The Headphone Myth, another look at "Breaking in the Headphones".
Posted by Kay Stanford Jr Kastum at 1:43 AMToday there is a huge selection of high end headphones including Sennheiser's models hd 600, hd650 and hd 800. As well there are high end headphones from Bose, AKG, Denon, Grado and Sony. The up level headphones seem to have a particular sound quality that varies, and this is why the issue of burning in the headphones comes up when some is looking to get high quality phones but not is not quite sure if they will live up to their name.
Please do not be worried the headphone break in period is a norm, and many experienced users will tell you this up front.
In this post I want to add another possible reason for the break in period which has to do with our mind and the way it works. When you start listening, the plastic cones inside the headphones vibrate and send the sound to your ears where it is received and transmitted to the brain. Your brain is the sorter of information it processes sounds and assigns emotions, pictures and anticipations to them. When the sound comes out it is received by our brain, the brain then uses this sound as an input to build a linear perception which we call music . This is all done unconsciously with an absolutely astonishing speed , and the reason you never notice is because it has being a part of you since birth and you're just used to it.
The explanation for burn in period may be as follows. The sound is a tiny bit different from your new headphones and that makes input into your brain different as well. Although a little but different should not be a problem, for the brain a little different is completely not the same. Your asking your mind to build music ( pictures, feelings, anticipations) into your conscious mind with a completely different input. Simply the brain can't do a perfect job just because the reference ( the sound from the headphones) is not the same. This is the reason why you ( the consciousness) claims that the music does not sound good, yet in reality your unconscious mind simply does understand the input and cannot build music into conscious mind so that you enjoy and receive pleasant feelings.
How then the break period can be explained ?
Well on the demand of you the conscious brain pushes the unconscious mind to try to reassign its references to the new sound. It is done between the conscious and the unconscious mind without you noticing. The mind goes through a process, which involves the unconscious mind sending ( feelings, pictures, anticipations) to the conscious while the conscious denies or accepts the particular feeling, picture or anticipation which we call music. After this process repeats a couple hundred thousand times , your headphones start to sound much better even better than the old ones.
Can you guess why?
Essentially your mind has changed its reference (old sound) from the previous headphones, to the new sound from the new headphones. Of course you will say the new ones sound better because your unconscious mind completely reassigned the input(sound) to output(music) for your new headphones.
This is why the high end headphones need a break in period, they are that good. Just to remember there are a number of brands that make high end headphones such as Denon, AKG, BOSE, Grado and Sennheiser. Please see resource box for a link to a Sennheiser hd 650 review.
Please do not be worried the headphone break in period is a norm, and many experienced users will tell you this up front.
In this post I want to add another possible reason for the break in period which has to do with our mind and the way it works. When you start listening, the plastic cones inside the headphones vibrate and send the sound to your ears where it is received and transmitted to the brain. Your brain is the sorter of information it processes sounds and assigns emotions, pictures and anticipations to them. When the sound comes out it is received by our brain, the brain then uses this sound as an input to build a linear perception which we call music . This is all done unconsciously with an absolutely astonishing speed , and the reason you never notice is because it has being a part of you since birth and you're just used to it.
The explanation for burn in period may be as follows. The sound is a tiny bit different from your new headphones and that makes input into your brain different as well. Although a little but different should not be a problem, for the brain a little different is completely not the same. Your asking your mind to build music ( pictures, feelings, anticipations) into your conscious mind with a completely different input. Simply the brain can't do a perfect job just because the reference ( the sound from the headphones) is not the same. This is the reason why you ( the consciousness) claims that the music does not sound good, yet in reality your unconscious mind simply does understand the input and cannot build music into conscious mind so that you enjoy and receive pleasant feelings.
How then the break period can be explained ?
Well on the demand of you the conscious brain pushes the unconscious mind to try to reassign its references to the new sound. It is done between the conscious and the unconscious mind without you noticing. The mind goes through a process, which involves the unconscious mind sending ( feelings, pictures, anticipations) to the conscious while the conscious denies or accepts the particular feeling, picture or anticipation which we call music. After this process repeats a couple hundred thousand times , your headphones start to sound much better even better than the old ones.
Can you guess why?
Essentially your mind has changed its reference (old sound) from the previous headphones, to the new sound from the new headphones. Of course you will say the new ones sound better because your unconscious mind completely reassigned the input(sound) to output(music) for your new headphones.
This is why the high end headphones need a break in period, they are that good. Just to remember there are a number of brands that make high end headphones such as Denon, AKG, BOSE, Grado and Sennheiser. Please see resource box for a link to a Sennheiser hd 650 review.