening tests would be higher on the scale.

It's also important when we're talking about reality to consider practical use. A soup spoon may be terrific for eating soup, but it might not be suitable for digging a hole to China. The facts directly relate to the intended purpose. I regularly see audiophiles demanding specs from equipment that far surpasses not only the content of recorded music, but the ability of their ears to hear. That makes no sense whatsoever. There is such a thing as "good enough".

Hope this helps.


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## colonelkernel8

bigshot said:


> That is VERY easy to answer. Real is observable AND repeatable AND independently verifiable. We prove things are real by testing and measuring, making sure we isolate variables so we know exactly what we're testing for. Then we repeat our tests among a larger sample to make sure that it isn't an anomaly. Then we find other people to duplicate our results and subject them to peer review to question or validate them. That's the scientific method.
> 
> Now you may not be interested to go to all that trouble just to buy a piece of audio equipment for your home stereo. I totally understand that. And to you, only your own perception is what counts. I understand that too. But if you want to tell other people about what reality is, the degree of trouble you're willing to go to to eliminate bias and placebo, is the degree of reality your advice represents. Cherry picking data to support a preconceived conclusion would be very low on that spectrum. Doing your own controlled blind listening tests would be higher on the scale.
> 
> ...


You don’t need to go through all this trouble to buy hi-fi gear. The science established in past thoroughly conducted and peer reviewed experiments provides rules and guidelines you can use to “predict” performance based on certain conditions. For a speaker this may amount to enclosure volume, porting, driver construction and the manufacturer supplied specifications (if they’re complete enough). They give you a great baseline.


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## bigshot

colonelkernel8 said:


> The science established in past thoroughly conducted and peer reviewed experiments provides rules and guidelines you can use to “predict” performance based on certain conditions.



That's what you learn when you do a few tests for yourself. You realize that just about any amp you buy *does* sound the same and CDs *are* perfect. Then you are freed up to move on to the things that really matter.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> That's what you learn when you do a few tests for yourself. You realize that just about any amp you buy *does* sound the same and CDs *are* perfect. Then you are freed up to move on to the things that really matter.



Or you can use the bias you have wanting to believe that to convince yourself there is no difference when you do the blind listening. That bias exists too.


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## bigshot

Blind tests remove that from the equation. Blind is the enemy of bias.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Blind tests remove that from the equation. Blind is the enemy of bias.



Only if a stastically suitable number of people take part, and those people are completely unaware of what they are listening for.

One person doing a blind listening test on a known set of equipment can have a bias: that of expecting a difference or not expecting one, and fulfilling that expectation.


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## bigshot

Can you cite a statistical suitable number of people that indicates burn in exists? I would like to see that. It would make me admit I'm wrong about this. I've never seen anything like that with headphones.


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## tansand

You're looking pretty blind the way you've been scurrying around ignoring those speaker=headphone=microphone links I've been posting. I swear, the main character of this forum seems to be LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

Just so you know I notice, BS.


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## bigshot

Huh? All you have to do is talk with me. I'm here, and I'm listening to you.


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## tansand

Nah, you're obvious. If that were true you'd be saying something about headphone=speaker=microphone. You're just attempting to deflect some more.

Scurry scurry.


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## bigshot

OK


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## tansand (Apr 8, 2018)

Still nothing?

OK.


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## donunus

No question that burn in is real. Only question is whether the manufacturer did some pre-burn in making user break in needless or some types of very flexible drivers needing less burn in than other cans.


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## castleofargh

donunus said:


> No question that burn in is real. Only question is whether the manufacturer did some pre-burn in making user break in needless or some types of very flexible drivers needing less burn in than other cans.


if there is no question I guess you won't mind demonstrating it to us on some headphone, a clear demonstration even on one pair, that would mean a great deal to me as I don't think I have seen a proper demonstration anywhere. or at least explain how we can tell there is an effect. maybe clear some things for me like how it is characterized, measured, or tested, so that I too can have your confidence on the matter and confirm it on my next purchase. like, when do we stop considering change over time to be normal wear and tear of the mechanical device slowly going toward its ensured demise, and when do we start considering the change to be burn in. is there a range of change that has been decided upon? or a special shape when we graph some variable(which one?) over time, where if the tangent reaches a certain angle, we assume the burn in is done?  or is it any change of any magnitude over any period of time, so we can all agree that burn in is real but means nothing and everything at the same time. but at least we have the answer. 

your second sentence is interesting. and it indeed would be great if we could have measurements to answer that instead of gurus coming up with their secret methods to burn a headphone in. the day we consumers get an answer for this, we'll really have made progress on this burn in question. and we'll know how relevant those changes actually are, or if they make everything better like the legends say. 




tansand said:


> Nah, you're obvious. If that were true you'd be saying something about headphone=speaker=microphone. You're just attempting to deflect some more.
> 
> Scurry scurry.


while I often argue with bigshot that I don't think his generalizations based on what he notices(or not) are good for us, his main fault is to reject something until demonstrated otherwise. which is not a fault, merely skepticism.
 we're blind to your argument about how a mic is a speaker is a rose is a rose. that much is true. personally, because I find that as valid as saying that formula1 and family cars are both cars so the tires or engines must "burn in" the same way. meanwhile you've been pretty good at completely disregarding all the potential differences between 2 drivers and the very likely consequences they'll have on sound variations over time. so I'd say we're all pretty skilled when it comes to burying our head in the sand.

 I don't like anybody claiming anything without evidence. and in the absence of evidence, we should be saying "I don't know", and make very cautious hypotheses.


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## donunus

castleofargh said:


> if there is no question I guess you won't mind demonstrating it to us on some headphone, a clear demonstration even on one pair, that would mean a great deal to me as I don't think I have seen a proper demonstration anywhere. or at least explain how we can tell there is an effect. maybe clear some things for me like how it is characterized, measured, or tested, so that I too can have your confidence on the matter and confirm it on my next purchase. like, when do we stop considering change over time to be normal wear and tear of the mechanical device slowly going toward its ensured demise, and when do we start considering the change to be burn in. is there a range of change that has been decided upon? or a special shape when we graph some variable(which one?) over time, where if the tangent reaches a certain angle, we assume the burn in is done?  or is it any change of any magnitude over any period of time, so we can all agree that burn in is real but means nothing and everything at the same time. but at least we have the answer.
> 
> your second sentence is interesting. and it indeed would be great if we could have measurements to answer that instead of gurus coming up with their secret methods to burn a headphone in. the day we consumers get an answer for this, we'll really have made progress on this burn in question. and we'll know how relevant those changes actually are, or if they make everything better like the legends say.
> 
> ...



I wish I had test equipment and two cans pre and post burned in versions of the ones that I found really changed so that I could demonstrate it with some recording hmm but I guess my comment won't mean anything without these. All I could say was that I had a headphone for reference before going back to the cans that were burning in so that my ears get neutralized everytime I listen to how much the cans have changed. I've had a sennheiser hd555 for example that was really echoey and bright. I mean reeaaallly bright out of the box that it sounded damaged. After some time, it changed and became the warm headphone it is known to be. Very weird experience. No other headphone changed as much as those old hd555s (Pre-China model).


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## castleofargh

donunus said:


> I wish I had test equipment and two cans pre and post burned in versions of the ones that I found really changed so that I could demonstrate it with some recording hmm but I guess my comment won't mean anything without these. All I could say was that I had a headphone for reference before going back to the cans that were burning in so that my ears get neutralized everytime I listen to how much the cans have changed. I've had a sennheiser hd555 for example that was really echoey and bright. I mean reeaaallly bright out of the box that it sounded damaged. After some time, it changed and became the warm headphone it is known to be. Very weird experience. No other headphone changed as much as those old hd555s (Pre-China model).


well to be convinced by such a testimony, I would need it not to come from uncontrolled sighted test, and I also wouldn't trust long term memory. both for solid proved reasons. if a change was really significant, of course you could just remember more or less the correct change, I'm sure that happens all the time too. but how to be sure when other causes could have resulted in the same memories of change?

if all that was cleared somehow, I'd still wonder if your impressions aren't mainly about finally picking a placement on your head, maybe finding a more comfy headband stetting, and of course my all time favorite, the pads that would change the sound over time. even within one same session it can happen,so how long you would keep them might be enough to affect your last impression of the session. that too would need to be properly tested to know if we even notice changes when they're small and consistent changes. 
 you and most people get a feeling of change, you decide to trust yourselves when you probably shouldn't but most audiophile fully trust themselves anyway. they can't remember what the wife asked them 15 minutes ago, but subtle changes in sound over days or weeks, no problem. anyway you wonder what's happening, you don't want to think about placebo because your brain tells you to love and trust yourselves, also burn in is brought up like every other days on audio forums, so it's easy to suspect that very convenient very famous reason as cause of audible changes. 
I don't have a good time like that, I'm here with measurements of placements and pads, they are clear, I even made a new EQ when I got my new pads on my hd650 because the old one just didn't work so well for me. so it's very hard for me to forget those possibilities as causes of my perceive sound change(that and all the placebo in the world). so I look for evidence of driver burn in, I'd love to see massive changes bigger than what pads and placement do, at least that would settle it. but I failed to show that, and I can't seem to find any evidence that it actually happens in any significant way to others. only unreliable subjective feedbacks that I could never take as proved facts on their own.  

I'm not sure of course that driver burn in is never significant. what I have is doubt and nothing else. but it's here, and there is a very concrete possibility that testimonies about burn in from amateur audiophiles would just be mistakenly attributed to burn in when the main perceived change could have other cause(s). it's only one possibility, but it's here.


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## donunus (Apr 8, 2018)

pads couldn't have changed since I didn't listen to them much at that state and just listened for seconds at a time until it sounded listenable. It was really bad. It was just left on with music playing.

I switched to hd600s and px100s everytime to refresh my ears before going back to them to prevent brain burn in. It was thin and really bright... Way brighter than the hd600, more like a dt990 plus the worst part was that it was ringing like crazy like I was listening to karaoke echo before burn in. Most cans that I have owned settle down either in minutes or 8 hours or so tops unlike these which took about 50 hours to be listenable and 150 plus hours to sound consistent.

EDIT: and most cans sound 95% there out of the box and those could be attributed to brain and pad burn in unlike these 555s. I think they were Ireland ones.


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## bigshot (Apr 8, 2018)

Is brain burn in real?

How does a transducer malfunctioning result in karaoke echo?


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## donunus

bigshot said:


> Is brain burn in real?
> 
> How does a transducer malfunctioning result in karaoke echo?



Science has no explanation for some things yet but last time I checked, I was stil 100% sane  All I know is that those cans sounded really echoey as though something wasn't screwed on tight then after some time they just fixed themselves. It's sort of like having weird hearing for a few days after swimming in deep water, then slowly getting better after all the water has come out of one's ears. I would have said it was me if I didn't have other headphones to alternate them with at the time but the hd600s and px100s I had at the same time were fine so there. I have no other explanations for these ghosts and aliens hehehe


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## donunus

While most headphone's I have tried either didn't change with burn in or maybe changed very little, those old hd555s sounded more like they would measure somewhere like this...


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## Sil3nce

_Mod comment_: Let's keep things civil please


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## gregorio

tansand said:


> [1] You're looking pretty blind the way you've been scurrying around ignoring those speaker=headphone=microphone links I've been posting. I swear, the main character of this forum seems to be LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.
> [2] Just so you know I notice, BS.



1. Then why do you keep saying "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU"? We're not ignoring speaker=headphone=mic, you are the one ignoring the fact that there isn't burn-in with mics (when it should be particularly noticeable!) and therefore, following YOUR logic of speaker=headphone=mic, then there shouldn't be any burn-in with speakers or headphones either!

2. Not just "notice" but apparently actively invent and post it as well!

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Then why do you keep saying "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU"? We're not ignoring speaker=headphone=mic, you are the one ignoring the fact that there isn't burn-in with mics (when it should be particularly noticeable!) and therefore, following YOUR logic of speaker=headphone=mic, then there shouldn't be any burn-in with speakers or headphones either!
> 
> G



Where are the papers, DBL tests and proof that mics do not get affected by burn in?

I admit it is difficult, as they may start burning in by laying around the lab/studio if they are not in a sound proof box.

But nevertheless, you cannot make statements of fact based on your own opinon or experience without proof, and deny the other side of the argument the same.


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## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] Where are the papers, DBL tests and proof that mics do not get affected by burn in?
> 2. But nevertheless, you cannot make statements of fact based on your own opinon or experience without proof, and deny the other side of the argument the same.



1. EXACTLY! You have claimed mics burn-in, where's the evidence to support your claim? 
2. I've given you the professional consensus, what evidence have you supplied? Supply some or be a hypocrite!

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. EXACTLY! You have claimed mics burn-in, where's the evidence to support your claim?
> 2. I've given you the professional consensus, what evidence have you supplied? Supply some or be a hypocrite!
> 
> G



You are mixing me up with the other people you are talking at. I have not claimed evidence for mic burn in. I think it is a reasonable cadidate for consideration, but not my claim. 

You professional consensus of one, i.e. you is not enough for me, considering how narrow your opinions have been in the past. They are just your opinions in most cases, as you extrapolate from puplished papers to the subject as you see it. Unless your opinion is the only one that matters, and then you are Quincey Jones, and I claim my 5 pounds!

Hey here's an idea: the engine noise of the ship/aircraft taking the product is contributing to the burn in, depending on the transducer size and length of journey. A microphone made in China takes 4 weeks to get to Europe. So buy you AKG mics in Europe if you want to measure burn in as they are made in Hungary.


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## castleofargh

if we go with that, it would also count for headphones. and even more so for speakers with heavier diaphragms more susceptible to vibrations while delivered. it answers nothing but brings a all lot of new questions. ^_^


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## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> if we go with that, it would also count for headphones. and even more so for speakers with heavier diaphragms more susceptible to vibrations while delivered. it answers nothing but brings a all lot of new questions. ^_^



Yes...

It may explain why designers of speakers almost entirely (I say almost because I haven't discussed it with ALL designers) agree that burn in exists. Because they are working with fresh off the production line units. I've been in the listening room in the factory more often than the sales room in annother country.

I suspect if my frivolous comment that microphones run in all the time there is a noise turns into a relavant discussion (of course it won't, burn in doesn't exist!) then things get even more convoluted. Also more interesting?


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] You are mixing me up with the other people you are talking at.
> [2] I think it is a reasonable cadidate for consideration, but not my claim. ... You professional consensus of one, i.e. you is not enough for me ...
> [3] It may explain why designers of speakers almost entirely (I say almost because I haven't discussed it with ALL designers) agree that burn in exists.



1. Yes, that's possible. 

2. Err no, it is not a consensus of one, you can't have a consensus of one. I'm reporting the consensus of the profession regarding mics, the many top class professionals I've met and worked with, plus the online professional community, plus my own personal experience of buying and extensively testing the numerous mics I've owned or have seriously considered owning. I agree though that none of this is enough to constitute scientific proof, no more than maybe somewhat reliable evidence. However, it is of course for those making the claim to provide evidence, not for me to provide evidence to disprove it.

3. That's strange because none of the designers of speakers I've discussed the issue with say that burn-in is a real "thing". However, I've only discussed it with a few designers of pro audio speakers (Genelec for example), maybe there's a fundamental difference though between pro audio and audiophile speakers??

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Yes, that's possible.
> 
> 2. Err no, it is not a consensus of one, you can't have a consensus of one. I'm reporting the consensus of the profession regarding mics, the many top class professionals I've met and worked with, plus the online professional community, plus my own personal experience of buying and extensively testing the numerous mics I've owned or have seriously considered owning. I agree though that none of this is enough to constitute scientific proof, no more than maybe somewhat reliable evidence. However, it is of course for those making the claim to provide evidence, not for me to provide evidence to disprove it.
> 
> ...



Interesting. I know the people who supply Genelec with their drive units.  At this point I will have to leave it, but let you guess what they think given I mention it, as reputations and opinion affect sales.

Pro audio knows speaker burn in happens too.  The people I know laugh at the idea that people believe it doesn't.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] Interesting. I know the people who supply Genelec with their drive units.  At this point I will have to leave it, but let you guess what they think given I mention it, as reputations and opinion affect sales.
> [2] The people I know laugh at the idea that people believe it doesn't.



1. I have no idea who supply Genelec with their drive units but I did have several lengthy discussions with the chief engineer at Genelec several years ago about flush-mounting some of their larger pro speaker in my studio. He laughed at the idea of any run-in period. Once installed, I carefully measured and tested them over the course of several days. They were within the expected specifications and there was no change at all in their performance. In addition, my half yearly calibration checks since, also show no evidence of change.

2. And the people I know laugh at those who believe it does. I would tend to put belief in what I've personally measured and in all the professional engineers who use them everyday, you obviously have some other belief from some other group of people. Until I see some solid evidence which contradicts my measurements and professional sound engineers' consensus, I have no rational/justifiable reason to change my belief.

G


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## colonelkernel8

I think we need to stop using "laugh" as a synonym of "deny". It sounds unnecessarily "gloat-y". At this point this thread as devolved to "The chief engineers of so-and-so I talked to said burn-in is a fallacy" and "No way, the chief engineers of so-and-so I talk to said burn-in is reeeealllll!"

How about showing the data. Please. I haven't measured it personally nor have I seen any real study so I can't say. Certainly someone has a measurement device we can use to measure the changes over time of frequency response on a speaker. One better would be someone with an Aachen head we can use for headphones, possibly creating a jig to use to ensure headphone placement is identical each test.


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## bigshot (Apr 9, 2018)

jagwap said:


> You professional consensus of one, i.e. you is not enough for me, considering how narrow your opinions have been in the past.




I find Gregorio to be very well informed. Even when I disagree with his opinions, it's only because he's applying the principles for different purposes than I am, not because his opinion is off base.

