So...Do You Need to "Break In" Headphones?

[dboomer]

I would think you need to take into consideration whether you are hearing from an engineer is the “stereophile” business or in the “live sound” business as I’m guessing they have different points of view going in.

 

There is no doubt that almost without exception transducers change after some time has been spent flexing their surrounds.  The question is does that make a discernible  difference to a listener?  And does that even matter?  Because your hearing perception changes quickly with ever one degree of difference in ambient temperature and humidity. 

[Joe Muscara]

1 hour ago, Anderton said:

then I'd open the battery compartment to see whether it had the batteries it shipped with (the older pair has had the batteries replaced). If I heard the artifacts I heard originally, and the batteries where the ones that came with the headphones

Wait - the headphones have different batteries? Aren't you guitar players always talking about how the batteries affect the sound of your pedals?

 

I want to make more jokes about that but I'm thinking about whether the batteries might actually affect the sound.  

 

Yeah, it depends. In all seriousness I do find it an interesting subject but I wonder if we'll ever have a definitive answer.

[Anderton]

22 minutes ago, Joe Muscara said:

I want to make more jokes about that but I'm thinking about whether the batteries might actually affect the sound.  

 

Amazingly, I remember that whole Eric Johnson "batteries-make-a-difference controversy" came out. As it turns out, this is another one of those "in some cases..."  Older 9V carbon-zinc batteries have an internal resistance of about 35 ohms, while 9V alkaline batteries have an internal resistance of 1 to 2 ohms. Apparently, in something like a wah-wah pedal with poor supply rejection and isolation, this could make a difference in the sound because the gain structure changed somewhat depending on the battery's internal resistance. Go figure.

 

Back to speakers. I contacted an industry veteran who's been involved in engineering and manufacturing speakers for decades. He said that it's common to burn in electronics, but burning in drivers is a long process that's not conducive to efficient manufacturing. He says driver burn-in does make a difference, but the companies that do it are mostly involved in high cost/low quantity speaker manufacturing. He didn't have an answer about headphones, that's not his thing