Thoughts on Burn in #1

If you cruise around headphone forums enough you'll partake in many conversations about burn in. Burn in is the process of vibrating your driver with some sort of music such that the driver "breaks in" and achieves the original intended sound. Now, burn in is going to happen no matter what, it happens whenever you listen to music - this burn in I am referring to however, is the accelerated process. When I burn in a pair of headphones, I plug them into a source, play the music a little louder than I like to listen, and then leave them there for days. Currently I'm burning in my new JVCs (see the previous post) and the headphones are wrapped up in a polar fleece sock and inside a drawer to cut down on irritating noise. I use a variety of tracks for burn in including some white, pink, Brownian, and purple noise, sine wave sweeps, bass and drum heavy tracks, some solid classic rock, some classical, etc... I try to use the purpose built tracks as well as some regular listening music in a rotation to give the drivers a full work out. You will hear plenty of people say that they don't believe in burn in... Personally I am on the fence. Burn in theoretically has no negative impact so I just do it on the off chance that it will really improve sound quality. I do have a burn in example however that gives me at least some faith that increased playing time does equate to improved sound quality. I got myself and my wife a pair of PX 100s way back in the day at the same time. I used my constantly and occasionally burned them in. My wife, well, she used hers pretty minimally. Today, the headphones do not sound the same. And in my opinion, my pair sound rounder, fuller, and richer - basically I just feel like I get more out of them than she gets out of hers - more music that is. So anyways, these new JVCs are going to burn in for about 150 hours before they go off with me to Finland. Supposedly, that is about half the burn in time necessary for these to really grow and come into their own. But, last night, after writing that post, I listened to a few albums as I cleaned up the apartment and every track was a pleasant surprise. These are really good sounding headphones. Good enough that I am now looking at some of the JVC iem choices, naturally all Japanese imports!

Why does Japan get the best stuff?

I don't really have any answer to that question - just an example. Recently, I picked up a pair of JVC HA S500 headphones from ebay. These headphones are only sold in Japan - although it is pretty easy to import them from vendors on amazon and on ebay. They are actually pretty cheap - if you were in Japan, they'd only cost you around 40 bucks. Shipped to the US, they end up running around 70.

These headphones are among the first to use carbon nano tube drivers as opposed to drivers made out of materials like titanium or the like. Carbon nano tubes are super stiff and apparently they form a great foundation for a driver. I have a decently collection of portable headphones: PX 100, PX 200 ii, ATH ESW9 re-cabled with canare, and the HD 238 and I've got to say that these are maybe the best of the lot with the possible exception of the ESW9 which wins on sound-stage. The HA S500 fold up though and are pretty lightweight making them ideal for portable usage (18 hour plane flights to Finland? Hello!). They are also emminently modifable - lots of people buy either ATH pleathers/velours or the sennheiser hd-25 pads and they are direct switch outs. Some are even picking up the HM5 pad and just putting them over the stock pads creating a circum aural headphone as opposed to the stock supra aural style. They aren't really anything special to look at (if you want style and sound get v-moda) but they sound excellent and with substantial burn (on the order of hundreds, not tens, of hours) they supposedly mature into a really fine headphone. I think anyone who gets really into a hobby, wine, audio gear, backpacking equipment, fishing, whatever (it really doesn't matter) learns to appreciate a product that punches well above its price - well this is one for the headphile world. Check it out, definitely worth the money, particularly if you are already in the market for a portable and don't want to plunk down the $250 for dt1350s.

Upgraditis

I used to spend a ton of time on a variety of guitar forums, the jazz guitar forum, tdpri.com, and of course the gear page. There was a term, GAS, short for gear acquisition syndrome that came up pretty often. On head-fi.org, however, the term I see used a lot is upgraditis. I have a case of upgraditis right now for sure!

The headphone I chose to get myself going on this audio journey was the AKG k601. It is well reviewed as being a solid all rounder, particularly good at classical/jazz/acoustic types of music, is comfortable. It isn't great with rock although I wouldn't say it is bad at this. It just doesn't thump so the music is missing something. Naturally, in the last few weeks AKG have come out with a new flagship, the 65th Aniversary Edition K702. The thing looks stellar!

They are getting really solid reviews on head-fi and it seems like they would solve my bass problem but also preserve much of what I love about the k601 (mainly soundstage and imaging). Of course they are $500!! And while they probably sound better than the k601 that I have, the probably don't sound that much better... But, I will probably end up with them eventually! That is the nature of this audiophile hobby. Lots of stuff that you don't really need that you somehow figure out how to justify. Pretty fun!

Sharing the experience

Today was thanksgiving (2012) and my brother-in-law came over with his wife for dinner. Now, he's a pretty techy sort of guy and is into music, audio, speakers, etc. He's not obsessive or anything but he cares about how things sound - he's a movie producer and editor, so he has professional interest as well. I invited him to have a listen to my gear as it stands right now - nothing amazing, but certainly solid and better than any headphone jack. Now he was impressed, but not blown away and that is when I realized... you need to be a particular type of ocd to appreciate things like slight differences in sound-stage and imaging. I am a pretty detailed oriented person, but I guess I might have to find a new adjective to describe my interest in music listening. Oh well - at least there's head-fi!

We all start somewhere...

When I graduated from college, a family friend gave me a pretty good size gift certificate to amazon.com and I blew on the bose triports. This was the first substantial investment I had made in a pair of headphones and I thought they were amazing. I wore them for years and years until the leatherette on the earpads began to flake off giving me the dreaded "black dandruff." Eventually, I ended up with the px100 as my replacement, as they sounded great and were pretty cheap. I used them for a long time, then one day, I tried them against the triports. I couldn't believe how bad the triports sounded in comparison - there was no compeitition. That's when I realized that all the bose bashing on the audiophile forums was authentic. I will give comfort to the triports though, talk about a minimalistic, lightweight, and comfortable design!

Welcome to Becoming Audiophile

For a long time now, I've been into music and the gear that you use to both make and listen to music. Headphones, speakers, cables, amplifiers, stereos, subwoofers, computers, cd players, tape players, mini-disc players, DAPs, the list of audio gear goes on and on and on. And some of this stuff is expensive! Like seriously expensive - more expensive than a car, and in rare situations, even more expensive than some homes. But beginner audiophiles don't need to spend a lot, particularly if you are willing to buy used. This blog is going to focus on my own experiences researching audio gear, developing my listening setup, and my general thoughts on all things audiophilia. We are going to keep things cheap. If you are looking for reviews of $25000 cd transports, this is not the place to look. But if you are interested in a great DAC for less than $1000 or less the $500 or even less than $100 this blog should be an interesting read!