I'm sure that when transducers are manufactured, they need to settle into the groove and moving them around a little will do that. But I can't see that taking more than a minute or two, and I'm sure that they test things at the factory before shipping them out and accomplish that. Burn in of headphones sounds to me like the idea that silver wires sound brighter... it's just an analogy that we wallpaper over the truth because it seems correct. The reason that burn in with headphones hasn't been proven or disproven is because it is hard to accurately measure headphones without variation because of mechanical issues, and it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to conduct blind line level matched direct A/B switched listening tests. On the other hand, we know for a fact that human hearing does acclimate and an unfamiliar response will sound better over time. The fact that almost everyone sees burn in as an improvement in sound over time, and no one ever seems to see it as getting worse, indicates to me that acclimating ears is the reason people report perceiving burn in.


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## jagwap (Apr 9, 2018)

This is back to the circular arguement:

SS: We cannot measure it so it is not there.

Aph: But it does not visibly affect frequency response measurements.

SS: But we cannot measure other things, and frequency response indicates sound so it isn't there.

Aph: What about other measurements

SS: We don't have that ability. So it isn't there.

Aph: There are measurements published on the internet. We showed you them.

SS: If they didn't affect frequency response it isn't audable.

How about this: the measurement I linked to show a significant change on a woofer. Things like Fs changed by over 10%. That would affect low frequency behaviour the most. Low frequencies are extremely difficult to measure. Even well set up professional design houses have difficulty below a couple of hundred Hz, so someone in a studio or home has little to no chance of getting repeatable results.

Ok, so what about tweeters. If they are affected the same way we should be able to measure it?  Not necessarily, as the change is likely below the crossover point, so not visible to frequency response measurements, unless you measure the un-crossed-over driver.

So it's not audible right? Not so. If you understand the mathmatical relationship between roll off in frequency response and phase and group delay you will know that the later two start becoming significant several octaves above thw roll off.

Also things like Fs change the Q of an acoustic system, causing the interaction of the driver and the cabinet and port to change. This affects the phase, group delay and damping of the system.

So this again is about speakers, and may or may not be valid in headphones, like some Schrodinger's cat of arguements. But do not ignore the evidence published because it doesn't fit your beliefs.

Frequency response is important. It is the macro performance criterion. But just because you cannot measure the other aspects, don't think they are trivial. They matter just as much in particular areas.


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## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> This is back to the circular arguement:
> 
> SS: We cannot measure it so it is not there.
> 
> ...


to me this would come down to 2 possibilities:
1/ there is a physical change in the drivers, but they don't end up affecting the outgoing signal in any significant way. so who cares?
2/ BS excuse. why wouldn't we be able to measure clearly audible change from the same source with the same mic over time? that's something I really don't get. if there is something I'm missing you guys need to explain it to me once and for all. characterizing a change could be real hard. identifying one variable as sole cause of a subjective impressions is often impossible. identifying a cause would probably require to observe the driver directly with lasers or other optical solution at really high speed and accuracy instead of looking at the sound. but if something is changing audibly over time, then it means the air pressure is changing in magnitude, else how do we hear it? and if a change is as I expect as simple as a change in the amplitudes of a signal over time, why should it be hard to record and confirm it, even with something as dumb as a null between 2 recordings at different time?
 I just can't wrap my head around this. I have limitation because my rig is super cheap and my room not so quiet. but I have the same limitations of the not so quiet room when I'm listening to the headphone. and while I measure stuff I fail to hear all the time, I'm can't say I have any example of the opposite, where I can positively claim it's not all in my head, but it doesn't clearly manifest on a recording. I would need to know clearly what to look for, set up a blind test for it, find it, and have nothing on the measurements I'd make under the same circumstances. I have no knowledge of such event being clearly documented. has it ever happen? was it never later discovered that it was just a testing error or some not so blind test with a clever horse as test subject? I'm always willing to admit that I don't know much and that I'm wrong. it happens all the time and I have no issue with that. on the contrary when I notice it it makes me a better man the next day with one less wrong in my mind. I want to know the truth, not just to win on internet. but you have to give me something. just telling me to be open minded and to pretend that everything is always the same, that's really not doing me any good.
 I have to insist about a dire need for some reference in the magnitudes we must consider relevant. and a name for the variables we're supposed to look for. without those, this discussion is a total waste of my time. everybody can be right and wrong, it's not even about moving the goalpost, nobody even bothered to put some on the field yet. 

so please whoever knows something beyond having a lot of self confidence, please pretty please, come forward and give us something to look for in headphones. otherwise we can just rename this topic coca vs pepsi and we wouldn't lose anything to the relevance of the arguments.


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## bigshot (Apr 10, 2018)

The fundamentals of recorded sound are frequency response, amplitude and distortion. Everything fits in the broadest definition of those three terms. We can measure all those things. If there is anything else to sound reproduction it is directionality, and that doesn't apply to two channel stereo recordings of music since channel separation is pretty much perfect.


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## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> to me this would come down to 2 possibilities:
> 1/ there is a physical change in the drivers, but they don't end up affecting the outgoing signal in any significant way. so who cares?
> 2/ BS excuse. why wouldn't we be able to measure clearly audible change from the same source with the same mic over time? that's something I really don't get. if there is something I'm missing you guys need to explain it to me once and for all. characterizing a change could be real hard. identifying one variable as sole cause of a subjective impressions is often impossible. identifying a cause would probably require to observe the driver directly with lasers or other optical solution at really high speed and accuracy instead of looking at the sound. but if something is changing audibly over time, then it means the air pressure is changing in magnitude, else how do we hear it? and if a change is as I expect as simple as a change in the amplitudes of a signal over time, why should it be hard to record and confirm it, even with something as dumb as a null between 2 recordings at different time?
> I just can't wrap my head around this. I have limitation because my rig is super cheap and my room not so quiet. but I have the same limitations of the not so quiet room when I'm listening to the headphone. and while I measure stuff I fail to hear all the time, I'm can't say I have any example of the opposite, where I can positively claim it's not all in my head, but it doesn't clearly manifest on a recording. I would need to know clearly what to look for, set up a blind test for it, find it, and have nothing on the measurements I'd make under the same circumstances. I have no knowledge of such event being clearly documented. has it ever happen? was it never later discovered that it was just a testing error or some not so blind test with a clever horse as test subject? I'm always willing to admit that I don't know much and that I'm wrong. it happens all the time and I have no issue with that. on the contrary when I notice it it makes me a better man the next day with one less wrong in my mind. I want to know the truth, not just to win on internet. but you have to give me something. just telling me to be open minded and to pretend that everything is always the same, that's really not doing me any good.
> ...



Again, magnitude isn't everything.  I think we need to focus elsewhere like phase and decay. This may show up in an impulse response, but as you say laser interferometry is more likely to show up any differences. Then any changes in modal breakup or surround behaviour would be available.

In the possible flawed innerfidelity data the impulse response does trend towards larger peaks, and the low frequencies appear to extend lower as burn in continues. The LF changes are small, but that can mean a significant change in the first pole, leading to significant phase shift in the audio band. This may align with the Fs changes etc of the woofer data?


----------



## bigshot

Phase is distortion. Decay is amplitude.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> The fundamentals of recorded sound are frequency response, amplitude and distortion. Everything fits in the broadest definition of those three terms. We can measure all those things. If there is anything else to sound reproduction it is directionality, and that doesn't apply to two channel stereo recordings of music since channel separation is pretty much perfect.



As I said, the macro effects. But there are others which are important. You've never used the trick of altering the LF phase to change the perceived pace of a peice of music?


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> Phase is distortion. Decay is amplitude.



Yet it doesn't show up when you do a sweep of a speaker crossover.

Conventional measurements do not show these "distortions". You have to go look for them.  THD+N does not show phase errors. Frequency response plots don't show decay or Q readily. If they did there would be a lot less badly ported loudspeakers out there.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> This is back to the circular arguement: SS: We cannot measure it so it is not there.



Yes, it is a circular argument but it's a circular argument to which there is no logical counter argument! If we cannot measure it, then we cannot record it so obviously "it is not there" in the recording and, just as obviously, if it is not there in the recording then how can we reproduce it?! 



jagwap said:


> How about this: the measurement I linked to show a significant change on a woofer. Things like Fs changed by over 10%.



I can't find the measurement you linked to, which would be useful but even without that, your statement raises several points: 1. It's a measurement then? 2. Do you typically strap woofers to your head? 3. I'm sure it's possible to design a woofer driver, probably even a headphone driver and a microphone capsule which does require burn-in, the question is, why would you want to? It would play havoc with the design tolerances of the other elements/components of your product, havoc with your published specifications and potentially havoc with both your product's reliability and consumer satisfaction and for what benefit? I'm sure there are at least some incompetent designers out there and I'm equally sure there are examples of manufacturers who've used the excuse of burn-in to fob-off consumers unsatisfied with a poor design or poor quality control.



jagwap said:


> Conventional measurements do not show these "distortions".



Again, all we can record is frequency and amplitude and therefore all we can reproduce is frequency or amplitude. If any piece of equipment causes any distortion (change) to that frequency and/or amplitude then we can measure the difference between the input frequency/amplitude and the output frequency/amplitude. If we cannot measure a difference, then there isn't one!

G


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## donunus

After all the circular arguments I think we have all learned that in the end people believe what they want to believe and never trust anyone else with experience of opposing results. The thing is, there is no proof that can be demonstrated for this except to trust one's ears while having a benchmark to go back to to reduce placebo.


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> Yes, it is a circular argument but it's a circular argument to which there is no logical counter argument! If we cannot measure it, then we cannot record it so obviously "it is not there" in the recording and, just as obviously, if it is not there in the recording then how can we reproduce it?!



We couldn't measure TIM distortion before the '70s, but it didn't mean it didn't exist. What makes you think audio is fully discovered? Have AES papers stopped being published. Also I am not stating we cannot measure it. I am suggesting we do not discover it with a simplistic view that frequency response tells us all we need to know.




> I can't find the measurement you linked to, which would be useful but even without that, your statement raises several points: 1. It's a measurement then?



Look again, I'm not your Google. Yes it is a bunch of speaker Thiele-Small parameters that showed noticable change in the first 20 hours on a woofer.[/QUOTE]



> 2. Do you typically strap woofers to your head?



Yes, don't you? Ask a stupid question and wonder why my respect deminishes by the reply. It's a question if scale. If Castleofargh can argue this coherently, perhaps you can learn from him. I suspect you think you like learning more than you actually do.


> 3. I'm sure it's possible to design a woofer driver, probably even a headphone driver and a microphone capsule which does require burn-in, the question is, why would you want to? It would play havoc with the design tolerances of the other elements/components of your product, havoc with your published specifications and potentially havoc with both your product's reliability and consumer satisfaction and for what benefit? I'm sure there are at least some incompetent designers out there and I'm equally sure there are examples of manufacturers who've used the excuse of burn-in to fob-off consumers unsatisfied with a poor design or poor quality control.



Nobody wants burn-in. It appears to be laws of physics getting in the way of audio perfection again. Again a silly point aimed at annoying people.



> Again, all we can record is frequency and amplitude and therefore all we can reproduce is frequency or amplitude. If any piece of equipment causes any distortion (change) to that frequency and/or amplitude then we can measure the difference between the input frequency/amplitude and the output frequency/amplitude. If we cannot measure a difference, then there isn't one!
> 
> G



That is not what is recorded. There is nothing in PCM that says frequency. We record a sequence of amplitudes, which together when kept in sequence and in time represent a signal. When they repeat with a regular interval that repetition causes frequencies to be heard. But you know this.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] Nobody wants burn-in. It appears to be laws of physics getting in the way of audio perfection again.
> [2] That is not what is recorded. There is nothing in PCM that says frequency. We record a sequence of amplitudes, which together when kept in sequence and in time represent a signal.



1. Great, so my measurements of my speakers and mics and the measurements of many other sound/music engineers have broken the laws of physics, thanks for that useful assessment!
2. And what signal is it that we are representing? Oh dear!

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Great, so my measurements of my speakers and mics and the measurements of many other sound/music engineers have broken the laws of physics, thanks for that useful assessment!
> 2. And what signal is it that we are representing? Oh dear!
> 
> G



Now it is clear you delibarately misunderstand what is written. To what purpose?


----------



## castleofargh

jagwap said:


> Again, magnitude isn't everything.  I think we need to focus elsewhere like phase and decay. This may show up in an impulse response, but as you say laser interferometry is more likely to show up any differences. Then any changes in modal breakup or surround behaviour would be available.
> 
> In the possible flawed innerfidelity data the impulse response does trend towards larger peaks, and the low frequencies appear to extend lower as burn in continues. The LF changes are small, but that can mean a significant change in the first pole, leading to significant phase shift in the audio band. This may align with the Fs changes etc of the woofer data?


again, FR from a sweep or averaged noise are convenient but not necessary unless we know what we're looking for. impulse could perhaps do they're not the easiest stuff to capture properly and consistently being so short and all, but if you feel confident that driver change would clearly come out as something consistent and much bigger than artifacts from measurements, then I'm fine with that. 
or we could just as well record a song twice. so long as we have amplitude over time, we have the sound. if audible change comes from the sound we should see it. even with a simple null of the 2 records for example. it would give us variations and a bunch of noise from various origins. if the variations from the driver are significant it will show there. we could also have people ABX it. so the group of "we can't measure everything in sound" can enjoy their listening test to confirm change. although I imagine a good portion of those with that argument will somehow also have something to say about controlled listening tests. but at least those are viable methods to me. 
we have to start by capturing those changes in a way that has the driver in a fixed position as unequivocal cause for the change. which is why I'd like to forget all about that innerfidelity test. the low end boost over time is at least in part, a direct result of the pads on my 2 headphones. his test was cool, he was right to do it and it showed changes. just no clue if the driver caused most or any of them. in that respect it's not useful at all. 




donunus said:


> After all the circular arguments I think we have all learned that in the end people believe what they want to believe and never trust anyone else with experience of opposing results. The thing is, there is no proof that can be demonstrated for this except to trust one's ears while having a benchmark to go back to to reduce placebo.


well in this section taking subjective impressions from sighted test at face value is seen as a lapse in judgement. I'm sure some will reject an impression only because it doesn't align with their views, yet accept another when it does. boys will be boys. but rejecting impressions from uncontrolled tests is the proper decision, whatever those impressions are in favor of. when bigshot says he didn't hear a difference, that does nothing to disprove driver burn in. when you say you noticed a change, it does nothing to prove driver burn in.  
I care about making that clear more than I care about finding a consistent model to characterize and predict burn in. audiophile are so used to have to manage only with subjective impressions, that they somehow started thinking they were evidence of objective events, and for some, the only evidence. which of course is a mistake. science doesn't demonstrate anything by going around and asking how people feel. we do that when we care about people's feeling, not about objective change in sound.


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## gregorio

jagwap said:


> Now it is clear you delibarately misunderstand what is written.



How have I misunderstood? Sure, we cannot design perfect transducers but I have measured numerous transducers when new and after many hours use and have not detected any change in the measurements. Are my measurements braking the laws of physics or is it possible to design a transducer which while not perfect, does not burn-in/change noticeably? And, if it's possible to design a transducer which doesn't burn-in and "nobody wants burn-in" then why would some other transducers burn-in?

Your answer to this appears to be, you cannot measure everything but how is that relevant? We don't need to measure everything, just the input signal and the output signal (or two output signals at different times). Then all we need to do is compare them for any difference, NOT measure everything!

G


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## bigshot

donunus said:


> After all the circular arguments I think we have all learned that in the end people believe what they want to believe and never trust anyone else with experience of opposing results. The thing is, there is no proof that can be demonstrated for this except to trust one's ears while having a benchmark to go back to to reduce placebo.



There's nothing wrong with objective listening tests. If you eliminate the possibility of bias then it's a pretty practical apples to apples way to address sound quality issues in your rig.


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## Haris Javed (Apr 10, 2018)

First we should investigate what break in really means. It actually has nothing to do with headphones, and everything to do with material science. With regular speaker / headphone drivers it should be extremely easy to see. (personally I do not believe in break in, To me it seems more of a mind thing, but I am not an expert, so you shouldn't really believe what I am saying )
how it can be checked:
1. obtain a brand new driver, attach some light weights to it (underneath it, I am sure the weight will depend on normal force which should account for Cms– compliance of driver’s suspension (m/N) and Rms– mechanical resistance of driver’s suspension ), measure the change in height - since the driver will resist the change, and try to move back to its original position, it should have a spring constant, measure it
2. Once spring constant is measured remove the weight and play music through the driver for 100+ hours, and repeat step one again, since now the driver material should have "loosened" up your spring constant should change
3. I don't claim to know anything how this impacts the sound. In theory if the spring constant has changed, the sound should change, but the change will be so small that my ears wont be able to detect it


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## tyterh

I nearly always notice reduced sibilance after a few hours burn in.


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## bigshot

Could your ears be acclimating to an unfamiliar sound signature?


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## Haris Javed

bigshot said:


> Could your ears be acclimating to an unfamiliar sound signature?




most likely ^

an easy way to test this is, listen to your headphones for few days, take a break, and listen to another pair for 3-4 weeks, and then go back to the original headphones, and you will hear the sibilance again. It happens to me all the time!


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## Ramblinman

gregorio said:


> Yes, it is a circular argument but it's a circular argument to which there is no logical counter argument! If we cannot measure it, then we cannot record it so obviously "it is not there" in the recording and, just as obviously, if it is not there in the recording then how can we reproduce it?!




I can't find the measurement you linked to, which would be useful but even without that, your statement raises several points: 1. It's a measurement then? 2. Do you typically strap woofers to your head? 3. I'm sure it's possible to design a woofer driver, probably even a headphone driver and a microphone capsule which does require burn-in, the question is, why would you want to? It would play havoc with the design tolerances of the other elements/components of your product, havoc with your published specifications and potentially havoc with both your product's reliability and consumer satisfaction and for what benefit? I'm sure there are at least some incompetent designers out there and I'm equally sure there are examples of manufacturers who've used the excuse of burn-in to fob-off consumers unsatisfied with a poor design or poor quality control.
[/QUOTE]

Only if you accept the premise that measurement techniques are perfect


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## tansand (Apr 10, 2018)

So I got a short interconnect to go between my colorfly and the Nx1. It sounds good now, very neutral. The one I tried before was about four feet long. Because of sound science, I figured cables didn't matter. I was disappointed I had already ordered the short cables. Huh!


