Why burn in headphones

Do you need to do it? And is it worth it? Odds are if you read this site or others like, you probably have a strong opinion on this based on your own experiences. For those who may be less familiar, this refers to the process of breaking in a new pair of headphones by playing hours of sound on them to adjust the sound signature. So, how exactly does it work?

Well first it's important to understand how headphones make sound. Put most reductively, headphones are essentially just small scale speakers that you wear around your head. As a result, they function in almost exactly the same way.

When you pump an electric signal into your headphones and it reaches the coil, this component creates an electromagnetic field, which causes the thin diaphragm to vibrate - or be pulled back and forth. This motion causes disruptions in the air, which is the creation of sound waves, thus producing the sound that we hear.

The principle of burn in has everything to do with these physical components and how they produce sound. The idea is that if you play continuous sound into the headphones over an extended period of time, the consistent movement and heat will loosen up the rigidity of the diaphragm and the inner components of the headphone.

To some, this helps performance because when the components are overly rigid, they create a harsher and less pleasing sound signature. As far as what actual sounds to use, there are varying schools of thought on the matter.

Most will say pink noise is a solid bet, but others will tell you to go with a mix of this, random sounds, and different music that will push different frequency ranges. Time is another big variable here. While the standard appears to be about 40 hours among true believers, there really is a wide range.

Some claim that you can hear a significant difference after just 10 hours, while others will swear by letting your sound roll for , or even over hours to get a desired sound! Here we see emphasized bass, fairly even mids, and high harmonic notes are a little wonky, but not unusually so. I acquired a test head and used a set of over-ear headphones to test frequency response.

First, I took a measurement at a target of 84dB SPL like normal, then I put glasses on the head like I would a human being, and measured again. So these headphones are fairly bassy pink , and said bass notes are louder than the green mids. This chart will serve as our control: what a good seal will give you. An imperfect seal on your headphones makes music sound far worse than it should. That imperfect fit dropped those bass notes down from dB below their original reading. To your ears, those notes will sound a half to one quarter as loud as they would with a perfect fit.

Keep in mind, it only takes a tiny air leak for the seal to be compromised. Control in color, variable in gray. If you look at the charts stacked on top of each other, you can see the difference more clearly.

Over time, the viscoelastic foam will stop resisting so much against the glasses and your head, bringing the sound ever closer to that control reading. This is a much larger difference in sound than 1dB here or there by alleged burn-in advocates. Instead of burning in your headphones by playing pink noise on repeat for 50 hours, just start using them like a normal person. Burn-in is pseudoscientific at best, and breaking in your ear pads is going to have a much more pronounced effect on your music—and the only way to do that is to use your headphones.

Check Price. Name: Subject: Message:. These drivers sometimes known as transducers are the same as what you find in speakers, only smaller. Their function is to take electrical energy and transform it into kinetic energy via the cone or dome of the speaker they are attached to. Once those two connection points are burned-in, they loosen and allow the driver to move in and out more freely.

The audio quality will likely be noticeably better once the burn-in process is complete, though the improvement is generally gradual. There are two accepted methods of burning-in headphones or earbuds.

Both involve sending audio to them for an extended period, with the optimal time frame being 40 hours of continuous play. The two methods are:.

Use a burn-in playlist of music and noise tracks in various frequency ranges from highest to lowest. Be sure to read the instructions at the start of the video for proper safety measures and execution of the burn-in.