Burn-in is for your brain, not your headphones

A core tenet of audiophile folklore is “burn-in”, the idea that headphones, speakers, and other audio equipment benefits from a period of time (usually measured in days or weeks) where you just…play things through it.

Depending on which acolyte is describing the ritual, you may be advised to play pink noise, white noise, or even a playlist of your usual listening material. Do it loudly, 24/7, for the prescribed period of time (often the length of your return window), and your equipment is meant to reveal its true colours, sounding better than when you got it. The idea is to let the drivers, membranes, cabinets, wiring, and other components limber up for a rewarding career playing sounds for you.

While I’ve seen no evidence to suggest “burning in” a pair of headphones results in any effects that are audible to human beings, I appreciate the charming “empathy for the machine” (to paraphrase John Siracusa) that this process implies. And I understand the set-it-and-forget-it appeal of the idea. Unfortunately, you have to be involved in the evaluation process for it to have any hope of reaching a useful verdict.

Like most folklore, though, this concept has a thread of truth woven through it. But your attention is being misdirected; it's your brain that needs “burning in”, not the headphones.

How to test new headphones (the right way)

It takes time to get used to the differences between the sound of your new headphones and the template for “correctness” that your brain has established.

That template is generally based on whatever you’ve listened to most often or most recently, biased by your personal preferences and hearing health. In other words, your first impressions of a pair of headphones are mostly useful to determine whether the new thing is meaningfully different than what you’re used to. They rarely give you an accurate perspective on whether it’s better or worse.

To navigate this “brain burn-in” process successfully, my advice is to do two things (I’m using headphones as my example but the same applies for earbuds, speakers, etc.):

1. Do a loudness-matched A/B test to gather first impressions.
2. Listen to nothing but the new thing for a week or so, then do another A/B test.

Our brains are terrible at remembering audio nuances over time, so to get any value out of a comparison you’ll need to be able to swap back and forth between both pairs in the same listening session.

I play the same track in parallel on two separate source devices, with each pair of headphones connected to one of the devices so I can switch back and forth live. Do your best to match the perceived loudness. This is important because, given two streams of audio, our brains will prefer the louder one, regardless of other characteristics. This is true even if the difference is less than a single decibel.

Putting the volume slider in the same place on both sources will not result in equivalent loudness. This is because different headphones respond to a source signal in different ways depending on how they’re designed. Instead, play a white noise track and use your ears to get things sounding equally loud between the two pairs. You’re not going to get the loudness matching perfect without measuring equipment, but it’ll be better than not trying at all.

Once the volumes are dialled in as best as you can manage, start testing with your music. Ideally, the new headphones you’re testing are noticeably better than the old, even when they’re played more quietly. If that’s not clearly the case, you probably shouldn’t bother upgrading.

The more familiar you are with your test tunes, the easier it will be to notice differences in how the headphones depict the music. I also find it helpful to mix in new music, because the brain tends to favour what it's used to. With fresh music in the mix, I don't know what to expect, so I can focus purely on the differences in how the headphones render things.

After this first round of loudness-matched A/B testing, set aside at least a few days where you only use your new headphones/speakers/whatever when listening to things. Leave your old stuff in a drawer for a week. Then go back to it (using the same approach as in step 1) and make note of what stands out to you.

If your general reaction to the old headphones is “oh, that sounds worse” then congratulations! You’ve made a successful upgrade. If not, you should probably try something else.

A worthy hassle

I know this seems like a pain.

Unfortunately, it’s the only way to make a useful evaluation of sonic differences. Not giving your brain this opportunity means you’ll be making your purchase decision based more on vibes or other factors, like looks, than sonic differences. Which is totally fine, but don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.

So the next time you’re buying a new pair of headphones, speakers, or IEMs, try this approach out. And while you're shopping around, be wary of reviews giving you comparisons between pairs of headphones that weren’t present for that specific round of testing.

If nothing else, I find the hassle to be worth it because overcoming your brain’s inherent biases can save you a ton of money on audio equipment. By making it obvious how steep the ladder of diminishing returns really is, you may find yourself more reluctant to spend money climbing its steps.

Of course, if you love audio—like I certainly do—you might be inclined to stop in a different spot on the ladder than someone who doesn’t really care about this stuff. But even so, the audiophile world is absolutely steeped in snake oil so it’s worth being careful with your hard-earned money.