----------



## castleofargh

Ramblinman said:


> I can't find the measurement you linked to, which would be useful but even without that, your statement raises several points: 1. It's a measurement then? 2. Do you typically strap woofers to your head? 3. I'm sure it's possible to design a woofer driver, probably even a headphone driver and a microphone capsule which does require burn-in, the question is, why would you want to? It would play havoc with the design tolerances of the other elements/components of your product, havoc with your published specifications and potentially havoc with both your product's reliability and consumer satisfaction and for what benefit? I'm sure there are at least some incompetent designers out there and I'm equally sure there are examples of manufacturers who've used the excuse of burn-in to fob-off consumers unsatisfied with a poor design or poor quality control.
> 
> 
> Only if you accept the premise that measurement techniques are perfect



measurements aren't perfect, nothing is aside from the wife when she's in the same room hearing you talk, and math sometimes. the argument is simply that measurements are in general more reliable than "trust me I remember what I heard that other time when I was all excited about my new toy". ^_^
it's just a matter of how much confidence we should put into various anecdotes and how they came to be.


tansand said:


> So I got a short interconnect to go between my colorfly and the Nx1. It sounds good now, very neutral. The one I tried before was about four feet long. Because of sound science, I figured cables didn't matter. I was disappointed I had already ordered the short cables. Huh!


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## Haris Javed (Apr 10, 2018)

castleofargh said:


> measurements aren't perfect, nothing is aside from the wife when she's in the same room hearing you talk, and math sometimes. the argument is simply that measurements are in general more reliable than "trust me I remember what I heard that other time when I was all excited about my new toy". ^_^
> it's just a matter of how much confidence we should put into various anecdotes and how they came to be.



haha! Math is never wrong! Sometimes we fail to understand it - (e.g Early Quantum Mechanics when the scientists working on it, did not realize they were looking at a matrix)


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## Ramblinman

castleofargh said:


> measurements aren't perfect, nothing is aside from the wife when she's in the same room hearing you talk, and math sometimes. the argument is simply that measurements are in general more reliable than "trust me I remember what I heard that other time when I was all excited about my new toy". ^_^
> it's just a matter of how much confidence we should put into various anecdotes and how they came to be.


Similar to relying on measurement techniques because they are “science”  although they are imperfect.


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## bigshot

Is there a reason that you are in the science forum? It seems you have little understanding of science or interest in it.


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## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> So I got a short interconnect to go between my colorfly and the Nx1. It sounds good now, very neutral. The one I tried before was about four feet long. Because of sound science, I figured cables didn't matter. I was disappointed I had already ordered the short cables. Huh!



*sigh* Man, you claimed to hear differences, very clearly, between files that were bit-for-bit perfect copies of each other and only admitted to that after I showed you they were in fact copies. I no longer trust your judgement on subjective listening tests.


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## Haris Javed

bigshot said:


> Is there a reason that you are in the science forum? It seems you have little understanding of science or interest in it.



pssh science is overrated! scientific method is a joke, and personal experiences trump evidence, and statistical methods!


----------



## Haris Javed

tansand said:


> So I got a short interconnect to go between my colorfly and the Nx1. It sounds good now, very neutral. The one I tried before was about four feet long. Because of sound science, I figured cables didn't matter. I was disappointed I had already ordered the short cables. Huh!



Yes you will surely hear differences if going from coat hanger to a wire 

...but you won’t! But if it makes you happy so be it! It is all that matters


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## Ramblinman

Haris Javed said:


> pssh science is overrated! scientific method is a joke, and personal experiences trump evidence, and statistical methods!


Agreed. Those who value “science” over real experiences have blind faith.


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## Haris Javed

Ramblinman said:


> Agreed. Those who value “science” over real experiences have blind faith.



Exactly! Science is irrelevant, and global warming is a made up thing


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## tansand (Apr 10, 2018)

colonelkernel8 said:


> *sigh* Man, you claimed to hear differences, very clearly, between files that were bit-for-bit perfect copies of each other and only admitted to that after I showed you they were in fact copies. I no longer trust your judgement on subjective listening tests.



I'm just saying. I thought I should update, instead of leaving incomplete information for people who might read this in the future.

I have to object to your use of the words 'only admitted to that' above, they insinuate that I was hiding something which we both know is not the case. I shared what I thought in good faith, and provided evidence to you which disproved it. Don't believe me, that's fine, but don't imply any kind of dishonesty on my part.


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## Ramblinman (Apr 10, 2018)

Haris Javed said:


> Exactly! Science is irrelevant, and global warming is a made up thing


Science is typically flawed and is often disproven by some new experiment that is itself later disproven by another experiment and on and on it goes. But just to be clear, you think global warming is related to sound recording? Interesting


----------



## bigshot

Haris Javed said:


> pssh science is overrated! scientific method is a joke, and personal experiences trump evidence, and statistical methods!





Ramblinman said:


> Agreed. Those who value “science” over real experiences have blind faith.



Trolls. No value here. I'm going to ignore this blather.


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## Haris Javed (Apr 10, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> Science is typically flawed and is often disproven by some new experiment that is itself later disproven by another experiment and on and on it goes. But just to be clear, you think global warming is related to sound recording? Interesting



man you are so right. I would give you a  but its kinda hard to do via keyboard, and a mouse! I can see you will have a very bright future, Good Luck!

I can see you replacing this man soon!


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## Haris Javed

bigshot said:


> Trolls. No value here. I'm going to ignore this blather.



you are right, I was being sarcastic.


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## Ramblinman

bigshot said:


> Trolls. No value here. I'm going to ignore this blather.


If responding to it , in your world, is ignoring it you are killin it. LOL


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## Ramblinman (Apr 10, 2018)

Haris Javed said:


> man you are so right. I would give you a  but its kinda hard to do via keyboard, and a mouse! I can see you will have a very bright future, Good Luck!
> 
> I can see you replacing this man soon!


Actually have had a very successful life. I attribute it , at least partially, to not being gullible. Science is useful, but to think it has an answer for everything is ignorant.

Some put blind faith in something because somebody told them a scientific basis backed it up. If you accept that, but don’t understand the science behind it personally, science is your religion.


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## colonelkernel8

Ramblinman said:


> Actually have had a very successful life. I attribute it , at least partially, to not being gullible. Science is useful, but to think it has an answer for everything is ignorant.
> 
> Some put blind faith in something because somebody told them a scientific basis backed it up. If you accept that, but don’t understand the science behind it personally, science is your religion.


Science is by definition, not religion. Nor is it blind faith. It’s definitionally not either of these things. If science doesn’t have the answers for every facet of audio reproduction, how are we capable of creating devices that sound so good in the first place? Why do we need additional “magic” to be present?


----------



## castleofargh

to everybody, please discuss ideas not people. and if you feel like it, why not try constructive posts for a change? it's a new trend I heard about.



Ramblinman said:


> Agreed. Those who value “science” over real experiences have blind faith.





Ramblinman said:


> Science is typically flawed and is often disproven by some new experiment that is itself later disproven by another experiment and on and on it goes. But just to be clear, you think global warming is related to sound recording? Interesting


science is poorly pushed around in this section by people who for the vast majority(me included) are not, I repeat, are not scientists or researchers. but the scientific method has nothing to do with blind faith, it is pretty much the anti blind faith method.
 if you argue that we mischaracterize science, I'm open to discussion(maybe in a dedicated topic to stop with off topics) and would probably agree quite often that we take too many liberties. but if your point is that science is wrong all the time and always changing(true), so we'd better trust our impressions because they are "real"(false),  then you are posting in the wrong part of the forum and we should stop here.


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## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> I'm just saying. I thought I should update, instead of leaving incomplete information for people who might read this in the future.
> 
> I have to object to your use of the words 'only admitted to that' above, they insinuate that I was hiding something which we both know is not the case. I shared what I thought in good faith, and provided evidence to you which disproved it. Don't believe me, that's fine, but don't imply any kind of dishonesty on my part.


Wasn’t attempting to imply any dishonesty, and I know you provided the files in good faith. I’m merely suggesting that you of all people should now understand the fallibility of human hearing, and take a more skeptical approach instead of trying to argue from a perspective of false confidence.


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## Ramblinman (Apr 10, 2018)

castleofargh said:


> to everybody, please discuss ideas not people. and if you feel like it, why not try constructive posts for a change? it's a new trend I heard about.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## jagwap

castleofargh said:


> to everybody, please discuss ideas not people. and if you feel like it, why not try constructive posts for a change? it's a new trend I heard about.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well said.

It means my suggestion of changing the forum name may not be helpful. I was thinking how dogmatically some cling to the ideas of established thinking, that is othen a few decades old and out of date. So much so it is likeke some non denominational religion. So we should call this place the Church of Science. Then the protectors of the faith could have the last say as they like. But then as it would not be science in its true form, perhaps a change that keeps the science theme, but doesn't fully attach science rigor.

So how about the forum "Church of Scientology"?

No?


----------



## bigshot

I agree about the out of date stuff. A lot of people try to apply the sort of things audiophiles worried about in the analogue days to modern digital technology, but it's apples and oranges. Digital doesn't have veils or coloration or distortion. It just works, and if it doesn't work, it usually fails big. I read audiophile reviews and I have no idea what they're referring to. It sure isn't anything related to the way the component they're reviewing actually works.


----------



## Ramblinman

bigshot said:


> I agree about the out of date stuff. A lot of people try to apply the sort of things audiophiles worried about in the analogue days to modern digital technology, but it's apples and oranges. Digital doesn't have veils or coloration or distortion. It just works, and if it doesn't work, it usually fails big. I read audiophile reviews and I have no idea what they're referring to. It sure isn't anything related to the way the component they're reviewing actually works.


I agreeaudiophile magazine speak is often silly. Kind of like cigar reviews, hints of leather and cocoa with a nutty edge??????


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## Ramblinman (Apr 10, 2018)

colonelkernel8 said:


> Science is by definition, not religion. Nor is it blind faith. It’s definitionally not either of these things. If science doesn’t have the answers for every facet of audio reproduction, how are we capable of creating devices that sound so good in the first place? Why do we need additional “magic” to be present?


Sorry , but that is simply not true. If you do not personally understand every step of the scientific process you are believing in, yet you believe it has merit that is absolutely blind faith.

No magic involved, only actual listening perception.How can you seriously say that a peice the measures better actually sounds better?  Even when your ears tell you different.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> I agree about the out of date stuff. A lot of people try to apply the sort of things audiophiles worried about in the analogue days to modern digital technology, but it's apples and oranges. Digital doesn't have veils or coloration or distortion. It just works, and if it doesn't work, it usually fails big. I read audiophile reviews and I have no idea what they're referring to. It sure isn't anything related to the way the component they're reviewing actually works.



When the signal is digital, sure. But most audio starts analogue, and has to end up analogue to be heard. Then your description of perfection is not to be assumed.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Ramblinman said:


> Sorry , but that is simply not true. If you do not personally understand every step of the scientific process you are believing in, yet you believe it has merit that is absolutely blind faith.
> 
> No magic involved, only actual listening perception.How can you seriously say that a peice the measures better actually sounds better?  Even when your ears tell you different.


Because that’s what the engineers set out to design for, measurements. They don’t set a goal for some nebulous description of “musicality” and then somehow design for it. Sure, you can set a goal for tuning the sound after you’ve achieved a measurably optimized point, but that tuning has clearly measurable goals as well—“3 dB bump at frequencies less than 500 Hz with a smooth roll off to 1000 Hz for warmth”.


----------



## colonelkernel8

jagwap said:


> When the signal is digital, sure. But most audio starts analogue, and has to end up analogue to be heard. Then your description of perfection is not to be assumed.


The DACs we carry in our pockets as part of our enthusiast-grade equipment meet or exceed the performance of the DACs used for mixing and mastering the audio in the studio. This was scarcely possible 20 years ago, but it is completely normal today. If our metric of perfection is to match the analog signals produced by the DACs of the studio mastering the music, we’ve achieved that. @gregorio is in the industry, he is the real deal, and I think he’ll back me up on this.


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## Haris Javed (Apr 10, 2018)

castleofargh said:


> to everybody, please discuss ideas not people. and if you feel like it, why not try constructive posts for a change? it's a new trend I heard about.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



come on now, I am a real physicist/ mathematician (still in graduate school), but I agree the comment section has run amok, could an admin please delete the irrelevant posts. I respect  (Ramblinman) opinion, and should have been more thoughtful. I have followed work from Newton all the way up to Oppenheimer. Science can be viewed as Arches, and Scaffoldings. laws of gravity hold, laws of thermodynamics still hold, electromagnetism still holds - people always say that science changes and such but they hardly provide any proof. Yes science changes (again Arches, and Scaffoldings) but not in the manner most people describe it. (eg case of luminiferous ether to special relativity - just one example)  . Anyhow I am just blabbering, and you can delete this post as well with my other posts. no hard feelings, its just an audio forum, have fun with your headphones! 

thank you


----------



## Killcomic

Ramblinman said:


> Sorry , but that is simply not true. If you do not personally understand every step of the scientific process you are believing in, yet you believe it has merit that is absolutely blind faith.
> 
> No magic involved, only actual listening perception.How can you seriously say that a peice the measures better actually sounds better?  Even when your ears tell you different.


You certainly don't understand the scientific method and how science works. Science is about questioning and testing the validity of theory.  Religion is about faith in what cannot be proven.
You're trying to push subjective measurements with your ears as evidence of an objective fact.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Killcomic said:


> You certainly don't understand the scientific method and how science works. Science is about questioning and testing the validity of theory.  Religion is about faith in what cannot be proven.
> You're trying to push subjective measurements with your ears as evidence of an objective fact.


Bless you.


----------



## Haris Javed (Apr 10, 2018)

Killcomic said:


> You certainly don't understand the scientific method and how science works. Science is about questioning and testing the validity of theory.  Religion is about faith in what cannot be proven.
> You're trying to push subjective measurements with your ears as evidence of an objective fact.



come on sir, let it go, he is happy with his opinions, and we should leave it at that


----------



## bigshot

jagwap said:


> When the signal is digital, sure. But most audio starts analogue, and has to end up analogue to be heard. Then your description of perfection is not to be assumed.



Errors in digital are an entirely different animal than errors in analogue. If digital works, it works. Analogue is always a compromise here and there.


----------



## Ramblinman

Killcomic said:


> You certainly don't understand the scientific method and how science works. Science is about questioning and testing the validity of theory.  Religion is about faith in what cannot be proven.
> You're trying to push subjective measurements with your ears as evidence of an objective fact.


On the contrary, I do understand the scientific method and I realize it will never be infallible until the measurement techniques are perfect. 

What we hear is the sole reason we record music, so it is clearly the goal to reach the ideal sound we actually hear. Making the goal a line on a graph is senseless to me.


----------



## castleofargh

@Ramblinman 
all right, first, my bad, when I wrote "science is wrong all the time" I was thinking "often" and should have said that instead of a figure of speech that can be so easily misinterpreted.
and you need to work on your quoting skills because it gets hard to know who said what even for me and I wrote half of it ^_^.

we can blame everybody about everything all day long, sure stuff happen and it's not always right or fair. but I don't don't believe this section stops at one dude saying "blablablah it's science" and everybody going "oh he said science so it must be true". our cyborg brains still have personal thoughts sometimes, and if I start saying driver burn in is very audible on headphones, because the mechanical laws say stuff will bend, weak points will form, resonance may shift, therefore science=it's night and day audible.  they will all turn on me for making claims I have no mean to support. and drawing conclusion on audibility not actually supported by my premise. change doesn't always mean audible change and actual data is needed for that.





Ramblinman said:


> On the contrary, I do understand the scientific method and I realize it will never be infallible until the measurement techniques are perfect.
> 
> What we hear is the sole reason we record music, so it is clearly the goal to reach the ideal sound we actually hear. Making the goal a line on a graph is senseless to me.


that in my opinion is a little dishonest. all recordings and all of your playback system rely on the idea that sound at a given position can be quantified, recorded, and reproduced as one amplitude changing over time. no more, no less. it's air pressure changing over time, it's voltage changing over time, it's discrete amplitude over time on a digital file... at any given moment you can pick a point in space or in your system even along a cable or on the surface of the diaphragm of a driver, and define the audio signal on a simple 2 axis graph.

so when someone comes claiming that a driver is changing over time and that it in turn alters the sound significantly, first we say, prove it or stop making claims, because we care about facts a little. and right after of course the obvious idea is to go look at that sound as amplitude over time and check if we can see significant change compared to the same sound played X hours before. it's how we define sound, it's how we carry and quantify it, so obviously it's how we think to look at it to check for objective change.

your views on what you "actually" hear seem very loose. and one can't help but feel like you're consistently mistaking your subjective interpretation of the world, for things that objectively occurred to sound, the headphone driver or anything else.
so you heard a difference and decided it came from the driver. you don't know that, you just felt that a change occurred based on what you remember. you only thought that the change came from the driver because it seems logical to you. but where is your evidence that the sound changed? where is your evidence that the driver caused all of that change?  self confidence is nice and saying we care about what we hear is fine, but it really doesn't do crap when we're trying to confirm effects and causes on the driver instead of in your mind.
trust me I really think I heard a change, can hardly be considered evidence of anything concerning a headphone's driver. thinking it can, that's what I personally consider senseless.


----------



## ev13wt

Nothing is perfect but the universe. Wait... 

Maybe its still breaking in, and it will get better.


----------



## Ramblinman

castleofargh said:


> @Ramblinman
> all right, first, my bad, when I wrote "science is wrong all the time" I was thinking "often" and should have said that instead of a figure of speech that can be so easily misinterpreted.
> and you need to work on your quoting skills because it gets hard to know who said what even for me and I wrote half of it ^_^.
> 
> ...


Nothing dishonest al all about using your ears to evaluate how good something sounds. Seems like a lot of you are lost in the forest trying to find some trees. But that’s just me. Good point on my quoting skills, they suck.


----------



## Ramblinman

Ramblinman said:


> Nothing dishonest al all about using your ears to evaluate how good something sounds. Seems like a lot of you are lost in the forest trying to find some trees. But that’s just me. Good point on my quoting skills, they suck.


