[Hi-Finthen]

I agree totally in the above to be fact by my personal experience. In fact historicaly I devised a (imitation silk, polyester) fabric circle driver cover for my k701s in an effort to tame their sibilance, removed after 350hrs as then unneeded.

Yep, burn-in is quite real and most dramatic with the k701s , although a bit less dramaticaly so with the 990s .

Also looking forward to your next amp and the degree you sense it being a realistic upgrade ...

In that regard, I've also been given some welcomed news, the Corda Opera is in transit for my audition early next week

Between us both, we'll each be able to add to the knowledge base as to where the Heed resides in the scheme of products at different price points. I'm also eagar as well to test my sources for their value in my well burnt in systems.

Burn in FTW

 

[daltonlanny]

Bill,
Be sure and let us know how the Corda Opera sounds!
this is a very interesting amp to me as well.
Does anyone out there know how much burn-in time, if any, the Headamp GS-1 needs to sound its best?

 

[denl82]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daltonlanny /img/forum/go_quote.gif devwild, Mainly pink noise at a slightly loud level on most days, with my CD player on repeat. A few days later, will I play bass heavy modern pop/r&b [Cassie, Chris Brown, Rihanna, Cherish, PCD, Beyonce, Ciara, Ashanti, etc.], at slightly loud levels, recorded on a CD-R disc. I put the CD player put on "Repeat All" on its menu for a day or two for the CD-R, then I will go back to the pink noise again. Roughly speaking: Pink noise = 80% of the time Bass heavy modern music = 20% of the time

Word

I think I'll take the plunge with pink noise starting tonight, and see how that goes...

Thanks!

 

[spinali]

I've had the K701 for a while, and they seemed to improve after the 350 hour mark - using music alone. But I recently used the pink/white noise treatment for the AKG K81DJ - and these was a substantial difference in bass definition after only a day. Break-in is definitely real (at least in my audio universe).

 

[Fang]

In my case, at first I felt that the DT880s were bright and didn't have enough bass and the soundstage was a bit narrow but after about 400-500 hours of use I experienced similar changes with in the harshness,bass and soundstage but after 500+ hours of use, there weren't any noticeable changes.

 

[b0dhi]

I believe in burn-in, I've heard it myself on 2 of my headphones clearly, others not so clearly.

With the GS1k, which is, like the K701, known for it's rigorous burn-in, the change was gradual. At around 100 hours though, I noticed a sudden drop (sudden being within about 4 days) of 1 - 1.5db in the 5-7Khz range. This I know because I had been EQing that exact region down by 1db about a week prior to it, because at high volumes it would be slightly sibilant there.

The point I'm coming to is I'm very skeptical about such sudden changes occuring in both the drivers in such a short period of time. Were there any imbalances between the L/R sides prior to this? I think it'd be unlikely for them both to "collapse" into a different state at once. I'd also be a bit worried. Generally the burn-in process is a matter of de-stressing, which occurs gradually. I don't know what process could account for such a sudden change. I don't doubt what you're hearing but are you sure there isn't an element of psychological "ok, it's burnt in, this is how it sounds from now on." to it?

 

[daltonlanny]

No, it was not a psychological thing, because I hardly listened to them at all during the burn-in period, so I did not "get used to" their sound. They also had different amounts of burn-in.
The Akgs now are approaching 375 hrs., and the Beyers 500 hrs.
They are still burning in as we speak.
The Beyers improvement started at 50 hrs and gradually improved and then around 350 hrs. became noticeably much better. I had not listened to them for almost a week until yesterday.
The Akgs was more dramatic. The difference after 4 days of non-listening was profound.

 

[cooperpwc]

I very much agree with this in relation to the DT880s. Mine had no soundstage out of the box. I was very disappointed. The biggest change came in the first twenty hours when they opened right up. They continued to improve after that getting smoother over the first couple hundred hours (I think - I wasn't counting) but it wasn't as dramatically day and night.

 

[Bwanasonic]

I am still waiting to hear of someone reliably sorting out (with better than chance accuracy) several pairs of the same model headphone, some *virgin*, some well-burnt in. This would absolutely indicate burn-in is a physical phenomenon and not a psychological one. Sorry, but saying "these phones sound different than I remember them sounding x hours/days/weeks ago" does not rule out the psychological. Comparing two sets doesn't tell much either, as manufacturing tolerances could be the issue. But if you walk into a room, and there are say, six identical pairs of phones on a table, and you don't know which ones have been burnt in, and which are factory *virgin*, and you can accurately and repeatably pick out the burnt-in ones, then burn-in will no longer be a myth! Of course this same test could be used to detect burn-in for other things as well.

Kerry M

 

[nickchen]

If you have trouble with the burn in concept, you better leave this place right away, because much worse things are under discussion here.

 

[GANESHA]

The 701's I had broke in nicely at 300 hours. I still did not get the deep bass I was hoping for. The DT880's however sounded great out of the box and improved about 15% overall at 200 hours. The bass is the tightest, most accurate I have heard from a headphone including the DT990's and modified
HD580's. I can't understand anyone posting that there isn't much bass on these.

 

[denl82]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bwanasonic /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am still waiting to hear of someone reliably sorting out (with better than chance accuracy) several pairs of the same model headphone, some *virgin*, some well-burnt in. This would absolutely indicate burn-in is a physical phenomenon and not a psychological one. Sorry, but saying "these phones sound different than I remember them sounding x hours/days/weeks ago" does not rule out the psychological. Comparing two sets doesn't tell much either, as manufacturing tolerances could be the issue. But if you walk into a room, and there are say, six identical pairs of phones on a table, and you don't know which ones have been burnt in, and which are factory *virgin*, and you can accurately and repeatably pick out the burnt-in ones, then burn-in will no longer be a myth! Of course this same test could be used to detect burn-in for other things as well. Kerry M

Hey Kerry=]
Asr did a review comparing a well burned-in k701 against a brand new one here.
He concludes that burn-in does indeed exist

Quote:

Originally Posted by GANESHA /img/forum/go_quote.gif The 701's I had broke in nicely at 300 hours. I still did not get the deep bass I was hoping for. The DT880's however sounded great out of the box and improved about 15% overall at 200 hours. The bass is the tightest, most accurate I have heard from a headphone including the DT990's and modified HD580's. I can't understand anyone posting that there isn't much bass on these.

Ya, I'm also hoping my k701's gain the deep bass extension that my dt880 has.

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by denl82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hey Kerry=] Asr did a review comparing a well burned-in k701 against a brand new one here. He concludes that burn-in does indeed exist

A blind test would be more convincing evidence however. Better still by far would be before and after measurements, since sample variation may be a factor as well as any effect of burn-in.

 

[yossi126]

Considering DT990 Burn-In, to my ears i felt there wasn't any.
Comparing the store's pair which i guess should have at least 100 hours to my new out-of-the-box one there wasn't any immediate difference.

Maybe there is a change overtime because i upgraded my gear throughout first 50 hours, but DT990 Burn-In is more fictional rather than practical
IMO.

 

[Bwanasonic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by denl82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hey Kerry=] Asr did a review comparing a well burned-in k701 against a brand new one here. He concludes that burn-in does indeed exist

That boils down to comparing two different sets of AKGs, and finding differences. It's somewhat of a leap to attribute the difference to burn-in, although it's entirely possible. If you kept burning in the newer set (and left the older set idle), and when it had the same amount of burn-in, it now miraculously sounded identical to the other set, that would be pretty interesting

The single-blind scenario I suggested seems pretty straight forward, and would provide more useful results. If someone would provide a half-dozen or so sets of K701s, I'd try it

Kerry M