Here is my theory of burn in You listen to headphones for the first time with high expectations Not impressed Lowers expection Listen a week later Impressed
I'm sorry but anyone talking about a cable sounding brighter has lost all credibility. There are no bright or dark sounds going through that cable. Cables don't discern between electrons. Also they don't burn in. The ability to conduct electrivity is an intrinsic property of the material used in the cable and it doesn't change.
That's true. I did that with the z1r after watching your review. And yes I agree with you that the z1r extracts maximum detail, it's just that it sounded different to other headphones. Great advice. And as you mentioned in your reviews the quad era 1 sounded hot in the treble, but still for me it didn't out resolve the z1r at anything.
Electrical components can change impedence over time, although that is unlikely to effect audio quality. Maybe it could cause a down-stream effect on the amp?
I have just learnt on the Audioholics channel that every aspect of audio cables is well understood and measuarble, and that all well engineered cables are sonically indistinguishable. And they back that up with science. Here the guys tell us that cables not only sound different but also burn in - because undisclosed unobservable factors aka magic. Ok. Ah, HiFi industry.
@@mechantl0up i know this for a fact - audio engineers of this channel talk stuff they know of, and some noname guy question their authority regarding the topic. Who should i trust, hm..;))
@@mikedergalev "Audio engineers" -- you mean marketing representatives of a company selling 2000USD audio cables? And you trust in their discourse? Dammm... You know, I have a cow on sale that shits diamonds. Yes, really. Just 2000 bucks. Biology can go to hell, coz you can believe me, because I am a farmer and I sell cows for a living! So what could go wrong?? Never trust science. Trust the snake oil merchant, and you will do good in life!
When they said the cables break in over time I was confounded, but then I remembered I have the same issue at work with PCBs. We measure very low levels of current at very high voltages and after I build a PCB, enclosure, and cable it all up I throw it in the oven with high voltage and temperature being applied. I can sit there and watch the current change in real time dropping from µA down to tens of fA. I started doing this because I was at my wits end trying to make a box that measured very low levels of current and nothing I replaced fixed the issue. I figured that maybe if I throw the box in an oven to heat everything up while measuring it a clue may be revealed. I put the box in the oven and turned on the SMU at max voltage. The current started out way higher as expected, but immediately started going lower and lower- never stopping. I called over some other engineers and showed them it was dropping and we were just at a loss for explanation. Maybe it was moisture? It would probably return once it sat in environment for a while, we all thought. We let it sit over the weekend and returned to find it had dropped from µA to tens of fA. We pulled the box out of the oven and let it cool back to room temp and measured it again- still fA. Hmm- moisture must be the culprit, we thought. Lets clean everything again with IPA and RODI and see where it sits. Test again and we see a couple nA of current, so I throw in some desiccant packs to draw the moisture out and put it in the oven at 100°C and its still at nA. I put it back in the oven and apply voltage and it goes right back to fA after a short period of time. We decide that we need to just get these parts tested and confirm the value is correct with a golden unit and I leave the box in production for a few days while they complete the order. I go back to test it in production and see how much it has changed and its still in the tens of fA measurements and the noise levels are so much better than what we've seen in the past. None of the engineers, even the quantum electrical ones that are older than the sun, can explain why it works. We see the same thing on the other test boxes and try burning them in with 1100V as well and see the current dropping over time, but much more slowly. We throw them in the oven and apply voltage and they get "cleaned up" just as fast and just as well. It turns out that the cables, boxes, connectors, etc just get better when you push them to their limits. Best we can do is presume there is contamination in the material and on the surface that gets burned off, even though there shouldn't be enough energy going through anything to excite it out of the material or off the surface. So... yeah... electronics can be weird and non-intuitive even in the most basic application. I could see cables actually getting better over time by just using them, but there is no way I could explain as to how this happens because it shouldn't, per our current understanding.
Very skeptical of cable break in. I took a decent amount of physics in college and I'd be very surprised if cables changed at all or had any difference based assuming you didn't have highly contaminated metal somewhere. Only way to know for sure would to run a double-blind study with audio experts who are confident they can tell the difference.
