“We do not consider 'burn in' an issue. When our loudspeakers leave the factory they are in perfect working order and their performance will not change over time unless they are not cared for or get very old.
I think 'burn in' was probably invented by hi-fi dealers so that when they sell a cable for 500 euros and the customer complains he can't hear any difference the dealer can tell them it needs 'burning in'. After the customer has waited for two weeks for the cable to 'burn in' he has forgotten how his system sounded in the first place and can't be bothered to complain again.”
Well this is from ATC whom you regarded as having long burn in time and sounded significantly different... unless you tell me all their guys in developing isn't having as good a ear as you guys who can hear the effect, why do you think they can design such great drivers and test to verify? if you think measurements don't represent anything they should be able to use their ears to create those great drivers no?
for Human illusion of burn in I can give you a few opinions on my side for explaination:
1) You adapted and self filtered the sound: as one could adapt to living near the railroad and have some nice sleep, your brain did those filtering for the "annoying" part of the sound the same speaker playing the same tracks over and over, and that makes it sounded better and improved, much like how a lot of weird looking cars got the feel of "man, that's UGLY" when first released, but then after 5-6 years you adapted to the design and it looks more acceptable or even nice on street, how a car looked definitly won't change sens the paint degradation, unless you keep on crashing it to something I believe.
2) Confirmation Bias: we all tend to have this somehow, like when you feel your fridge is sounding funny, your car having some crackling sound which isn't heard before, one would search for signs or google stuffs that told you it's ok, nothing to worry about and feels better, until it finally breaks.
In normal life we can try our best to overcome this by looking for data and measurements, cause electronic equipments don't have confirmation bias as us living human do, if the measurements confirms what you think you're likely right, if objective data shows it's not what you think, it's more likely an illusion. that's how science comes to prove and disprove. Audio is tricky as how sound is perceived changes with mental and health condition severely, I still remember once I suddenly feel my getting used to headphone/speaker suddenly sounded very harsh and bass light, ended up I took a thermometer and I was having fever which I don't feel it... and when you think it does burn in, you will look for it every time passed, or when you changed to a new pair of the same speaker, think it must sound crap and need another few months to burn in before sounding great, in those cases your brain will focus on finding the annoying part of the sound which is always there but ignored previously.
sound is sometimes like a grassfield, that squirrel is always there but most of the time when you just glance at it you wont notice it, unless you try hard to find it, or same as how ppl keep seeing clouds mimicking Jesus or Devil or so, when you wanted to look for something, our brain is good at self convincing it is there. as for how a lot of ppl believe and experienced the break in... you can also go to search for flat earthers, you will be surprised how many ppl believe you will sail off the edge of the world
Last edited:
