They sound awesome, but the booklet doesn't say anything about breaking them in. How many hours and how loud? So far, these are the best earbuds I've had. I also have a pair of $800 Sony headphones, but they are big and not very portable like the earbuds.

Thanks!

 

$400 earphones? wow.

 

Just listen to them. They'll break in when they break in --- if they need it.

 

Hmmm... my Spider Sense is tingling....

 

It's probably your eardrums tingling from listening with $400 earbuds.

 

why in gods name would you pay 400 bucks for headphones, much less 800 for any sony product

 

lol no kidding :S

what is this some crazy bose earphones? O.o

 

I had a pair of Shure E2C's for the longest time, which where something like $150 or $200. They were replaced by a pair of $20 Sony or Philips, can't remember.

Huge difference in terms of feel and performance. The Target special is more or less unusable. They don't fit (fall out, don't seal out noise), they aren't comfortable, and the only thing worse is the earbuds you get with an iPod in terms of sound.

As for breakin... just don't go crazy on the volume for the first 50 hours or so. I didn't notice any difference burning in my E2Cs (just stuck up on an FM radio for 2 days) the Target specials were best brand new and continue to go down hill. After 4 months of light use what pathetically little treble there was barely comes through any long.

 

find a white noise track and burn them in over an afternoon.

consider going to an audiologist and getting some custom molds made.
along with improving the isolation, the bass response improves too.

 

can someone say FAT markup..