@@michaelcorcoran8768 some of it (like cable directionality, for instance) is obviously pseudoscience. It is true that different metals have certain small physico-electrical characteristics (like resistance, for instance) but we're talking so, so minute, and I've never seen someone who claims they can tell a difference even give a convincing story about how or what they noticed. If silver behaves differently than copper, you could easily show this to people by creating long cables equal in ever way except for their core metal. You could also easily hook these up to an easy a/b rig. Any timbre change would be additive (or at least proportional) to the length of the cable. If the there is a timbre change, anyone who can hear Amp differences should be able to tell. These guys have more than enough money to do that experiment, and it would be the talk of the show at RMAF or any other audio show. I'll believe it when I hear it, or see enough people successfully identify that there is a difference, and then agree on what it is. I think when people say silver is "brighter" they're probably being influence by the visual hue of silver. It would practically be proof of God if a visually brighter metal happened to yield the sound signature we arbitrarily decided to describe as brighter (more treble)
@@olimphus26 well, not all audiophilia, I mean, different speakers, amps and dacs definitely sound different. Stands cam even make a difference but all of that makes sense mechanically. Cables? I mean maybe if you're running an analog signal hundreds of feet different metals would introduce distortion differently, but the width of a cable has as much impact on its resistance as the type of metal its made from. Honestly if people believe in cable burn in because they feel like there's a very subtle difference they're pretty sure they can hear, I'm suspicious they've really lost any ability to circumspect
Cable burn-in LOL ... I buy custom cable like Hart cables because I like the feel, quality and the convenience of being able to change connector ... I can honestly say I didn't hear any difference from switching the "standard" out of the box cable and I'm talking about LCD-4, Focal clear, Hifiman Arya ... so don't come back and say it's because the headphones aren't good enough LOL .... Your headphones are phenomenal but drop the whole cable bs.
If you play with generic cables you wont find many sonic standouts. The boss man made a 4 part video series on his journey in designing cables by JPS Labs, it’s as much an art as it is lessons in material science, 1 of 4 starts here th-cam.com/video/2YGHogsVWGk/w-d-xo.html
@@ABYSSHeadphones I'll keep an open mind. Next audio show I go to I'll bring my own cables and a set of headphone and I'll test other sets of cables but I have a hard time with this concept. My next purchase is a set of Abyss, I'm just not sure which one I want so hopefully there will be some to test there also.
Most energy the brain consumes is for inhibition of neurons. Getting used to road noise at a new house is a good example. Most break-in is us! I've AB'd old vs new identical gear, very little difference if any, especially where electronics are concerned.
they start off with break in applying to things with mechanical or moving parts, then pivot to saying cables, which have none, need 100 hours of break in to sound good
I enjoy these videos. However, when it comes to subject matter regarding audio such as “break-in” of any kind, I know I’d like to hear or see a deeper explanation of how or why things change. How are you designing cables to sound different? No offense but saying that you don’t care what others say to the contrary doesn’t lend credibility to your statements on the subject. Believe me we’re interested in hearing about these things and we’re all either customers already or potential customers. Best -
The "brain burn-in" they are talking about is pretty well documented. There are multiple components, but one of the biggest is called habituation. Habituation is when repeated exposure to a stimulus results in reduced strength of a response and it happens for all senses. There's a related phenomenon called sensory adaptation. While habituation is largely psychological, sensory adaptation is more physiological and involves the actual sensors in the eyes/ears/skin/etc, fatiguing and failing to respond to a constant stimulus over time. It's like when you go nose-blind to a certain smell or you stare at single color for a long time and then switch to the a white wall and see the ghost images.
Its wild how crazy the idea of cable burn in sounds to people who haven't heard it (like myself). One of these days I hope I get to hear headphones like yours and cables like yours over a long period of time so I can truly say I've tried it.
I experienced this when repairing my headphones. After re-soldering the wires connecting the right and left ear, the left ear was noticeably quieter, especially in the top end. After a few days the left ear returned to normal again.
How about magnets? Do magnetic fields change overtime? Does it get better?, or weaker? I’m really looking forward for your answer guys! Maybe make a video about it? . . . Thanks for the answer
My experience- whether burn in is real or not, within a certain amount time I will either like what I am hearing or I will not. Like, I have had the experience of loving a speaker or headphone for a pause of 2.5 seconds at some point while they are settling in, and then they become what they become and somewhere beyond what impressed me. Of course, objectively they may be better.
Physically, something would need to change, otherwise it’s just your brain getting used to the equipment. I really don’t know what could change in a cable over time.
Whether or no break-in is real, you should never buy a pair of headphone for what you hope they will sound like in a year. If you don't like them within the first 10 minutes, don't buy them.
I watched multiple videos of people saying burn-in isnt real but I myself experienced it, thus watching all these videos. I am in this exact situation "if you got a whole new system let it play" Nothing crazy at all just a schiit magni and modi with he4xx and between 1-2 weeks they just started to sound better and I needed to turn the dial up a bit more than at first. Something changed if not everything. I have no reason to believe there wouldn't be some kind of burn-in for any electronic device and if there's burn-in surely it has some kind of effect.
@@michealjaymurphy I put something on my head and it sounds 1 way... over the course of time it sounds different. that's an actual experience that triggered research into why my stuff sounds different. So I don't know how that's biased?
Sources: trust me Hahahah I know it's a podcast, which inherently consists just in talking, and I've really become a huge fan of you, but really appreciate if you would create more informative videos about specific topics (such as this) So maybe you could give dms something really useful to do and stop complaining Really hope to get one day to a point I'll be able to at least try a product of yours Keep it up guys!
I'm a natural skeptic. However, I can easily observe in reality that things break in mechanically and when you talking a thing that produces sound, they can sounds different to some degree. I don't even upgrade cables from what comes with my cans but I can also easily understand that the quality, thickness and type of conductor material and insulation material, even how well connector fit in socket and even poor solder joints, for example, can all have a Sonic effect. I used to not believe there was "that big" of a difference between a $100 gaming headset and let's say a $300 headphone. Then I heard it. Used to not believe dacs would be noticable different sounding or that amps only added gain and volume but couldn't possibly really sound different from one another (assuming same power and sufficient power). Then I heard it. Same with burn in.... Then I noticed a drastic bass boost burning in sundara while on my head. Couple hours in they just "released" and all the sudden had that missing bass.
My new Audio Techica MSR7b is currently sitting in my office playing on moderate volume over the weekend. For the second weekend in a row. When I get to work on monday they will have played for 150 hours in total. The improvement from the first 75 hours was very pleasing. Let me try to explain. Brand new they were too bright, and too analytical and cold-sounding. My old Beyerdynamic 770Pro 80 Ohms was way more pleasing to listen to and much more fun in the bass. After the first 75 hours they had opened up and gained better bass, but are still a bit brighter than the 770s. But now the difference was way less. They had also got a more natural sound in them, and the over-analytical nature is dialed a bit back. I now hear that they have the potential to compete with the 770s in the bass department if this trend continues. I will write back here after the second half of the 150 hour break-in is done.
I am so happy I don't believe in this bs. Imagine if you buy a PS5 and you had to play games for a couple of hundred hours for the performance to be as good as it will get. That would be the worst product ever made. How the hell can you buy a product that isn't as good as it's supposed to be when you buy it, but requires hundreds of hours to be what you paid (probably hundreds or thousands or dollars) for? Audiophiles are absurd.
And then there's the DMS Diana Phi, where it took me about 3 seconds to be totally amazed, not a week.
Fo Shizzle.
Here is my theory of burn in
You listen to headphones for the first time with high expectations
Not impressed
Lowers expection
Listen a week later
Impressed
😂😂😂😂abyss would be pissed reading this😂
I'm sorry but anyone talking about a cable sounding brighter has lost all credibility. There are no bright or dark sounds going through that cable. Cables don't discern between electrons.
Also they don't burn in. The ability to conduct electrivity is an intrinsic property of the material used in the cable and it doesn't change.
burn-in involves your brain as well, allowing it to adjust to the new sound.
That's true.
I did that with the z1r after watching your review.
And yes I agree with you that the z1r extracts maximum detail, it's just that it sounded different to other headphones.
Great advice.
And as you mentioned in your reviews the quad era 1 sounded hot in the treble, but still for me it didn't out resolve the z1r at anything.
yeah I open my skull and put a torch right in my meninges, not only my brain gets burned in but my entire CNS.
i burned my brain
when they started to talk about ccable break-in I knew it was all psychology from there
yeah that was disappointing, i almost closed the tab at that point
Electrical components can change impedence over time, although that is unlikely to effect audio quality. Maybe it could cause a down-stream effect on the amp?