Engineers miss the mark though don’t they? Not all the time, but they do. I have heard engineered cds that would make anyone’s ears bleed. Likely because the engineer was making a line on a graph the goal.


----------



## colonelkernel8

Ramblinman said:


> Engineers miss the mark though don’t they? Not all the time, but they do. I have heard engineered cds that would make anyone’s ears bleed. Likely because the engineer was making a line on a graph the goal.


Don't confuse a design engineer with a sound engineer. This is a logically improper comparison. Engineering a recording has literally nothing to do with creating a system that can recreate the sound, no matter how bad it is, transparently.


----------



## bigshot

ev13wt said:


> Maybe its still breaking in, and it will get better.



Or perhaps worse. I'd be mad if I went out to buy a set of cans and took a lot of time to find the ones I wanted, and then 100 hours in just as the return window is expiring, the change into sounding like something else.


----------



## castleofargh

Ramblinman said:


> Nothing dishonest al all about using your ears to evaluate how good something sounds. Seems like a lot of you are lost in the forest trying to find some trees. But that’s just me. Good point on my quoting skills, they suck.


now we have moved from trying to find reliable evidence of sound change caused by driver burn in with a headphone, to saying let's use our ears to evaluate how good something sounds...
why wonder how to best acquire solid evidence about something when we can just decide we didn't need evidence in the first place, and should only trust our ears. such an elegant and easy solution. why didn't we think about it before?

oh wait. flaws! flaws everywhere.  surely you have at some point to notice the irony to criticize measurements and science for being flawed, yet advocate that we just go with the "flaw" and trust our subjective impressions.


----------



## ev13wt

I always wonder how the industry hasn't figured out to sell "post break-in" and "after break-in".

You know, the way old driver surrounds are past their prime, structurally weakened, leading to distortions (cue slow motion wobbling cone breakup sequence) and imperfect following of the signal? Leading to: "not really what the darn artist indended anymore".


----------



## bigshot

castleofargh said:


> now we have moved from trying to find reliable evidence of sound change caused by driver burn in with a headphone, to saying let's use our ears to evaluate how good something sounds.



Well ears are what I listen to James Brown with!

The root of the problem seems to be that some people believe that there are things that ears can hear that can't be measured. They trot that out whenever the evidence contradicts their belief. If you ask them what can ears hear that we can't measure, they say that it's unknown because we haven't measured it yet! The circular self justifying logic is a perpetual motion machine.


----------



## Ramblinman

castleofargh said:


> now we have moved from trying to find reliable evidence of sound change caused by driver burn in with a headphone, to saying let's use our ears to evaluate how good something sounds...
> why wonder how to best acquire solid evidence about something when we can just decide we didn't need evidence in the first place, and should only trust our ears. such an elegant and easy solution. why didn't we think about it before?
> 
> oh wait. flaws! flaws everywhere.  surely you have at some point to notice the irony to criticize measurements and science for being flawed, yet advocate that we just go with the "flaw" and trust our subjective impressions.


I guess you miss the irony in your insustence that your ears are unreliable judges of sound!


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## tansand (Apr 11, 2018)

castleofargh said:


> now we have moved from trying to find *reliable evidence of sound change caused by driver burn in with a headphone*, to saying let's use our ears to evaluate how good something sounds...
> why wonder how to best acquire solid evidence about something when we can just decide we didn't need evidence in the first place, and should only trust our ears. such an elegant and easy solution. why didn't we think about it before?
> 
> oh wait. flaws! flaws everywhere.  surely you have at some point to notice the irony to criticize measurements and science for being flawed, yet advocate that we just go with the "flaw" and trust our subjective impressions.



We had that in the OP, but you decided you had a different explanation. Don't complain you don't like what people are saying now. It's your doing, because YOU arbitrarily don't accept the evidence because it doesn't conform to your preconceptions.


----------



## Killcomic

Ramblinman said:


> On the contrary, I do understand the scientific method and I realize it will never be infallible until the measurement techniques are perfect.
> 
> What we hear is the sole reason we record music, so it is clearly the goal to reach the ideal sound we actually hear. Making the goal a line on a graph is senseless to me.


Of course it's not infallible, but I'll take standardised measurements with consistent, peer reviewed results over 'I'm hearing magical sound waves that are beyond science. Trust me, because I said so' any day of the week.


----------



## Ramblinman

Killcomic said:


> Of course it's not infallible, but I'll take standardised measurements with consistent, peer reviewed results over 'I'm hearing magical sound waves that are beyond science. Trust me, because I said so' any day of the week.


So you don’t trust yourself? Your own ears? You trust a graph more?


----------



## Killcomic

Ramblinman said:


> So you don’t trust yourself? Your own ears? You trust a graph more?


The question is not whether I trust my ears or not, it's whether others should trust my ears over a graph.
Ears are bilogical tools and so are our brains. We are susceptible to all kind of variables like pathogens and even expectations. 
This is why machines, which are less affected by variables, were created to obtain consistent, usable data.
Would you trust living in a house built by a builder that didn't use measuring tape but instead only his eyes to measure its dimensions?


----------



## bigshot

A graph is just an abstract wiggly line unless you've educated yourself to know what the chart represents in real world sound. I see audiophiles pointing to graphs that are illustrating things that are clearly inaudible, but they don't know that because they don't know what -80dB or 20kHz sounds like. People need to do a little research to understand the context. That takes effort though. Most people won't do it.

...even if it's as simple as clicking through those AES seminar links in my sig file!


----------



## Ramblinman

Killcomic said:


> The question is not whether I trust my ears or not, it's whether others should trust my ears over a graph.
> Ears are bilogical tools and so are our brains. We are susceptible to all kind of variables like pathogens and even expectations.
> This is why machines, which are less affected by variables, were created to obtain consistent, usable data.
> Would you trust living in a house built by a builder that didn't use measuring tape but instead only his eyes to measure its dimensions?


Actually no, the question is whether or not one should trust ones own ears over some graph.


----------



## Ramblinman

Ramblinman said:


> Actually no, the question is whether or not one should trust ones own ears over some graph.


So why do many tube amps measure worse than solid state, while sounding better?


----------



## Killcomic

Ramblinman said:


> Actually no, the question is whether or not one should trust ones own ears over some graph.


If you are trying to push a point as fact or for mission critical measurements, no, you should definitely not trust your ears.
For your own, personal enjoyment, do whatever makes you happy, but don't push your perception as fact.


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## Killcomic (Apr 11, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> So why do many tube amps measure worse than solid state, while sounding better?


Because a measurement will not tell you whether something sounds better or worse. That's subjective. 
A measurement will tell you how accurate something sounds, not measure enjoyment.
A tube introduces distortion. Whether you enjoy that distortion or not, that's completely up to you.


----------



## jagwap

Ramblinman said:


> So why do many tube amps measure worse than solid state, while sounding better?



Sometimes it is because the distortion and lack of power bandwith that causes pleasing warmth.

However distortion free valve circuits exist and they can sound different to other similar measuring solid state circuits. This has nothing to do with conventional measurements, and you have to really delve to find a measurement that shows it up. Most haven't found it, so they resort to claiming unmeasured factors are responsible.  In reallity they just didn't look hard enough.


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## bigshot (Apr 11, 2018)

There's nothing wrong with euphonic coloration. But it should be adjustable and it should be added on top of a calibrated clean source so you know exactly what you're adding to the sound. A DSP does this the best. Randomly picking tubes and hoping they hit the exact marks you want them to hit is wishful thinking. That's why so many people who love tube amps have more than one of them. They keep rolling the dice and having to try again.

It's possible to come up with a tube amp that sounds just as clean and just as flat as solid state amps generally sound. That's a lot of extra work and expense for the exact same thing though.


----------



## jagwap

I agree this needs a new thread. It has little to do with headphone break in.

Also you guys are getting really het up over a difference of philosophy, that in reality doesn't exist the way you think it does.

I design audio equipment. I have worked in consumer, audiophile and pro audio for decades. I measure the equipment. Of couse I do. If it measures wrong, it is wrong.

However, I also listen. If it sounds different I investigate. If it sounds better but measures wrong, I fix the wrong aspect and investigate why it sounded better if it stillThere maybe something going on.

Usually it is simple, repeatable and understandable. It is usually verifiable by measurement. But sometimes it is is all of the above but not measurable. Not because it doesn't exist (we will usually blind test to verify), just that we haven't devised a measurement to track it yet. Sometimes it has frustratingly taken years to work out what is going on. But if it works and is appropriate at the price point, it stays while we work it out. This gives the team an edge over those who do not listen.

Most innovations in audio happen because of science, investigation, experience and inquisitive thought, all backed up by measurement. Just look at the list of AES papers. However spme innovation happens because of listening which leads to science. They are not separate. They can exist together. So can you.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> There's nothing wrong with euphonic coloration. But it should be adjustable and it should be added on top of a calibrated clean source so you know exactly what you're adding to the sound. A DSP does this the best. Randomly picking tubes and hoping they hit the exact marks you want them to hit is wishful thinking. That's why so many people who love tube amps have more than one of them. They keep rolling the dice and having to try again.
> 
> It's possible to come up with a tube amp that sounds just as clean and just as flat as solid state amps generally sound. That's a lot of extra work and expense for the exact same thing though.



But tubes have some qualities that solid state can only emulate if you make extra effort. Those qualities being more accurate, not euphonic. But they will not show up on frequency response and THD sweeps.


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## bigshot (Apr 12, 2018)

DSPs can recreate anything tubes can do with much more control. There's a great thread on it here in sound science if you're interested. The euphonic distortion of tubes can totally be recreated. Carver proved that.

If you can find audible differences that aren't measurable, quit your job, get a backer to finance your research and turn the home audio business on its head. If you can prove that, you have a tiger by the tail.


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> DSPs can recreate anything tubes can do with much more control. There's a great thread on it here in sound science if you're interested. The euphonic distortion of tubes can totally be recreated. Carver proved that.
> 
> If you can find audible differences that aren't measurable, quit your job, get a backer to finance your research and turn the home audio business on its head. If you can prove that, you have a tiger by the tail.



I'll take a look. Yes Carver is one of the smart ones. He corrolated listening to some very novel and in depth measurement to achive that. Way beyond frequency response and THD sweeps.

I'm talking about some other aspects. I suspect Nelson Pass and John Curl know even more about this, looking at their designs. Tim de Paravicini especially.


----------



## Killcomic (Apr 12, 2018)

Therea a lot of talk of stuff that cannot be meassured. Sound is waves moving through air, nothing more. We've been able to measure those pretty accurately for a long time now.
Can anyone explain to me what is a pair of headphones producing that cannot be meassured?


----------



## jagwap

Not cannot be measured.

Is not commonly measured.

Or

Has not not been measured yet.


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## gregorio (Apr 12, 2018)

jagwap said:


> [If it sounds different ...] Usually it is simple, repeatable and understandable. It is usually verifiable by measurement. But sometimes it is is all of the above but not measurable. Not because it doesn't exist (we will usually blind test to verify), just that we haven't devised a measurement to track it yet.



Each of these sentences IS true/correct and I'm NOT disputing any of them! However, put them all together and I do dispute what you are saying because you have omitted a vital piece of information, namely: WHY "we haven't devised a measurement to track it yet"? - The answer to this question is WHERE it verifiably exists: Does it exist in the actual sound waves or does it exist only in the listeners' brains (perception)? If it's the latter then almost without exception "we haven't devised a measurement to track it yet", if it's the former then we have, because if we hadn't then we wouldn't be able to record sound waves in the first place (or obviously reproduce them).



jagwap said:


> Yes Carver is one of the smart ones. He corrolated listening to some very novel and in depth measurement to achive that.



No he didn't! As far as I'm aware, Carver did not use ANY novel or more in depth measurements. What he did that was "novel", was build an amp and physically demonstrate to some of the most influential audiophiles, who didn't know/refused to believe and therefore disputed facts which were proven, well known, established and accepted by everyone else (or at least, by those who understood the science and electrical engineering). Carver effectively demonstrated that all the mysticism and magic ascribed by these influential audiophiles could in fact be entirely defined by established measurements, provided that cognitive bias was eliminated. The result, as we all know, was not as anticipated, audiophile BS was not consigned to history, it continued almost exactly as it had before. It achieved that feat (at least for some of the more gullible audiophiles) by one simple addition, a determined obfuscation of the role, importance or even existence of biases.

G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> Each of these sentences IS true/correct and I'm NOT disputing any of them! However, put them all together and I do dispute what you are saying because you have omitted a vital piece of information, namely: WHY "we haven't devised a measurement to track it yet"? - The answer to this question is WHERE it verifiably exists: Does it exist in the actual sound waves or does it exist only in the listeners' brains (perception)? If it's the latter then almost without exception "we haven't devised a measurement to track it yet", if it's the former then we have, because if we hadn't then we wouldn't be able to record sound waves in the first place (or obviously reproduce them).



You read things selectively. Notice I said where we verify the effect with blind listening. So the effect is repeatable, but there is no difference in the measured performance. You don't want to believe it, but it does happen. Ideally when we delve further, we find a way to measure it. But it isn't there on the AP or similar industry standard kit.



> No he didn't! As far as I'm aware, Carver did not use ANY novel or more in depth measurements. What he did that was "novel", was build an amp and physically demonstrate to some of the most influential audiophiles, who didn't know/refused to believe and therefore disputed facts which were proven, well known, established and accepted by everyone else (or at least, by those who understood the science and electrical engineering). Carver effectively demonstrated that all the mysticism and magic ascribed by these influential audiophiles could in fact be entirely defined by established measurements, provided that cognitive bias was eliminated. The result, as we all know, was not as anticipated, audiophile BS was not consigned to history, it continued almost exactly as it had before. It achieved that feat (at least for some of the more gullible audiophiles) by one simple addition, a determined obfuscation of the role, importance or even existence of biases.
> 
> G



That's what you want to believe, but he did uncommon measurements of his and the competition's products to get them to sound the same. I've worked in a number of places and very few do the analysis he did. Many places don't have that kit. If you don't understand that, that us understandable.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> You read things selectively. Notice I said where we verify the effect with blind listening. So the effect is repeatable, but there is no difference in the measured performance.



No, I did not "read things selectively". Yes, I did notice where you said we verify with blind testing and that it's repeatable. You on the other hand do seem to be reading selectively! Did you not notice where I said "_The answer to this question is WHERE it *verifiably* exists_"? Something can exist ONLY in our perception and still be verified with blind tests and be repeatable, music itself for example!

It really is surprising the lengths, the mental gymnastics and semantics you are going to, in order to deny the basic undeniable facts: If we cannot measure it, we cannot record (or therefore reproduce) it! And, what we do record is effectively a measurement of amplitude and frequency, that's it, nothing more and nothing less!



jagwap said:


> That's what you want to believe, but he did uncommon measurements of his and the competition's products to get them to sound the same. I've worked in a number of places and very few do the analysis he did. Many places don't have that kit. If you don't understand that, that us understandable.



"Uncommon measurements", yes, "novel measurements", no! If you don't understand the difference between "uncommon" and "novel", "that is understandable". What Carver actually had to do was not just build a linear (high-fidelity) amp, an amp whose output matched it's input, but an amp which mimicked the output of another specific amp. That means he had to calculate and implement a fairly precise transfer function and for that he probably would have needed some measurements which were "uncommon", or at least uncommon for most audiophile amp manufacturers, though not necessarily for audio scientists or other engineers!

G


----------



## Glmoneydawg (Apr 12, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> So you don’t trust yourself? Your own ears? You trust a graph more?


your ears can tell you what you find pleasing....the graph can tell you if its true to the source....having said that,if you are listening for pleasure you gotta go with the ears.


----------



## gregorio

Glmoneydawg said:


> Ramblinman said:
> 
> 
> > So you don’t trust yourself? Your own ears?
> ...



I would go a step further. I cannot possibly trust my "own ears" because I cannot hear my own ears! The only thing I can hear is my brain's interpretation of what my ears are sensing. That interpretation can, as you say, define what I find pleasing but it's not necessarily true to what even my ears are sensing, let alone true to the source!

G


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> No, I did not "read things selectively". Yes, I did notice where you said we verify with blind testing and that it's repeatable. You on the other hand do seem to be reading selectively! Did you not notice where I said "_The answer to this question is WHERE it *verifiably* exists_"? Something can exist ONLY in our perception and still be verified with blind tests and be repeatable, music itself for example!
> 
> It really is surprising the lengths, the mental gymnastics and semantics you are going to, in order to deny the basic undeniable facts: If we cannot measure it, we cannot record (or therefore reproduce) it! And, what we do record is effectively a measurement of amplitude and frequency, that's it, nothing more and nothing less!



It is deniable. I deny it. So PCM of the quality available to us today is capable of storing any audable sound (we've debated this elsewhere, but for this argument let us assume) It doesn't mean we can necessarily capture it perfectly. If we could, we don't necessarily have the knowledge to decern the aspect that changes. 



> "Uncommon measurements", yes, "novel measurements", no! If you don't understand the difference between "uncommon" and "novel", "that is understandable". What Carver actually had to do was not just build a linear (high-fidelity) amp, an amp whose output matched it's input, but an amp which mimicked the output of another specific amp. That means he had to calculate and implement a fairly precise transfer function and for that he probably would have needed some measurements which were "uncommon", or at least uncommon for most audiophile amp manufacturers, though not necessarily for audio scientists or other engineers!
> 
> G



That is part of my point. Then it was novel. He discovered its merit for this purpose. Innovation occurs and we learn more. Your position is we know everything now. I know that we don't. It's a nice position to take, but unrealistic. New and novel measurements are being discovered still. You maybe don't need them if you are the end user.


----------



## Glmoneydawg

gregorio said:


> I would go a step further. I cannot possibly trust my "own ears" because I cannot hear my own ears! The only thing I can hear is my brain's interpretation of what my ears are sensing. That interpretation can, as you say, define what I find pleasing but it's not necessarily true to what even my ears are sensing, let alone true to the source!
> 
> G


you use your ears to make a living....mine are just for shittz and giggles


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] It is deniable. I deny it.
> [2] So PCM of the quality available to us today is capable of storing any audable sound (we've debated this elsewhere, but for this argument let us assume) It doesn't mean we can necessarily capture it perfectly.



