Headphone Burn-In

[calaverasgrandes]

Hey Syngriner,

What do you think of your ATH-M50s? I just bought a pair, but haven't listen to them much at all yet. With the quick listen I did, I found them to be the brightest compared to the 3 others I own (Sony MDR-7505, AKG K 240, Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro) and brighter than I remember the Sennheiser HD 280 Pros I used to have. Strongest bass too I think...

Weird I find Sonys to be on one side and Beyer and AKG to be on the other when it comes to bright/warm.

[casey campbell]

I've always thought burn in makes sense for speakers. But its way too easy for what folks attribute to burn in to be just plain old psychoacoustics.
Stop me if this has never happened to you. You are working on a song. It sounds rough at first but after dubbing some slide whistle and sousaphone the groove starts to shape up. You think you have it nailed until ____ walks into the room and says "whats this S**cunt?" and proceeds to kick the crap out of your tune. Which you now realize is crap.
My point, you learn to love stuff if you listen to it (through it) enough.
C'mon we have all eq-ed the wrong channel and "heard" it before right?
If we think break in works or is needed for pistonic systems like headphones, what about microphones? subject them to 120db of pinknoise for 20 hours?

ha ha. this reminds me of a mastering session i was doing for someone quite recently. i remarked how the song could use a little help in the mids. i brought up my eq and added about 1.5db, to which everyone in the room remarked how it totally changed the tune for the better. i looked and the eq was bypassed!

[cfMC]

placebo effect has recently been proven to cure stuff even when people are explained to up front that it is a placebo and what a placebo is

I recently got a pair of those ATH MD50s and they are by far the best I ever had. & made me glad cause my mixes still sound great and better, & not suddenly like dogshit thank god