I have just learnt on the Audioholics channel that every aspect of audio cables is well understood and measuarble, and that all well engineered cables are sonically indistinguishable. And they back that up with science. Here the guys tell us that cables not only sound different but also burn in - because undisclosed unobservable factors aka magic. Ok.
Ah, HiFi industry.
They know what they are talking about, and u don't. That's the difference🤗
@@mikedergalev What a bizarre reply. Who knows what about what?
@@mechantl0up i know this for a fact - audio engineers of this channel talk stuff they know of, and some noname guy question their authority regarding the topic. Who should i trust, hm..;))
@@mikedergalev "Audio engineers" -- you mean marketing representatives of a company selling 2000USD audio cables? And you trust in their discourse? Dammm... You know, I have a cow on sale that shits diamonds. Yes, really. Just 2000 bucks. Biology can go to hell, coz you can believe me, because I am a farmer and I sell cows for a living! So what could go wrong??
Never trust science. Trust the snake oil merchant, and you will do good in life!
@@mechantl0up your comparison is trash and you know it😉 science on the other hand is not a.. it's laws may become irrelevant after further research.
When they said the cables break in over time I was confounded, but then I remembered I have the same issue at work with PCBs. We measure very low levels of current at very high voltages and after I build a PCB, enclosure, and cable it all up I throw it in the oven with high voltage and temperature being applied. I can sit there and watch the current change in real time dropping from µA down to tens of fA. I started doing this because I was at my wits end trying to make a box that measured very low levels of current and nothing I replaced fixed the issue. I figured that maybe if I throw the box in an oven to heat everything up while measuring it a clue may be revealed. I put the box in the oven and turned on the SMU at max voltage. The current started out way higher as expected, but immediately started going lower and lower- never stopping. I called over some other engineers and showed them it was dropping and we were just at a loss for explanation. Maybe it was moisture? It would probably return once it sat in environment for a while, we all thought. We let it sit over the weekend and returned to find it had dropped from µA to tens of fA. We pulled the box out of the oven and let it cool back to room temp and measured it again- still fA. Hmm- moisture must be the culprit, we thought. Lets clean everything again with IPA and RODI and see where it sits. Test again and we see a couple nA of current, so I throw in some desiccant packs to draw the moisture out and put it in the oven at 100°C and its still at nA. I put it back in the oven and apply voltage and it goes right back to fA after a short period of time. We decide that we need to just get these parts tested and confirm the value is correct with a golden unit and I leave the box in production for a few days while they complete the order. I go back to test it in production and see how much it has changed and its still in the tens of fA measurements and the noise levels are so much better than what we've seen in the past. None of the engineers, even the quantum electrical ones that are older than the sun, can explain why it works. We see the same thing on the other test boxes and try burning them in with 1100V as well and see the current dropping over time, but much more slowly. We throw them in the oven and apply voltage and they get "cleaned up" just as fast and just as well. It turns out that the cables, boxes, connectors, etc just get better when you push them to their limits. Best we can do is presume there is contamination in the material and on the surface that gets burned off, even though there shouldn't be enough energy going through anything to excite it out of the material or off the surface. So... yeah... electronics can be weird and non-intuitive even in the most basic application. I could see cables actually getting better over time by just using them, but there is no way I could explain as to how this happens because it shouldn't, per our current understanding.
Very skeptical of cable break in. I took a decent amount of physics in college and I'd be very surprised if cables changed at all or had any difference based assuming you didn't have highly contaminated metal somewhere. Only way to know for sure would to run a double-blind study with audio experts who are confident they can tell the difference.
Yeah I'm not crazy about what they're saying here it sounds like pseudoscience based off what I've read.
@@michaelcorcoran8768 some of it (like cable directionality, for instance) is obviously pseudoscience. It is true that different metals have certain small physico-electrical characteristics (like resistance, for instance) but we're talking so, so minute, and I've never seen someone who claims they can tell a difference even give a convincing story about how or what they noticed.
If silver behaves differently than copper, you could easily show this to people by creating long cables equal in ever way except for their core metal. You could also easily hook these up to an easy a/b rig.
Any timbre change would be additive (or at least proportional) to the length of the cable. If the there is a timbre change, anyone who can hear Amp differences should be able to tell.
These guys have more than enough money to do that experiment, and it would be the talk of the show at RMAF or any other audio show.