1. Yep, my bad. I should have said "rationally undeniable" or  "logically undeniable".

2. No PCM (or any other digital audio format) of any quality can capture or store any audible sound whatsoever, let alone "perfectly"! All PCM can store is data which represents the fluctuating amplitude and frequency of an electrical current, that's it, no audible sound OR ANYTHING ELSE!!



jagwap said:


> [1] That is part of my point. Then it was novel.
> [2] Your position is we know everything now. I know that we don't.
> [3] New and novel measurements are being discovered still. You maybe don't need them if you are the end user.



1. The measurements were NOT novel, the principle of those measurements was not novel, the fact those measurements could be used to create a transfer function was not novel. The only thing that was novel was demonstrating those already known facts to those specific ignorant audiophiles.

2. The nonsense you're making up is now reaching truly ridiculous levels! As I've already stated that we do not know everything, how can my position be that we do know everything? Doesn't that sound truly ridiculous, even to you? Do you really need me to repeat what I've already stated?

3. Yes there are and in fact I've actually been part of developing one of them (albeit a very tiny part). And, I use that measurement quite often. It's a measurement of loudness, something which VERIFIABLY AND REPEATABLY exists in blind (and sighted) tests but which exists only in our perception! 

G


----------



## jagwap (Apr 12, 2018)

gregorio said:


> 1. Yep, my bad. I should have said "rationally undeniable" or  "logically undeniable".
> 
> 2. No PCM (or any other digital audio format) of any quality can capture or store any audible sound whatsoever, let alone "perfectly"! All PCM can store is data which represents the fluctuating amplitude and frequency of an electrical current, that's it, no audible sound OR ANYTHING ELSE!!
> 
> ...



My understanding is that you are telling all these ignorant people that we can measure all there is in audio. The above sounds different to that.  Please clarify so we can continue.


----------



## Niouke

I really like the home cinema exemple in the burn-in argument, as it is a widely used system...

If burn-in was real, home cinema owners would have to recalibrate their system regularly. As dynamic microphones are pretty close to speakers, their factory provided calibration data that we rely on would be actually useless.


----------



## gregorio

jagwap said:


> [1] My understanding is that [2] you are telling all these ignorant people [3] that we can measure all there is in audio. [4] The above sounds different to that.



1. Your understanding appears to be fatally flawed.
2. What "all these ignorant people"? With a few exceptions, most of the people participating in this thread don't appear in the least bit ignorant of the basic facts.
3. All that actually exists in recorded audio is frequency and amplitude both of which we can measure. If we can't measure it, then we can't record it and therefore, by definition, we can measure all the properties of recorded audio! Can our brains interpret these two real properties (frequency and amplitude) and create the illusion of additional properties/attributes? Yes, there are numerous examples and I've already given you two; loudness and music itself.
4. What I've written here, in my last post and in my posts previous to that, is entirely consistent and effectively the same. In fact, I'm just repeating myself!

G


----------



## Ramblinman

gregorio said:


> I would go a step further. I cannot possibly trust my "own ears" because I cannot hear my own ears! The only thing I can hear is my brain's interpretation of what my ears are sensing. That interpretation can, as you say, define what I find pleasing but it's not necessarily true to what even my ears are sensing, let alone true to the source!
> 
> G


Yet the sole purpose of the peice of equipment is to produce sound pleasing to your ears. Crazy right?


----------



## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. Your understanding appears to be fatally flawed.
> 2. What "all these ignorant people"? With a few exceptions, most of the people participating in this thread don't appear in the least bit ignorant of the basic facts.
> 3. All that actually exists in recorded audio is frequency and amplitude both of which we can measure. If we can't measure it, then we can't record it and therefore, by definition, we can measure all the properties of recorded audio! Can our brains interpret these two real properties (frequency and amplitude) and create the illusion of additional properties/attributes? Yes, there are numerous examples and I've already given you two; loudness and music itself.
> 4. What I've written here, in my last post and in my posts previous to that, is entirely consistent and effectively the same. In fact, I'm just repeating myself!
> ...



Recorded audio is technically just a representation of amplitudes, as I stated before, and digital is a sequence of amplitudes. Frequency comes from the repetition of the signals. But because we are not understanding each other, the pedantry grows to tie down the definitions.

We can measure aspects of equipment's behaviour beyond what we can record in some metics, but we do not have all measurements for other aspects of what we perceive, yet.  This was my point, and you keep saying no, yet you point out you are working on new measurements you consider valuable (loudness). As I keep saying, we do not have all the measurements we need, yet.


----------



## Haris Javed

Why are you all still wasting time responding to Ramblinman? He is a drone. Drop the topic and move on please. There are people who still believe that the earth is flat and if you talk to them you will start to pull out your hair. It’s not worth the effort - let’s move on.


----------



## Ramblinman

So it seems as though the folks pressing the purely scientific way of selecting electronic equipment allege that differences are imperceptible to the human ear/brain. If so, why bother? What is the point?


----------



## Ramblinman

Haris Javed said:


> Why are you all still wasting time responding to Ramblinman? He is a drone. Drop the topic and move on please. There are people who still believe that the earth is flat and if you talk to them you will start to pull out your hair. It’s not worth the effort - let’s move on.


As hominem attacks like yours are a clear indication you cannot debate your point if not an outright admission of defeat.


----------



## Ramblinman

Killcomic said:


> The question is not whether I trust my ears or not, it's whether others should trust my ears over a graph.
> Ears are bilogical tools and so are our brains. We are susceptible to all kind of variables like pathogens and even expectations.
> This is why machines, which are less affected by variables, were created to obtain consistent, usable data.
> Would you trust living in a house built by a builder that didn't use measuring tape but instead only his eyes to measure its dimensions?



He trusts his eyes to read the tape, does he not?


----------



## Niouke

Ramblinman said:


> Yet the sole purpose of the peice of equipment is to produce sound pleasing to your ears. Crazy right?



I beg to differ, the purpose of HiFi is to render a record with the highest fidelity possible. If one want to alter the rendering to fit his taste is another topic.


----------



## Ramblinman

Niouke said:


> I beg to differ, the purpose of HiFi is to render a record with the highest fidelity possible. If one want to alter the rendering to fit his taste is another topic.


So finally we have a poster who refines his point. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I also know that measurement techniques are both imperfect and incomplete.


----------



## Haris Javed (Apr 12, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> As hominem attacks like yours are a clear indication you cannot debate your point if not an outright admission of defeat.



Sheesh sir - yes I concede, and I am done. You win! Good luck

If you really want a debate, let’s get it done. I will gladly respond to your claim in a video response. PM me and let’s setup a real Skype debate. 

Haris


----------



## Niouke

Ramblinman said:


> I also know that measurement techniques are both imperfect and incomplete.



I don't share this knowledge. After all the theory and measurements currently used are the basis for all the wonderful equipment and records we have access to, and since decades. If anything was fundamentally false it would have showed up. Not necessarily in the audiophile world as the theories we use are also used in much more delicate applications such as defense or aerospace, not Joe Audiophile that thinks his tubes sound a bit bright in his living room.


----------



## Zapp_Fan

Ramblinman said:


> So finally we have a poster who refines his point. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I also know that measurement techniques are both imperfect and incomplete.



In the sense of being able to reliably measure e.g. 10-16khz performance on heapdhones, I agree it's hard with normal equipment.  But it's not as if it's impossible.  In the sense of being able to measure the output of DACs, amps, and other electrical components of an audio system, I don't agree, with access to the right equipment, people can measure much more than any human could possibly perceive.


----------



## Killcomic

Ramblinman said:


> He trusts his eyes to read the tape, does he not?


Yes, because he's reading standardised data which is presented in a manner which is difficult to misread. That's why measuring tapes are in use throughout the industry, because they can be read with little difficulty. The builder is not measuring the measuring tape.


----------



## gregorio (Apr 12, 2018)

jagwap said:


> Recorded audio is technically just a representation of amplitudes, as I stated before, and digital is a sequence of amplitudes. Frequency comes from the repetition of the signals.



Recorded digital audio is NOT just a representation of amplitudes! It is also information on the timing of those amplitudes. Without that information we do not have a signal, just a bunch of amplitude measurements which do not represent the frequency property.



jagwap said:


> We can measure aspects of equipment's behaviour beyond what we can record in some metics, but we do not have all measurements for other aspects of what we perceive, yet.



A piece of audio reproduction equipment's job is to reproduce audio recordings. As an audio recording is only frequency and amplitude, then frequency and amplitude is the only job of a piece of audio reproduction equipment. Do we lack measurements of what we perceive? Yes but what we perceive is NOT the job of audio reproduction equipment, it's job, by definition is just to reproduce audio (frequency and amplitude)!! This is not a difficult concept to grasp, surely?

G


----------



## castleofargh

Ramblinman said:


> I guess you miss the irony in your insustence that your ears are unreliable judges of sound!





Ramblinman said:


> So you don’t trust yourself? Your own ears? You trust a graph more?





Ramblinman said:


> So why do many tube amps measure worse than solid state, while sounding better?


 it's tiresome.
 a blind listening test doesn't have the same level of confidence as you sitting in a chair and trying to remember how you felt about sound 3 weeks before when the headphone was new. it has also nothing to do with how much you like the sound of the headphone.  stop dumbing everything down.
measurements offer repeatability, they're amazing at quantifying things consistently. go ask humans to quantify things precisely and see how great that goes(distances they can see, weight of something they can carry, anything...).
another small issue I have. when did humans ever felt the same the first time they did something compared to weeks later and doing it plenty more times? is sex always exactly like the first time? is taking a plane always just like the first time? do I look at my shoes after wearing them a month, the same way I looked at them the first day I bought them? am I supposed to feel the same about a song the first time I hear it and after 3 week listening to the album? I guess it's proof the album burned in, I trust myself. who's the freaking genius who decided that if he felt any different after using a brand new headphone for a month, then the perceived change was clear proof of driver burn in?
trust yourself if you like, but don't ask us to do the same.
also as with any egoistic approach like yours, let's say we all go for trusting what we "hear". we pretend that it's all about preference and taste and whatever unrelated stuff you like to bring up. now if I don't notice a change and you do, or if I don't like your tube amp and you do. what is the scientific method to determine who's right? duel to the death with swords? beer pong? whoever shouts the loudest wins? no, let me guess. you're always right that how you know what's what.




tansand said:


> We had that in the OP, but you decided you had a different explanation. Don't complain you don't like what people are saying now. It's your doing, because YOU arbitrarily don't accept the evidence because it doesn't conform to your preconceptions.


what how where?
the first post tries to say break in doesn't exist. are you saying you agree with him now?
the experiment from innerfidelity has this conclusion from Tyll https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/measurement-and-audibility-headphone-break-page-4  he's far from claiming he has evidence:


> Have I shown that break-in exists? No. I wish I could say the slowly descending IMD products is clear evidence ... but it's not.





> Have I shown that break-in doesn't exist and is not measurable? No.



and I didn't have a different explanation, I had other possible causes for sound change. you're just being unfair here. go read my posts, several times I advise caution before claiming we definitely know the cause of sound change. I have never claimed that driver burn in couldn't exist or couldn't alter the sound. never!
I have many hypotheses about potential causes for perceived sound change. memory inaccuracy, new toy effect, placement on the head, pads, getting used to a new signature... Tyll's experience removes the psychoanything that could be going on. that's great, less potential causes, it's already more than @Ramblinman has to offer. now let's check for the remaining possible causes of change. I've measured a bunch of things in the last years. I have, I think, some understanding about how different positioning on the head and different setting for the headband, will result in different measurements for a headphone(and you have the superimposition of the raw FR in Innerfidelity's graphs for headphones where each is a different position on the dummy head). so I explain that those variables need to be actively controlled or else we just won't know what we'll measure. I argued that just leaving the headphone on the dummy head isn't enough to affirm that no movement occurred. and I have ample personal experience of that being the case on my measurement rigs. nothing arbitrary here, hypotheses and experiences justifying their existence at the minimum.

then yes I had my little idea about the pads, I explained it to you, you didn't seem to get what I was talking about, so I went and measured the frequency response change from the pads simply resting on the "dummy head" over time. in my opinion I confirmed my hypothesis about pads changing the sound on my very first try with the first headphone I had next to me, which wasn't new at all or in the process of burning in.
I also have some measurements of old pads vs new pads for my hd650. there is a similar thing online for the same headphone. more evidence that pads do have an impact on sound as they age and are used.
how is all that arbitrary? never have I claimed that those changes were the only possible changes a headphone is going through. all I did was confirm that proper driver break-in evidence would require to remove the pads from the experience so that the changes measured can positively be identified as driver break in.
and I also suggest that the driver should be immobilized before running the burn in process and doing the measurements.

all I've done is ask for someone to attempt better/proper testing if they have the means. and for others who come with "I heard a change after 200hours", to avoid arbitrarily deciding that the cause of the change is driver break in because of their preconceptions.


----------



## bigshot (Apr 12, 2018)

I have a question... How do I go about applying the principles of sound recording that are not yet understood or measured to make my home stereo sound better? Do I just make random changes in hopes of stumbling across it? Do I trust everything everyone with a subjective impression and nothing to back it up says? Both of those approaches would waste a whole lot of time I'm afraid. I'm really trying to figure out the practical application of "there's more to heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy". It seems to me, until the unknown becomes proven, it's completely useless. You work with what you've got until someone comes along and proves something new, you add that to your bag of tricks.

Using the theoretical existence of the unknown as a way to disprove currently accepted facts seems to me like a desperate attempt to deny reality. "Y... y-you... you might be wrong... because... well, because... YOU MIGHT BE!" Not a very convincing or useful argument.



castleofargh said:


> I didn't have a different explanation, I had other possible causes for sound change. you're just being unfair here. go read my posts, several times I advise caution before claiming we definitely know the cause of sound change.



He wanted me to agree that he was 50% correct. Maybe we should give him that he's half right and move on.


----------



## Ramblinman

Haris Javed said:


> Sheesh sir - yes I concede, and I am done. You win! Good luck
> 
> If you really want a debate, let’s get it done. I will gladly respond to your claim in a video response. PM me and let’s setup a real Skype debate.
> 
> Haris


LOL, a Syke debate? Hilarious. 

Is it that hard to admit that measurement techniques are imperfect?


----------



## Ramblinman

Niouke said:


> I don't share this knowledge. After all the theory and measurements currently used are the basis for all the wonderful equipment and records we have access to, and since decades. If anything was fundamentally false it would have showed up. Not necessarily in the audiophile world as the theories we use are also used in much more delicate applications such as defense or aerospace, not Joe Audiophile that thinks his tubes sound a bit bright in his living room.


So you aren’t discussing sound at all. Yet some say I am in the wrong forum. Things that make you go hmmmmm?


----------



## Ramblinman

castleofargh said:


> it's tiresome.
> a blind listening test doesn't have the same level of confidence as you sitting in a chair and trying to remember how you felt about sound 3 weeks before when the headphone was new. it has also nothing to do with how much you like the sound of the headphone.  stop dumbing everything down.
> measurements offer repeatability, they're amazing at quantifying things consistently. go ask humans to quantify things precisely and see how great that goes(distances they can see, weight of something they can carry, anything...).
> another small issue I have. when did humans ever felt the same the first time they did something compared to weeks later and doing it plenty more times? is sex always exactly like the first time? is taking a plane always just like the first time? do I look at my shoes after wearing them a month, the same way I looked at them the first day I bought them? am I supposed to feel the same about a song the first time I hear it and after 3 week listening to the album? I guess it's proof the album burned in, I trust myself. who's the freaking genius who decided that if he felt any different after using a brand new headphone for a month, then the perceived change was clear proof of driver burn in?
> ...


Or perhaps just perceptions of what they hear at that moment.


----------



## Haris Javed

Ramblinman said:


> LOL, a Syke debate? Hilarious.
> 
> Is it that hard to admit that measurement techniques are imperfect?





Ramblinman said:


> LOL, a Syke debate? Hilarious.
> 
> Is it that hard to admit that measurement techniques are imperfect?



Skype, gotomeeting, Zoom - whatever you like. Here is the thing. I am not claiming that I am right, or you are right. My issue is not with what you are saying, but I do have an unsettling issue with science vs pseudo science - and this is very dangerous. In this age of social media, and online connectivity everyone claims to be an expert because of personal experiences, so people don't provide evidence, but they provide personal anecdotes. You claimed above that "measurement techniques are imperfect" what studies do you have that back up that claim? are they imperfect, or is it your lack of knowledge how measurements are done, or the limitation of your tools? The inaccuracies exist because of Gravitation, Weak, Electromagnetic, and Strong forces, this is the nature of the universe. We can observe things that human eyes cannot even see (e.g michael morley expirement, special, and general relativity) and people claim without evidence that "our measurements still suck" - OK makes sense, but please provide a paper, a study, anything that will back your claim up. I provided you three things about measurement, that are time tested, and anyone can google them, read about them, and make their own conclusion or try to provide counter evidence.


----------



## castleofargh

Ramblinman said:


> Or perhaps just perceptions of what they hear at that moment.


how do you propose to test headphone driver break in with the perception of what we hear at that moment? there are at least 2 moments to listen to. one back in the past. how do I store my perception and make sure it won't change. memory doesn't offer lossless storage.

also that doesn't solve the issue I have with other potential causes for sound change. I'll probably end up noticing a change anyway, with or without driver break in. in fact experimentation has shown that some people will tend to notice changes even if there was none. it happens spontaneously without even telling then anything. and it happens way more if we suggest to them that there will be a change. what's worst, that can also work after the fact, suggesting there was a difference and the person changing the way he/she remembers.
I've just read too many horror stories research on human flaws to show the confidence you have in a casual, listen and see how we feel. I was reading that a few months back and I don't think I'll forget it (AH AH) https://www.researchgate.net/public...ildhood_memories_and_eyewitness_memory_errors


----------



## Haris Javed

castleofargh said:


> how do you propose to test headphone driver break in with the perception of what we hear at that moment? there are at least 2 moments to listen to. one back in the past. how do I store my perception and make sure it won't change. memory doesn't offer lossless storage.
> 
> also that doesn't solve the issue I have with other potential causes for sound change. I'll probably end up noticing a change anyway, with or without driver break in. in fact experimentation has shown that some people will tend to notice changes even if there was none. it happens spontaneously without even telling then anything. and it happens way more if we suggest to them that there will be a change. what's worst, that can also work after the fact, suggesting there was a difference and the person changing the way he/she remembers.
> I've just read too many horror stories research on human flaws to show the confidence you have in a casual, listen and see how we feel. I was reading that a few months back and I don't think I'll forget it (AH AH) https://www.researchgate.net/public...ildhood_memories_and_eyewitness_memory_errors



it will be pretty hard experiment since you will have to do it in two ways. first prove that there is no change in sound with time, and then assume that the contradiction is true, and disprove that. In the end you will end up with one result which will solve the mystery.


----------



## ev13wt (Apr 12, 2018)

Everything changes over time...
...but does it really "matter"? 





Ramblinman said:


> So why do many tube amps measure worse than solid state, while sounding better?



I'll have a go at that one.
Have you ever said, about your customers: "They don't know what they want, we tell them what they need." ?

You see, "close to perfect" sound is pretty darn boring.

The customer wants a great experience. Proven by Dr. DRE.
So manufacturers use measurements to build a lovely flat boring amplifier. Then, just like headphones, flavor is added.

Warm, even order distortions are one of those effects. Fun, like a baaaarely detectable echo giving some "air" and "soundstage". Or a simple eq. Give me that bass! Possibly reading a glowing review that says "you gonna be da boss wif dat shiat, bro!"
That in turn set the bias. Its gonna sound awesome no matter what!
-You got glowing tubes. They are even physically warm. Fire. We men love fire. Impresses the ladies aaand the men.
"Is that one of those audiophile tube amplifier thingies, man?"


Anyhow. Tube amps. They sound like sh1t. You are blind. <3

Signed,

the raven


----------



## Zapp_Fan

Yes, the right type and amount of distortion sounds really good.  Ask any mixing engineer or producer - one of the main tools in the mixing toolbelt is adding distortion, sometimes quite a lot. 

So it's only natural that formats and equipment that add certain harmonics (tubes, vinyl) find fans even though they're technically much lower fidelity.  They sound NICE.  Accurate and nice-sounding are only loosely - sometimes inversely - correlated in the high end of the market.


----------



## bigshot (Apr 12, 2018)

jagwap said:


> So PCM of the quality available to us today is capable of storing any audable sound (we've debated this elsewhere, but for this argument let us assume) It doesn't mean we can necessarily capture it perfectly




We have microphones capable of capturing sound with audibly perfect sound. We have amps and players that can do that too. And there are headphones and speakers that can do that as well. Now I know what you're going to say next... "If we can record and play back with perfect sound, why doesn't my stereo system sound exactly like the original performance?" Gregorio has answered that question numerous times... it isn't the goal of commercial music to recreate performances, it's to build ideal presentations of performances.

There is a wild card that we can't control in home audio and we can't measure it either... it's space. Recording engineers have no control over whether you want to listen to this music in headphones over your ears, in your compact car, in your living room, or in the middle of the Taj Mahal. The space around sound is as much a part of how music sounds as the sound itself. You can go out and buy headphones and complain that there is something wrong with them because you don't get a vivid soundstage. And you can go out and buy speakers and complain that the sound in your living room isn't exactly the same as the sound in the recording studios. Both those things are true, but they are part of the compromises you make to introduce recorded music into your lifestyle.

If you want to know what the one big spec that we can't measure or control is, I can tell you what that is clearly... it's lifestyle. Everyone has one. It's totally subjective. No one can control it except oneself. I think it's a lot more productive to discuss ways of objectively improving our lifestyles when it comes to music than it is to discuss inaudible levels of jitter. How can we use technology to make music a more important part of our lives? What are the aspects that allow music to be integrated with different kinds of lifestyles? Objectively, what is the best solution for mobile listening? How about in a dedicated listening room? How can we modify the space around the sound to enhance it? How can we apply DSPs to tailor the sound to fit our space? All of these topics would get us a lot closer to audio nirvana than chasing down noise floors at -80dB or distortion that measures two or three or four digits East of the decimal point.

It *is* possible to discuss subjective experience objectively. But if you want to use your subjective experience to tear down objective facts, I'm sorry, you're doing it wrong. It's better to think of objective ways to improve subjective perception. That can range all the way from the tactile nature of the chair you sit in when you listen to the way you arrange the furniture in your room to optimize sound to the fit and clamping on your headphones to make long term listening easier. All of these things involve sound and they involve science, and they can certainly be discussed here in a rational way that could actually help people.

But instead people insist on focusing on gnat hairs' differences and defending solipsist philosophies. We put on white coats and horn rimmed glasses and hold clipboards and talk about things that don't matter...


----------



## Zapp_Fan (Apr 12, 2018)

bigshot said:


> We have microphones capable of capturing sound with audibly perfect sound. We have amps and players that can do that too.




I just want to be pedantic and say that while there are mics that can capture audibly neutral / perfect frequency response and probably even impulse fidelity / dynamic range... even a really well-executed binaural recording still loses spatial information compared to experiencing the audio live.  As you mentioned, space (acoustics) is the main and most difficult-to-surmount gap between live and reproduced audio.  Microphones can only register a single average SPL coming from a given radial distribution, which as we all know is not quite how our ears work. 

Again, just being pedantic.


----------



## bigshot

Binaural information is capturing the space around the sound, isn't it?


----------



## tansand

bigshot said:


> He wanted me to agree that he was 50% correct. Maybe we should give him that he's half right and move on.



You're an embarassment, I wanted you to admit there was a greater than 50% probability that the cause of the changes in the data was in fact, driver break in. Look at the people on your side here, castleofargh. You really want to spend time from your life modding these people? Time ticking away?

Why?


----------



## bigshot

Please do yourself a favor and stop subjecting yourself to us.


----------



## Ramblinman

Haris Javed said:


> Skype, gotomeeting, Zoom - whatever you like. Here is the thing. I am not claiming that I am right, or you are right. My issue is not with what you are saying, but I do have an unsettling issue with science vs pseudo science - and this is very dangerous. In this age of social media, and online connectivity everyone claims to be an expert because of personal experiences, so people don't provide evidence, but they provide personal anecdotes. You claimed above that "measurement techniques are imperfect" what studies do you have that back up that claim? are they imperfect, or is it your lack of knowledge how measurements are done, or the limitation of your tools? The inaccuracies exist because of Gravitation, Weak, Electromagnetic, and Strong forces, this is the nature of the universe. We can observe things that human eyes cannot even see (e.g michael morley expirement, special, and general relativity) and people claim without evidence that "our measurements still suck" - OK makes sense, but please provide a paper, a study, anything that will back your claim up. I provided you three things about measurement, that are time tested, and anyone can google them, read about them, and make their own conclusion or try to provide counter evidence.


Again, sound beyond what humans can hear? What is the point?


----------



## Ramblinman

ev13wt said:


> Everything changes over time...
> ...but does it really "matter"?
> 
> 
> ...


Two possibilities exist here, you have never heard a good tube amp, or you have tin ears. Those are actually the only two possibilities.


----------



## Ramblinman

Ramblinman said:


> Two possibilities exist here, you have never heard a good tube amp, or you have tin ears. Those are actually the only two possibilities.







I'll have a go at that one.
Have you ever said, about your customers: "They don't know what they want, we tell them what they need." ?

You see, "close to perfect" sound is pretty darn boring.

The customer wants a great experience. Proven by Dr. DRE.
So manufacturers use measurements to build a lovely flat boring amplifier. Then, just like headphones, flavor is added.

Warm, even order distortions are one of those effects. Fun, like a baaaarely detectable echo giving some "air" and "soundstage". Or a simple eq. Give me that bass! Possibly reading a glowing review that says "you gonna be da boss wif dat shiat, bro!"
That in turn set the bias. Its gonna sound awesome no matter what!
-You got glowing tubes. They are even physically warm. Fire. We men love fire. Impresses the ladies aaand the men.
"Is that one of those audiophile tube amplifier thingies, man?"


Anyhow. Tube amps. They sound like sh1t. You are blind. <3

Signed,

the raven[/QUOTE]


----------



## jagwap

bigshot said:


> We have microphones capable of capturing sound with audibly perfect sound. We have amps and players that can do that too. And there are headphones and speakers that can do that as well. Now I know what you're going to say next... "If we can record and play back with perfect sound, why doesn't my stereo system sound exactly like the original performance?" Gregorio has answered that question numerous times... it isn't the goal of commercial music to recreate performances, it's to build ideal presentations of performances.
> 
> There is a wild card that we can't control in home audio and we can't measure it either... it's space. Recording engineers have no control over whether you want to listen to this music in headphones over your ears, in your compact car, in your living room, or in the middle of the Taj Mahal. The space around sound is as much a part of how music sounds as the sound itself. You can go out and buy headphones and complain that there is something wrong with them because you don't get a vivid soundstage. And you can go out and buy speakers and complain that the sound in your living room isn't exactly the same as the sound in the recording studios. Both those things are true, but they are part of the compromises you make to introduce recorded music into your lifestyle.
> 
> ...



Well as I disagree with the first paragraph almost entirely. We have made progress, by perfect is still over the horizon. If you had left speakers off that list I would even think you agreed with it, but there is no speaker that is remotely close to perfect.


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## bigshot (Apr 12, 2018)

AUDIBLY perfect. I think if you took a solo violin and recorded it and played it back on the stage of Carnegie Hall on a very good speaker that has been carefully calibrated, you could put a violinist right next to it playing the same thing and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You would have two violin sounds with the same space wrapped around them. I think that would be identical.

It has to be single source single channel single location though. Once you add space to the recording, it becomes much more difficult.


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## jagwap

bigshot said:


> AUDIBLY perfect. I think if you took a solo violin and recorded it and played it back on the stage of Carnegie Hall on a very good speaker that has been carefully calibrated, you could put a violinist right next to it playing the same thing and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You would have two violin sounds with the same space wrapped around them. I think that would be identical.
> 
> It has to be single source single channel single location though. Once you add space to the recording, it becomes much more difficult.



I think you would be able to tell. Easliy. Also a large hall, with all the reverb, the detail is (pleasingly) blurred. Try it in an anechoic chamber. Then you room factors are minimised. I think it will get more obvious.

Let's take a component this forum cares about: headphones. Nobody can fully agree what even their frequency response should be. Harman seems to have good evidense for what people like, but not necessarily what is neutral or accurate.

Speakers are flawed: cones are used because they are well understood and CHEAP. They are not as good as other more expensive transducers (MBL have better). Their crossovers and geometry cause comb filtering in various directions and large distortions of non steady state signals. Work is being done constantly to improve that. Work wasted?


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## bigshot (Apr 12, 2018)

No one listens to music in an anechoic chamber. But maybe in that. The reason that no one can agree on a curve for headphones is because headphones aren't what most music is designed to be listened to on. There are planar speakers that I think would be perfectly capable of reproducing a solo violin. Space is the tough part along with directionality.

Thomas Edison had what he called "Tone Test" demonstrations that he would put on in vaudeville houses. A singer would come out and start singing. The lights would go off and the singer would continue. The lights would come back on and an Edison diamond disc phonograph was playing the singer's voice and the singer was gone. It was good enough to fool people back then, I'm sure the best of today could do it even better.


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## Killcomic

bigshot said:


> No one listens to music in an anechoic chamber. But maybe in that. The reason that no one can agree on a curve for headphones is because headphones aren't what most music is designed to be listened to on. There are planar speakers that I think would be perfectly capable of reproducing a solo violin. Space is the tough part along with directionality.
> 
> Thomas Edison had what he called "Tone Test" demonstrations that he would put on in vaudeville houses. A singer would come out and start singing. The lights would go off and the singer would continue. The lights would come back on and an Edison diamond disc phonograph was playing the singer's voice and the singer was gone. It was good enough to fool people back then, I'm sure the best of today could do it even better.


But don't you know that true audiophiles have magic ears that can determine musicality and quantisation errors at over 96000 cycles per second?


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## jagwap

Killcomic said:


> But don't you know that true audiophiles have magic ears that can determine musicality and quantisation errors at over 96000 cycles per second?



You missed a sarcasm opportunity:
It just proves that even early vinyl is better.


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## bigshot

Killcomic said:


> But don't you know that true audiophiles have magic ears that can determine musicality and quantisation errors at over 96000 cycles per second?



I'm well aware of that! I'm reminded by yellow highlighter all the time!


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## gregorio (Apr 14, 2018)

jagwap said:


> [1] Well as I disagree with the first paragraph almost entirely. We have made progress, by perfect is still over the horizon. If you had left speakers off that list I would even think you agreed with it, but there is no speaker that is remotely close to perfect.
> I think you would be able to tell. Easliy. [2] Also a large hall, with all the reverb, the detail is (pleasingly) blurred. Try it in an anechoic chamber. Then you room factors are minimised.



1. I believe you are right and also to some extent wrong. We have got mics and other recording and reproduction equipment which is good enough to appear audibly perfect, even though certain parts of the chain, speakers for example (as you pointed out) are not particularly close to perfect. The experiment bigshot hypothesises has actually been done, though I don't remember the details off the top of my head, and the audience couldn't tell the difference. There are several points to address here however:

A. As bigshot mentioned, extremely rarely are we trying to capture the actual sound waves an audience member would hear during a live performance. Although we generally aim for a presentation which sounds like a perfect capture and recreation, to achieve that actually requires creating an illusion of perfection, as actual perfection does not account for human perception at a real, live performance. However, all this only pertains to a very small, niche area of music recordings; most classical music and some examples in other acoustic music genres. With the vast majority of music, even the illusion of an accurate capture is deliberately NOT the goal. Starting with (or at least popularised by) the Beetles in the mid 1960's, the goal changed from trying to make the studio (the recording, editing and mixing processes) as invisible/transparent as possible to the exact opposite, the studio effectively became an active member of the band and in many cases, effectively the most important member of the band. Typically then, even though there are mics which are audibly perfect (or near audibly perfect) we rarely use them! Preferring instead mics which are coloured and, not just coloured mics but coloured mic pre-amps as well and then in the mixing we'll typically add some or a lot of additional distortions (of varying types).
B. Exceedingly rarely do consumers have the speakers or have them setup in a way which would enable them to be "audibly perfect" and, as mentioned in point A, what "audibly perfect" recordings would they play on such a system anyway? In practise, none of this really makes any difference, even to audiophiles. So often I hear audiophiles with apparently great systems, waxing lyrical about how it makes recordings sound real, natural, transparent, etc., when the recordings they're listening to deliberately contain virtually no realism, naturalism or transparency to start with! I could justifiably say they have severely tin ears but that wouldn't be entirely fair, more accurately, they are so accustomed to so many decades of ubiquitous studio illusion, are so inexperienced of the recording/editing/mixing processes and what the instruments/sounds/performances actually sound like, that they have no reference point against which to judge what real, natural or transparent even means!
C. I'd like to think that with my experience and training I would be able to tell the difference in bigshot's hypothetical experiment. I had no involvement in the real experiment, although during my career I've been the live sound engineer for well over 500 performances and during rehearsals and sound checks I've been in situations which resemble such an experiment. And to be honest, I'm not certain in practise that I would be able to tell the difference and even if I could, I don't believe it would be easy. Of course, all this would depend on the exact equipment, setup and other conditions of the test.

2. In a sense you have this backwards and I don't think your test would work or be particularly valid even if it did. The actual sound of an acoustic instrument is highly dependant on reverb, sometimes effectively entirely dependant on reverb and in virtually any situation other than an anechoic chamber (which few musicians have ever experienced), there always is reverb. In other words, reverb is not really something which "blurs the detail", as that detail effectively doesn't exist for anyone listening to the instrument. Instead, it is generally more appropriate to think of reverb as an intrinsic component of the sound which effectively adds detail. Although, as an engineer I am used to thinking of the direct sound and the reverb as two separate things because I can manipulate both somewhat independently. Acoustic instrument musicians themselves though generally don't think of them as separate. And what's more, if you put an acoustic musician in an anechoic chamber and get them to play their instrument, they are typically horrified because the instrument sounds so different to what they expect and they can't get even close to being able to compensate. Classical musicians don't even like playing in normal rooms with somewhat dry acoustics because of the difficulty of trying to compensate, an anechoic chamber really shocks/upsets them! Your test then is effectively: Can you tell the difference between (say) a real french horn which sounds so bizarre it's almost unidentifiable as a french horn and a recording of that french horn which also of course sounds so bizarre it doesn't sound like a real french horn? Even if you could tell that there was a difference, you'd struggle to identify which was the real french horn (because it wouldn't sound like a real french horn) and even if you could identify which was the real one, would such a result actually be relevant to a french horn in any normal environment?

G


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## jagwap

gregorio said:


> 1. I believe you are right and also to some extent wrong. We have got mics and other recording and reproduction equipment which is good enough to appear audibly perfect, even though certain parts of the chain, speakers for example (as you pointed out) are not particularly close to perfect. The experiment bigshot hypothesises has actually been done, though I don't remember the details off the top of my head, and the audience couldn't tell the difference. There are several points to address here however:
> 
> A. As bigshot mentioned, extremely rarely are we trying to capture the actual sound waves an audience member would hear during a live performance. Although we generally aim for a presentation which sounds like a perfect capture and recreation, to achieve that actually requires creating an illusion of perfection, as actual perfection does not account for human perception at a real, live performance. However, all this only pertains to a very small, niche area of music recordings; most classical music and some examples in other acoustic music genres. With the vast majority of music, even the illusion of an accurate capture is deliberately NOT the goal. Starting with (or at least popularised by) the Beetles in the mid 1960's, the goal changed from trying to make the studio (the recording, editing and mixing processes) as invisible/transparent as possible to the exact opposite, the studio effectively became an active member of the band and in many cases, effectively the most important member of the band. Typically then, even though there are mics which are audibly perfect (or near audibly perfect) we rarely use them! Preferring instead mics which are coloured and, not just coloured mics but coloured mic pre-amps as well and then in the mixing we'll typically add some or a lot of additional distortions (of varying types).
> B. Exceedingly rarely do consumers have the speakers or have them setup in a way which would enable them to be "audibly perfect" and, as mentioned in point A, what "audibly perfect" recordings would they play on such a system anyway? In practise, none of this really makes any difference, even to audiophiles. So often I hear audiophiles with apparently great systems, waxing lyrical about how it makes recordings sound real, natural, transparent, etc., when the recordings they're listening to deliberately contain virtually no realism, naturalism or transparency to start with! I could justifiably say they have severely tin ears but that wouldn't be entirely fair, more accurately, they are so accustomed to so many decades of ubiquitous studio illusion, are so inexperienced of the recording/editing/mixing processes and what the instruments/sounds/performances actually sound like, that they have no reference point against which to judge what real, natural or transparent even means!
> ...