I'll believe it when I hear it, or see enough people successfully identify that there is a difference, and then agree on what it is.
I think when people say silver is "brighter" they're probably being influence by the visual hue of silver. It would practically be proof of God if a visually brighter metal happened to yield the sound signature we arbitrarily decided to describe as brighter (more treble)
its pure broscience as all audiophilia is. $800 cables bruh...
@@olimphus26 well, not all audiophilia, I mean, different speakers, amps and dacs definitely sound different. Stands cam even make a difference but all of that makes sense mechanically. Cables? I mean maybe if you're running an analog signal hundreds of feet different metals would introduce distortion differently, but the width of a cable has as much impact on its resistance as the type of metal its made from. Honestly if people believe in cable burn in because they feel like there's a very subtle difference they're pretty sure they can hear, I'm suspicious they've really lost any ability to circumspect
@@fisticuf the worst part is that this is coming from people who actually make headphones and are supposed to be ''credible.''
Gotta burn those 3k USD cables in
Cable burn-in LOL ... I buy custom cable like Hart cables because I like the feel, quality and the convenience of being able to change connector ... I can honestly say I didn't hear any difference from switching the "standard" out of the box cable and I'm talking about LCD-4, Focal clear, Hifiman Arya ... so don't come back and say it's because the headphones aren't good enough LOL .... Your headphones are phenomenal but drop the whole cable bs.
If you play with generic cables you wont find many sonic standouts. The boss man made a 4 part video series on his journey in designing cables by JPS Labs, it’s as much an art as it is lessons in material science, 1 of 4 starts here th-cam.com/video/2YGHogsVWGk/w-d-xo.html
@@ABYSSHeadphones I'll keep an open mind. Next audio show I go to I'll bring my own cables and a set of headphone and I'll test other sets of cables but I have a hard time with this concept. My next purchase is a set of Abyss, I'm just not sure which one I want so hopefully there will be some to test there also.
You lost me when you said cables break in. I need to know the scientific process behind that.
Most energy the brain consumes is for inhibition of neurons. Getting used to road noise at a new house is a good example. Most break-in is us!
I've AB'd old vs new identical gear, very little difference if any, especially where electronics are concerned.
Instead of just talking about it; show us the measurements...
they start off with break in applying to things with mechanical or moving parts, then pivot to saying cables, which have none, need 100 hours of break in to sound good
I enjoy these videos. However, when it comes to subject matter regarding audio such as “break-in” of any kind, I know I’d like to hear or see a deeper explanation of how or why things change. How are you designing cables to sound different? No offense but saying that you don’t care what others say to the contrary doesn’t lend credibility to your statements on the subject.
Believe me we’re interested in hearing about these things and we’re all either customers already or potential customers.
Best -
The "brain burn-in" they are talking about is pretty well documented. There are multiple components, but one of the biggest is called habituation. Habituation is when repeated exposure to a stimulus results in reduced strength of a response and it happens for all senses. There's a related phenomenon called sensory adaptation. While habituation is largely psychological, sensory adaptation is more physiological and involves the actual sensors in the eyes/ears/skin/etc, fatiguing and failing to respond to a constant stimulus over time. It's like when you go nose-blind to a certain smell or you stare at single color for a long time and then switch to the a white wall and see the ghost images.
i get an electro-mechanical system breaking in, but a cable? y'all need to explain how that works.
Its wild how crazy the idea of cable burn in sounds to people who haven't heard it (like myself). One of these days I hope I get to hear headphones like yours and cables like yours over a long period of time so I can truly say I've tried it.
I experienced this when repairing my headphones. After re-soldering the wires connecting the right and left ear, the left ear was noticeably quieter, especially in the top end. After a few days the left ear returned to normal again.
Very subjective. Hash out computer-generated frequency response graphs then we'll talk
How about magnets?
Do magnetic fields change overtime?
Does it get better?, or weaker?
I’m really looking forward for your answer guys!
Maybe make a video about it?
.
.
.
Thanks for the answer
The magnetic field stays quite constant.
Headphones do not have moving magnetic fields, they are static, same as the earth's magnetic field.
My experience- whether burn in is real or not, within a certain amount time I will either like what I am hearing or I will not. Like, I have had the experience of loving a speaker or headphone for a pause of 2.5 seconds at some point while they are settling in, and then they become what they become and somewhere beyond what impressed me. Of course, objectively they may be better.
One thing that is certain: The idea of burn-in reduces returns/refunds and thus is great for people trying to sell headphones..
I thought this video is about the scientific proof that burn-in exists. Instead, it's just them being like I'M TELLING YOU.
My wife Burn in my Headphones just by looking them ... FACT
I really enjoyed this discussion.
What changes in a cable over time as music plays? Or, is it that the physical materials age, which causes sonic differences
Physically, something would need to change, otherwise it’s just your brain getting used to the equipment. I really don’t know what could change in a cable over time.
Nothing; cable break in is total bullshit.
cables change? wow, good to know.
Whether or no break-in is real, you should never buy a pair of headphone for what you hope they will sound like in a year. If you don't like them within the first 10 minutes, don't buy them.
How do you design a cable to sound a certain way?
You tell the customer what to expect
I watched multiple videos of people saying burn-in isnt real but I myself experienced it, thus watching all these videos. I am in this exact situation "if you got a whole new system let it play" Nothing crazy at all just a schiit magni and modi with he4xx and between 1-2 weeks they just started to sound better and I needed to turn the dial up a bit more than at first. Something changed if not everything. I have no reason to believe there wouldn't be some kind of burn-in for any electronic device and if there's burn-in surely it has some kind of effect.
you dont think you could be biased
@@michealjaymurphy I put something on my head and it sounds 1 way... over the course of time it sounds different. that's an actual experience that triggered research into why my stuff sounds different. So I don't know how that's biased?
@@nukert658 It's biased because you are assuming your different experience is related to the hardware and not your own brain
Hello Joe and team, who won the rack, was it ever announced?
One of the best TH-cam channels
rock on
Sources: trust me
Hahahah
I know it's a podcast, which inherently consists just in talking, and I've really become a huge fan of you, but really appreciate if you would create more informative videos about specific topics (such as this)
So maybe you could give dms something really useful to do and stop complaining
Really hope to get one day to a point I'll be able to at least try a product of yours
Keep it up guys!
So much talk for something that could be easily shown with a frequency response graph if it actually existed
Actually the FR will show increased bass extension with most types of speaker drivers. Other factors are not so easily seen in measurements.
I'm a natural skeptic. However, I can easily observe in reality that things break in mechanically and when you talking a thing that produces sound, they can sounds different to some degree. I don't even upgrade cables from what comes with my cans but I can also easily understand that the quality, thickness and type of conductor material and insulation material, even how well connector fit in socket and even poor solder joints, for example, can all have a Sonic effect.
I used to not believe there was "that big" of a difference between a $100 gaming headset and let's say a $300 headphone. Then I heard it. Used to not believe dacs would be noticable different sounding or that amps only added gain and volume but couldn't possibly really sound different from one another (assuming same power and sufficient power). Then I heard it. Same with burn in.... Then I noticed a drastic bass boost burning in sundara while on my head. Couple hours in they just "released" and all the sudden had that missing bass.
My new Audio Techica MSR7b is currently sitting in my office playing on moderate volume over the weekend. For the second weekend in a row. When I get to work on monday they will have played for 150 hours in total. The improvement from the first 75 hours was very pleasing. Let me try to explain. Brand new they were too bright, and too analytical and cold-sounding. My old Beyerdynamic 770Pro 80 Ohms was way more pleasing to listen to and much more fun in the bass. After the first 75 hours they had opened up and gained better bass, but are still a bit brighter than the 770s. But now the difference was way less. They had also got a more natural sound in them, and the over-analytical nature is dialed a bit back. I now hear that they have the potential to compete with the 770s in the bass department if this trend continues. I will write back here after the second half of the 150 hour break-in is done.
I wondered this about planars...Good to now know.
I am so happy I don't believe in this bs. Imagine if you buy a PS5 and you had to play games for a couple of hundred hours for the performance to be as good as it will get.
That would be the worst product ever made. How the hell can you buy a product that isn't as good as it's supposed to be when you buy it, but requires hundreds of hours to be what you paid (probably hundreds or thousands or dollars) for?
Audiophiles are absurd.
Tales from the audiofool-lala-land. break in only exists in your brain.
Our brain has everything to do with imaging, spatial cues, and soundstage, all things we can't measure.