I'm pleased to say that all sound reasonable. 

Agreed an anechoic chamber is perhaps the worst place to listen to music, with the possible exception of a vacuum!


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## castleofargh

tansand said:


> You're an embarassment, I wanted you to admit there was a greater than 50% probability that the cause of the changes in the data was in fact, driver break in. Look at the people on your side here, castleofargh. You really want to spend time from your life modding these people? Time ticking away?
> 
> Why?


to be totally honest, I like none of it. I have been raised on the idea that extremists are always wrong because extremism itself is wrong.
we all think we know something, at the very least all the people posting actively think so. we don't have that many posts from members saying *"I don't know, and reserve my opinion for when I'll know more"* ^_^
people posting aren't the silent majority, they're people with a strong opinion on a subject. and many will be wrong, and many will go too far trying to promote their views. not much we can do about that. the calm tempered people probably stay the hell away from a topic like this one in the first place. I know I would if I wasn't modo and I'm not even that calm or well tempered. this topic screams entrapment. just the title was picked to watch the world burn.

at the same time, what's happening is perfectly normal for a human(not humane!).  we all make do with the information we have. our brain will always try to find a convenient answer even with an incomplete puzzle. it's a greatness, and a flaw at the same time. because once we think we have reached an understanding of a situation, the brain will just go and put a "fact" sticker onto the idea. and now we never again have a reason to doubt or challenge that "fact". why question something when it's true?
that's what we all do all the time. we rely on what we consider true to make sense of every new information. a lot of what we consider true isn't and we end up having different and unique views on things because of it. a big part of being a unique individual lies with our experiences and what we mistakenly hold as true. otherwise we'd all agree on almost anything.

- so there is the pub pillar method. I'm right, he's wrong, how do I ruin his claim? let me repeat my stuff louder every time, that must have worked once.
that's what we all do here(I'm not clean I confess) with close to zero data or evidence of anything. and the Science in Sound Science is having panic attacks.

 - and there is the scientific method. we come up with an idea and we all try to disprove it. we don't get mad when somebody challenges the idea, we say thank you for your efforts, and we try to help make a proper case against the idea. maybe suggest a flaw in the critic that needs to be addressed before we can take the idea down for good. because once an idea has been battered down like that, and a lot of tests have been done not to agree with it, but to disprove it, if it's falsifiable and nobody succeeds in properly disproving it, we end up with a very sturdy case in favor of trusting that idea.
it might not mean we'll have a new law of driver break in. not just yet. but at least we have massively increased our confidence(justified this time, not self confidence) that crap is going on.



I don't expect us all to turn into fully fledged scientists overnight, but this section could really benefit from more testing and less empty handed battles we all know are going nowhere unless we do the testing.


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## sonitus mirus

castleofargh said:


> to be totally honest, I like none of it. I have been raised on the idea that extremists are always wrong because extremism itself is wrong.
> we all think we know something, at the very least all the people posting actively think so. we don't have that many posts from members saying *"I don't know, and reserve my opinion for when I'll know more"* ^_^
> people posting aren't the silent majority, they're people with a strong opinion on a subject. and many will be wrong, and many will go too far trying to promote their views. not much we can do about that. the calm tempered people probably stay the hell away from a topic like this one in the first place. I know I would if I wasn't modo and I'm not even that calm or well tempered. this topic screams entrapment. just the title was picked to watch the world burn.
> 
> ...



The real work begins after a test is completed.  The results need to be analyzed and the test probably would need to be updated and eventually repeated by others.


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## castleofargh

sonitus mirus said:


> The real work begins after a test is completed.  The results need to be analyzed and the test probably would need to be updated and eventually repeated by others.


don't spoil, I haven't watched all the episodes of the scientific method yet. but I do have this very official document:


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## Zapp_Fan (Apr 13, 2018)

bigshot said:


> AUDIBLY perfect. I think if you took a solo violin and recorded it and played it back on the stage of Carnegie Hall on a very good speaker that has been carefully calibrated, you could put a violinist right next to it playing the same thing and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. You would have two violin sounds with the same space wrapped around them. I think that would be identical.
> 
> It has to be single source single channel single location though. Once you add space to the recording, it becomes much more difficult.



This is pretty plausible, but the dispersion pattern of a speaker and a violin look quite different.  For example some sound comes out the back and sides of the violin. I think "no audible difference" is a plausible outcome, but I also wouldn't bet too much money on that.   A spherical speaker array might be a better approximation and that might be enough. But a violin is still not really omnidirectional.  Even after getting to Carnegie Hall things would not be simple 

The rigs they use to create (good) impulse response recordings are spheroid, with many drivers pointing in many directions, basically for this reason.

I guess I bring this up just to illustrate the difficulty of reproducing real spatial information and directionality.  It's an example of of why aiming for 100% fidelity to live sound is not just difficult, but arguably a bad idea.


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## ev13wt

Zapp_Fan said:


> This is pretty plausible, but the dispersion pattern of a speaker and a violin look quite different.  For example some sound comes out the back and sides of the violin. I think "no audible difference" is a plausible outcome, but I also wouldn't bet too much money on that.   A spherical speaker array might be a better approximation and that might be enough. But a violin is still not really omnidirectional.  Even after getting to Carnegie Hall things would not be simple
> 
> The rigs they use to create (good) impulse response recordings are spheroid, with many drivers pointing in many directions, basically for this reason.
> 
> I guess I bring this up just to illustrate the difficulty of reproducing real spatial information and directionality.  It's an example of of why aiming for 100% fidelity to live sound is not just difficult, but arguably a bad idea.




You would need a sound source, omni. No walls (think speakers all over the walls) a couple of really fast computers. Then you might get close. Depending on the recording.

But I can figure out, over a very very bad low fi phone connection, with dropouts, that its my moms voice. We humans are really great at "filling the blanks". Its fun! Buy a CD, listen, go to an actual performance in the hall where it was created. Next day, listen to the CD again. It will literally "blow your mind".


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## bigshot (Apr 13, 2018)

Zapp_Fan said:


> This is pretty plausible, but the dispersion pattern of a speaker and a violin look quite different.



Obviously directionality of the sound would be different. But that falls into the category of space again. We can reproduce sound audibly perfect, but reproducing space is the hard part. However, I'd bet that the distance from the stage to the first few rows of the audience would be enough space to obliterate the dispersement difference and the sound itself would be audibly identical.

The thing that makes the idea of a violin and recording sounding the same plausible is the fact that you're wrapping the ambience of Carnegie Hall around both of them equally. That would eliminate the problem of space and make the comparison focused just on the sound itself.


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## gregorio

Zapp_Fan said:


> This is pretty plausible, but the dispersion pattern of a speaker and a violin look quite different. For example some sound comes out the back and sides of the violin.



It doesn't really matter what the dispersion pattern of a speaker or a violin look like or that they're quite different, neither does it matter where the sound comes out of a violin. In a typical live performance situation you can't hear where the sound is coming out of a violin, that information is obliterated by the distance, absorption and reflections of the concert venue. This is particularly obvious in case of a french horn; the sound obviously comes out of the bell of a french horn but in a performance situation no one in the audience hears even the slightest bit of that sound, 100% of what the audience hears of a french horn is reflections. With a violin, it's probably not 100% but it would be surprising close and more than enough to obliterate where exactly the sound is coming out of a violin and the same would be true of a speaker, assuming the audience is a reasonable distance from the speaker.

G


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## Ramblinman

Haris Javed said:


> Skype, gotomeeting, Zoom - whatever you like. Here is the thing. I am not claiming that I am right, or you are right. My issue is not with what you are saying, but I do have an unsettling issue with science vs pseudo science - and this is very dangerous. In this age of social media, and online connectivity everyone claims to be an expert because of personal experiences, so people don't provide evidence, but they provide personal anecdotes. You claimed above that "measurement techniques are imperfect" what studies do you have that back up that claim? are they imperfect, or is it your lack of knowledge how measurements are done, or the limitation of your tools? The inaccuracies exist because of Gravitation, Weak, Electromagnetic, and Strong forces, this is the nature of the universe. We can observe things that human eyes cannot even see (e.g michael morley expirement, special, and general relativity) and people claim without evidence that "our measurements still suck" - OK makes sense, but please provide a paper, a study, anything that will back your claim up. I provided you three things about measurement, that are time tested, and anyone can google them, read about them, and make their own conclusion or try to provide counter evidence.


So.... you understand that internet studies cannot be trusted, but you want me to send you one backing up my point?


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## Haris Javed

Ramblinman said:


> So.... you understand that internet studies cannot be trusted, but you want me to send you one backing up my point?



No one is talking about internet studies, white papers are actual results, many companies / universities will publish those. E.g Texas Instruments will publish details for their OP AMPS, and its characteristics, and evidence / data that backup's their claims. Ncbi will publish papers / data from the medical field, The Physics Review does the same for the field of Physics.


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## jagwap

Haris Javed said:


> No one is talking about internet studies, white papers are actual results, many companies / universities will publish those. E.g Texas Instruments will publish details for their OP AMPS, and its characteristics, and evidence / data that backup's their claims. Ncbi will publish papers / data from the medical field, The Physics Review does the same for the field of Physics.



I am forced to use Texas Instruments datasheets and papers, but there are enough errors that I am carefull about trusting them. Also there is never anything about their sound in there. Just the performance, and you have to use you experience to know whether they will influence the sound.

The AES (Audio Engineering Society) is a great place to read peer reviewd papers on audio. However it will never satify the hardcore bunch here because they don't have a perfect record of being right.


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## jagwap (Apr 14, 2018)

castleofargh said:


> don't spoil, I haven't watched all the episodes of the scientific method yet. but I do have this very official document:



I like your infogram. It seems some here think observation no long exists though.

Edit for the pedants: proovable observation.
Many don't seem to believe the next three stages either.


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## bigshot

jagwap said:


> The AES (Audio Engineering Society) is a great place to read peer reviewd papers on audio. However it will never satify the hardcore bunch here because they don't have a perfect record of being right.




Who here doesn't respect the AES? Not all of their papers are good, but they're a great source overall.


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## colonelkernel8 (Apr 15, 2018)

jagwap said:


> I am forced to use Texas Instruments datasheets and papers, but there are enough errors that I am carefull about trusting them. Also there is never anything about their sound in there. Just the performance, and you have to use you experience to know whether they will influence the sound.
> 
> The AES (Audio Engineering Society) is a great place to read peer reviewd papers on audio. However it will never satify the hardcore bunch here because they don't have a perfect record of being right.


This is why you can order samples and an evaluation board from TI so you can test it. The specs (when correct mind you) really do tell the whole story as far as the performance of an electronic component is concerned, including its “sound”. The problem is the implementation is arguably the bigger part of the story...depending on the part of course.


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## colonelkernel8 (Apr 15, 2018)

Back to the topic at hand: “burn-in”.

@amirm, you have Audio Precision’s headphone test fixture correct? Would you be interested in conducting an experiment in conjunction with your website? We can control for headphone placement and any other concerns that were raised from Tyll’s adhoc experiment. Multiple examples of an individual model of headphone and multiple models.

Who knows, maybe we’ll (just amirm really) end up with something publishable.

Alternatively, since that would be expensive, we can attempt a less conclusive experiment with a single pair of headphones, while controlling for some of the potential issues spotted with Tyll’s example.

That should move our conversation away from pure conjecture and subjective listening experiences, and if we somehow falsify the notion of burn-in with headphones, we can start work on psychoacoustic “burn-in” or how our mind might adapt to a different sound signature.


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## Ramblinman

Haris Javed said:


> No one is talking about internet studies, white papers are actual results, many companies / universities will publish those. E.g Texas Instruments will publish details for their OP AMPS, and its characteristics, and evidence / data that backup's their claims. Ncbi will publish papers / data from the medical field, The Physics Review does the same for the field of Physics.


So how would any white paper back up audible perceptions?


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## SilverEars (Apr 15, 2018)

jagwap said:


> I like your infogram. It seems some here think observation no long exists though.
> 
> Edit for the pedants: proovable observation.
> Many don't seem to believe the next three stages either.


People always observe or notice things, but the problem is, they either stop there or go for the theory that is not tested.  Scientific method is testing out the hypothesis with experimentations that is deducing all the possibilities to find the infallible theory.  It's respectable since it's a rigorous process of getting a consistent truth from what you observe instead of making shallow assumptions.

The problems I find with much of audiophiles with tech babble is that they reiterate what the designer of the equipment state it, and passes it on akin to moral statements in a religion.  If one doesn't understand the what is being fed to them, a reasonable person will not pass on information that they do not understand or bring it up.  It's basically passing on something that people are seeing on a shallow level(they make significance of, but how is this reasonable if they don't understand it?), but do not fully understand to make the right determination to find it as a truth or not.

It falls under the definition of gullible.


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## Haris Javed

jagwap said:


> I am forced to use Texas Instruments datasheets and papers, but there are enough errors that I am carefull about trusting them. Also there is never anything about their sound in there. Just the performance, and you have to use you experience to know whether they will influence the sound.
> 
> The AES (Audio Engineering Society) is a great place to read peer reviewd papers on audio. However it will never satify the hardcore bunch here because they don't have a perfect record of being right.



That is Ok - again due to the nature of universe these things cannot be 100% on spot. For this exact reason statistics exists. If you sample a million OP AMPS you will notice that 68% of OP AMPS will be in +- 1sd of the mean, and 96% will be in +- 2sd of the mean. Out of millions of OP AMPS some will just right out fail, and if you are testing with a p - value of .05 then you should be OK with 50,000 of them failing


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## Haris Javed (Apr 15, 2018)

Ramblinman said:


> So how would any white paper back up audible perceptions?



Absolutely it can (all we need it data)- if people do actual research on this matter, they can write a white paper with evidence. I have actually e-mailed NRC and Paradigm about driver breakin, and I will post their response here once I have it. Paradigm, and a few other speaker manufactures designed their speakers at the NRC.

However, here is the catch. Data Sheets, and white Papers from Fostex, KEF,Yamaha, ATC talk about how they designed their speaker drivers (studio monitors in case of Yamaha, ATC,  Fostex, and KEF LS50 in case of KEF) so their sound will not change after hundreds or hours of use, which contradicts the idea that the actual speaker driver is going through physical changes, so this must mean that the break in mostly a mental interpenetration vs actual change in driver sound. Imagine this for a second - studio monitors are used for hundreds of hours, and recording studios would go bankrupt changing their studio monitors every 5 years.

here is another thing. If 1 million people buy speakers, and 90% of them say that the speaker sounds better to them after 100 hours, we have strong evidence to claim this "people will notice a change in sound after listening to their speakers for 100 hours", but it proves nothing about driver break in, because that is a mechanical  change, and we cant ignore that because companies / people claim driver break in as the premise of this whole argument, so we need to see what happens to the driver, if we want to set that as our premise for this whole change in sound argument.

this is what people claim:
speaker sound changed after XXX hours, so mechanical changes to the driver must be happening

this is what needs to be checked:
after XXX hours, can we measure any mechanical changes in the driver? if yes - investigate more

after XXX hours, can we measure any mechanical changes to the driver? if no - further investigation is not needed


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## colonelkernel8 (Apr 15, 2018)

[scratch that]


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## tansand (Apr 15, 2018)

If any of you science types [scratch that] wants to go ahead and do some science in a few years or decades instead of just talking, you could get ahold of some bare headphone drivers and test those. You could put gregorio in charge of mike capsule testing, as he's such an expert on the differences.

https://www.parts-express.com/search.aspx?keyword=peerless+headphone+driver

Nah though, right?


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## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> If any of you science types [scratch that] wants to go ahead and do some science in a few years or decades instead of just talking, you could get ahold of some bare headphone drivers and test those. You could put gregorio in charge of mike capsule testing, as he's such an expert on the differences.
> 
> https://www.parts-express.com/search.aspx?keyword=peerless+headphone+driver
> 
> Nah though, right?



Your sarcastic bull isn’t going to win you any respect. If you dislike us so much, you can leave.

That said, I am in favor of a test, even if it’s not a terribly scientific one. I detailed this in the above post.


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## tansand (Apr 15, 2018)

Respect isn't particularly scientific, if the way some people function in here is any indication. I thought it was a pretty good idea, I'm sure there's a bunch of different ones out there cheaper too. 

Probably too cheap to be indicative of headhones in general though, or 1200 dollar planars, so really no point in doing it after all, huh? Just to cover some of the inevitable objections, you understand.


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## colonelkernel8 (Apr 15, 2018)

tansand said:


> Respect isn't particularly scientific, if the way some people function in here is any indication. I thought it was a pretty good idea, I'm sure there's a bunch of different ones out there cheaper too.
> 
> Probably too cheap to be indicative of headhones in general though, or 1200 dollar planars, so really no point in doing it after all, huh? Just to cover some of the inevitable objections, you understand.




Sorry, I misread your intent. Let’s do some tests. I’m going to order the headphone testing rig from MiniDSP and some calibrated mics coupled with a the Behringer interface @amirm has reported great performance with.

It’s not an Audio Precision analyzer but I think it’s perfect for this type of testing.


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## tansand (Apr 15, 2018)

Well, that's pretty ****ing awesome! 

(No reason to be sorry for anything. I'm abrasive when annoyed. Those people who do all the loud talking and seem uninterested in the facts annoy me. I'm sure we've all met people like that.)


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## colonelkernel8

Haris Javed said:


> Absolutely it can (all we need it data)- if people do actual research on this matter, they can write a white paper with evidence. I have actually e-mailed NRC and Paradigm about driver breakin, and I will post their response here once I have it. Paradigm, and a few other speaker manufactures designed their speakers at the NRC.
> 
> However, here is the catch. Data Sheets, and white Papers from Fostex, KEF,Yamaha, ATC talk about how they designed their speaker drivers (studio monitors in case of Yamaha, ATC,  Fostex, and KEF LS50 in case of KEF) so their sound will not change after hundreds or hours of use, which contradicts the idea that the actual speaker driver is going through physical changes, so this must mean that the break in mostly a mental interpenetration vs actual change in driver sound. Imagine this for a second - studio monitors are used for hundreds of hours, and recording studios would go bankrupt changing their studio monitors every 5 years.
> 
> ...


I am really interested in seeing what Paradigm has to say. No doubt this is something they test for.


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## colonelkernel8 (Apr 15, 2018)

tansand said:


> Well, that's pretty ****ing awesome!
> 
> (No reason to be sorry for anything. I'm abrasive when annoyed. Those people who do all the loud talking and seem uninterested in the facts annoy me. I'm sure we've all met people like that.)


I did a lot of searching through AES papers and I couldn’t find any references to “burn-in”. I wonder if there’s a colloquialism used that’s more formalized that I should search for instead. That way I have a reference for experiment design I can try to replicate. It seems strange that there’s such a dearth of information on this subject.


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## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> Well, that's pretty ****ing awesome!
> 
> (No reason to be sorry for anything. I'm abrasive when annoyed. Those people who do all the loud talking and seem uninterested in the facts annoy me. I'm sure we've all met people like that.)


At the same time, some of these folks are extremely experienced with the craft. A lot of times when what they are declaring what sounds like anecdotal evidence or subjectivity is actually based on years of experience and data gathering that is factual. So don’t dismiss them so casually or believe they aren’t being honest or scientific. @gregorio has calibrated what likely amounts to a statistically significant number of speakers in his career and he’s no doubt discussed the notion of burn-in with many speaker manufacturers. His opinion is that of a true expert, not of an armchair guru.


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## tansand

I did some searching, will do some more..



> Today, when measuring premium headphones with extended top-end response (e.g., the Sennheiser HD800 claims response to 44 kHz) and when benchmarking against these flagship headphones, the response above 10 kHz is often measured with the headphone driver removed and mounted on a baffle with a precision wideband microphone in the near field. When testing, all you can do is keep the test setup the same and check the relative extended range response between products. But, what is linear to the ear’s perception is anyone’s guess—not exactly precision data!



has a few references that might be helpful

http://www.audioxpress.com/article/testing-headphones-and-earphones

The IEC 268-5 standard baffle for drivers 8" or less is pretty large.


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## colonelkernel8 (Apr 15, 2018)

tansand said:


> I did some searching, will do some more..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I’m not sure we’re interested in ultrasonics, or how headphones will perform in any conditions other than on your ears. That will simplify things a bit. We aren’t looking for theoretical top end. We certainly aren’t going to measure speaker drivers, I don’t have an anechoaic chamber to use. But on that same note, I will absolutely need to construct a small enclosure for the test rig to remove other sources of local noise. I suspect MDF and pyramidal acoustic foam will be sufficient, but this is something that we can easily measure to ensure sufficiently low and consistent background noise.


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## tansand (Apr 16, 2018)

colonelkernel8 said:


> At the same time, some of these folks are extremely experienced with the craft. A lot of times when what they are declaring what sounds like anecdotal evidence or subjectivity is actually based on years of experience and data gathering that is factual.



None of which means anything to me if the person is intellectually dishonest, or tries to be a bully to get away with it.

No time for such people.


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## tansand (Apr 16, 2018)

colonelkernel8 said:


> I’m not sure we’re interested in ultrasonics, or how headphones will perform in any conditions other than on your ears. That will simplify things a bit. We aren’t looking for theoretical top end.



No of course not, the part where he talks about testing on a baffle without the ear was why I quoted it. It seems to suggest that sticking the driver on a baffle is OK. The IEC baffle is a standard, the size is because of the wavelengths of bass frequencies, so I was linking a setup with high and low boundaries, with tentative mic placement ('nearfield'). The baffle could be made smaller, of course.

Seemed like a starting point, maybe not..


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## tansand (Apr 16, 2018)

A closet with a bunch of clothes on the walls would probably work, All that's needed is a repeatable scenario..the mike will likely be only an inch from the driver or less.


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## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> A closet with a bunch of clothes on the walls would probably work, All that's needed is a repeatable scenario..


My basement room is uniquely suited to this. It’s both underground and has amazingly thick insulated walls (Minnesota weather for you). Using a calibrated microphone hooked up to my phone I’m getting 28 dB (unweighted) of noise in the room using Sound Meter X from Faber Acoustical.


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## tansand

Sounds great! Remember the sound levels are so small coming off the driver, so any reverb is going to be tiny if the surface is any decent distance away.


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## colonelkernel8

tansand said:


> Sounds great! Remember the sound levels are so small coming off the driver, so any reverb is going to be tiny if the surface is any decent distance away.


That I am not worried about. Because the sound levels are so small, any outside sound will easily show up in test results without carefully controlling the environment.


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## tansand

So 10 hrs a day, test at 4 AM?


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## jagwap

colonelkernel8 said:


> I did a lot of searching through AES papers and I couldn’t find any references to “burn-in”. I wonder if there’s a colloquialism used that’s more formalized that I should search for instead. That way I have a reference for experiment design I can try to replicate. It seems strange that there’s such a dearth of information on this subject.



I know it as "burn-in", "break-in" and "run-in". Not to be confused with "break-up" which is rather different.


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## jagwap

colonelkernel8 said:


> That I am not worried about. Because the sound levels are so small, any outside sound will easily show up in test results without carefully controlling the environment.





tansand said:


> So 10 hrs a day, test at 4 AM?



Thsi is great if you are goung ahead. 

What kind of measurements do you have planned. This can only be done once per headphone if it prooves positive (or is that negative? That should be decided in the teminology and any bias removed). 

Note that all the experiments so far frequency response shows little change, so other parameters are more likely to indicate any effect. I suggest impulse response, and relative phase over frequency or group delay over frequency. Remember to allow the drivers to cool to the same temperature each time after any burn-in is stopped or you maybe measuring the impedance and sensitivity change due to heating.


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## colonelkernel8

jagwap said:


> Thsi is great if you are goung ahead.
> 
> What kind of measurements do you have planned. This can only be done once per headphone if it prooves positive (or is that negative? That should be decided in the teminology and any bias removed).
> 
> Note that all the experiments so far frequency response shows little change, so other parameters are more likely to indicate any effect. I suggest impulse response, and relative phase over frequency or group delay over frequency. Remember to allow the drivers to cool to the same temperature each time after any burn-in is stopped or you maybe measuring the impedance and sensitivity change due to heating.



This is partly why I wanted to see if another experiment existed so we cover our bases. I definitely agree with the tests you’ve suggested, I just want to see test results I can compare to as well as methodology. I’d also want to test the notion of voice coil heating you brought up. Intuition suggests that the heating from driving the voice coil is going to almost certainly be minuscule, much less than say the heating caused by being in close proximity to a warm human head for an extended period of time, especially with closed headphones or IEMs. I might have to heat my sound enclosure


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## castleofargh

the miniDSP EARS are basically 2 capsules like they have in their cheap UMIK, and then a thick disc of silicone with the fake ear on top of it. it does nothing that any other mic can't do. in fact in some aspects it's a little annoying that the silicon can move so much, it ends up affecting decay and some distortions measurements. on mine at least. 
it's not bad for frequency response because some parts of our heads are a little like that and probably wobble just the same way. but it's not the best to measure low magnitude stuff going on in the headphone itself IMO. I get better results (even if not but much), on my cheap ECM8000, and would probably too with an actual UMIK thanks to no silicone pizza. 

I'm up to test anything you want, or replicate poorly your own tests. but what I'm missing are brand new headphones... even better, some as easy to open as a hd600 or 650. then it would be a breath to test stuff various things after removing the pads, the headband's foam, or even just popping the driver block out and fix it firmly onto whatever for the duration of the test. 
 I'm really not a fan of purchasing random cheap drivers just for that. 1/ because I'm super poor and even cheap feels like a waste if it's never going to serve any other purpose. and 2/ because it means once again going with the assumption that as long as it's a dynamic driver, then it's all the same. maybe it is, but I really can't dismiss all variables in a driver the way tansand can.  I would rather see actual fairly known currently sold headphones, so that our results might serve to future buyers of that specific model(if there is anything to take away from those tests at all).


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## Zapp_Fan

gregorio said:


> With a violin, it's probably not 100% but it would be surprising close and more than enough to obliterate where exactly the sound is coming out of a violin and the same would be true of a speaker, assuming the audience is a reasonable distance from the speaker.
> 
> G



Certainly this is true in most situations, but I'm imagining one person, listening to a soloist vs. a speaker on stage, with nothing else around, no other instruments, etc.  Depending on where you sit, I'd imagine you actually would hear a reasonable, if small amount of direct sound from the violin.  Maybe direct vs. reflected would be at like -24dB or worse, but that's still not negligible. Let me put it this way, I wouldn't bet against a trained listener's ability to pick out a real violin vs. an audibly perfect speaker, the reason being that I can't say with 100% certainty they wouldn't be sitting close enough to pick up some directional cues.  

Pedantry aside I agree that the space is an overwhelming factor in this hypothetical situation and probably would do as you say in real life.


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## bigshot

Space is the biggest factor in any decent sound reproduction setup.

I have some antique phonographs, and in the instruction manuals they tell you to place your phonograph in the corner of the room facing the center. The reason they say this is because acoustic recordings are very dry and have no ambience or reverb recorded into them. When your phonograph is in the corner, it's using the walls and floor like a horn. It wraps the natural sound of the room around the dry acoustic recording, creating a life-like ambience. With hi-fi, the goal is to remove bad room ambiences. I sometimes wonder if there would be a way to enhance, good room ambiences.


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## Glmoneydawg

bigshot said:


> Space is the biggest factor in any decent sound reproduction setup.
> 
> I have some antique phonographs, and in the instruction manuals they tell you to place your phonograph in the corner of the room facing the center. The reason they say this is because acoustic recordings are very dry and have no ambience or reverb recorded into them. When your phonograph is in the corner, it's using the walls and floor like a horn. It wraps the natural sound of the room around the dry acoustic recording, creating a life-like ambience. With hi-fi, the goal is to remove bad room ambiences. I sometimes wonder if there would be a way to enhance, good room ambiences.


With some of the DSP room correction programs available this should be possible right?


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## jagwap

Glmoneydawg said:


> With some of the DSP room correction programs available this should be possible right?



Most room EQ is only some parametric EQ, which is very limited, and actually can ruin the first arrival sound from the speaker which our brains notice the most. This makes them junk unless applied with real expertise.

Time based room EQ leaves the first arrival alone and corrects the reverberation, or at least attemps to. Dirac, Lyngdorf and TACT look like they are doing it right.

Now trying to enhance a room's acoustics rather than suppress them, tricky, and not my area of expertise.


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## Glmoneydawg

jagwap said:


> Most room EQ is only some parametric EQ, which is very limited, and actually can ruin the first arrival sound from the speaker which our brains notice the most. This makes them junk unless applied with real expertise.
> 
> Time based room EQ leaves the first arrival alone and corrects the reverberation, or at least attemps to. Dirac, Lyngdorf and TACT look like they are doing it right.
> 
> Now trying to enhance a room's acoustics rather than suppress them, tricky, and not my area of expertise.


I am oldschool and had my room built to be acoustically ok...just seemed like the dsp thing might be the way to go...appreciate your response


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## colonelkernel8

Glmoneydawg said:


> With some of the DSP room correction programs available this should be possible right?


Yeah but first you need to read all of the available research on room correction.


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## bigshot

jagwap said:


> Most room EQ is only some parametric EQ, which is very limited, and actually can ruin the first arrival sound from the speaker which our brains notice the most. This makes them junk unless applied with real expertise. Time based room EQ leaves the first arrival alone and corrects the reverberation, or at least attemps to.




Even inexpensive AVRs provide the basics in both of those areas. You can do a lot with them, but it's a balancing act with EQ, levels and time in each channel.

Colonel, I would love to find solid info on room correction. But the equipment manufacturers don't provide documentation and the room acoustics articles focus on treatment. There's more to the story than is being told I think. That is the area that we should be focusing on.


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## Zapp_Fan (Apr 17, 2018)

AFAIK room correction can only really work in one 'sweet spot', or more sophisticated versions can do some averaged compensation based on several measurement points.  As colonel, jagwap and bigshot have alluded to, room correcting DSP can only control the sound until it leaves the loudspeaker, and typically this is just done with phase, time, and EQ correction.  If you have control at the individual driver level the way Sonos does, you can do a bit better, but it still doesn't actually "correct" the room.  It allows the speaker to compensate for the room a bit.  Space still dominates!

So in the basic systems with one mic and just simple time/EQ correction, you'll fix a lot of peaks and nulls at the exact location you place the mic.  The rest of the room is anyone's guess, could be worse, could be improved.


Edit: Back on the actual topic of the thread.  I just got a bunch of brand-new, ostensibly identical samples of headphones straight from the factory.  I will leave one running pink noise overnight and let you guys know if I hear any serious differences in the morning.  I don't have proper measurement gear here so it will by ear, so only really blatant changes are on the table here.


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## colonelkernel8

Zapp_Fan said:


> AFAIK room correction can only really work in one 'sweet spot', or more sophisticated versions can do some averaged compensation based on several measurement points.  As colonel, jagwap and bigshot have alluded to, room correcting DSP can only control the sound until it leaves the loudspeaker, and typically this is just done with phase, time, and EQ correction.  If you have control at the individual driver level the way Sonos does, you can do a bit better, but it still doesn't actually "correct" the room.  It allows the speaker to compensate for the room a bit.  Space still dominates!
> 
> So in the basic systems with one mic and just simple time/EQ correction, you'll fix a lot of peaks and nulls at the exact location you place the mic.  The rest of the room is anyone's guess, could be worse, could be improved.
> 
> ...



I mean, at low frequencies, you have reasonably large "volumes" of space encompassed by a single wave length, so it needs less precision, but the remainder of your point is sound (hehe).


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## bigshot (Apr 17, 2018)

I find that the automated equalization schemes are fine for creating a jumping off point, but in a home situation where there are variables and compromises to be reckoned with, you have to go beyond that and tune it to find a happy medium for the rest of the room. Unless you are unloved and live alone, of course...

Interested to hear what you come up with Zapp. I had the opportunity to compare three different sets of Oppo PM-1s at different stages of use from fresh from the factory to a couple of months in and they were all within very close specs to each other. I didn't detect any burn in change on any of them.


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## Zapp_Fan

colonelkernel8 said:


> I mean, at low frequencies, you have reasonably large "volumes" of space encompassed by a single wave length, so it needs less precision, but the remainder of your point is sound (hehe).



Oh yeah, absolutely, with bass frequencies they might be bigger than your room, but when you're in the Khz range you may find your room is a jungle of nulls, and your ARC only gives you a small oasis of relief from the chaos.


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## colonelkernel8 (Apr 17, 2018)

Zapp_Fan said:


> Oh yeah, absolutely, with bass frequencies they might be bigger than your room, but when you're in the Khz range you may find your room is a jungle of nulls, and your ARC only gives you a small oasis of relief from the chaos.


 
Bass frequencies can still be a jungle of nulls too. Say your room is one half the wavelength of the frequency. The reflected portion is literally going to be the exact opposite of the first half of the wave in a worst case scenario assuming zero phase shift. Pretty much your best bet is room treatment such as bass traps and absorption panels. Without that, DSP room correction is like trying to bail water out of a sinking Titanic with a 5 gallon pail.


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## bfreedma

colonelkernel8 said:


> Bass frequencies can still be a jungle of nulls too. Say your room is one half the wavelength of the frequency. The reflected portion is literally going to be the exact opposite of the first half of the wave in a worst case scenario assuming zero phase shift. Pretty much your best bet is room treatment such as bass traps and absorption panels. Without that, DSP room correction is like trying to bail water out of a sinking Titanic with a 5 gallon pail.




Multiple subs asymmetrically placed (usually) address that issue, particularly when phase/distance can be adjusted independently, via DSP room EQ.  It may not be perfect, but in a mixed use room where physical treatments might not be acceptable, with some dedication and a decent mic/measurement software, good results are possible.

Agree that single subs can be tough, particularly when placement is based on aesthetics and not for best performance.  No amount of power or DSP is going to overcome a serious null.


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## bigshot

I've read that, but for my room, it seems to work with one powerful sub. I still have a problem with a specific resonant frequency inside the walls, but that is easily taken care of with EQ. I think you need to have open space between the sub and the listener. My sub is line of sight for everyone in the room.


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## ev13wt

I did the "place the sub in listening position, then crawl around to find the most balanced bass - place sub there."

Works pretty good.


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## Zapp_Fan

So a quick update on burn-in.  Left 2 pairs of identical headphones for about 18 hours with pink noise at what would probably be a 90dB listening level.  Came back in the morning and tested both against a fresh-out-of-the-carton pair. 

I found no appreciable difference in frequency or dynamic response.  Didn't notice anything with regard to distortion either. 

Wasn't trying to pull out subtle effects and sit there and convince myself of things over the course of hours, nor did I do any measurements.  That said, I am very familiar with this model, with probably 40+ hours of active critical listening on them recently, and more of just passively listening to music.  My conclusion is that for this driver anyway, there is no clearly audible effect of a moderate burn-in period. 

Can't speak to a week's worth of burn-in, nor can I speak to subtle effects, but if you want another anecdote to throw on the "no" pile, this is one.


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## castleofargh

thanks. it's indeed no more than one anecdote, but I'll still rather gather those than trusting what people remember of the sound a week or a month ago. any removed or better controlled variable is a step in the right direction for me, no matter the result.


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