Earphones...

Do they need "breaking-in" like other stereo equipement? I have recently bought a number of new MP3 players* and earphones (3 sets of earphones in total), and the moment I've got them out of the box and used them, they've sounded complete crap, lacking bass, was too much treble, and no depth. And compared to my 9 month old pair of ipod earphones, they've all sounded crap... yet a new pair that I've had around a month now, have started sounding much better than they did previously... is this because I've been using them more? or are the other new ones worse? All the brand new earphones have sounded much worse in comparison... do they need breaking in? Are the free earphones / cheap earphones generally always crap?

* just got the new Creative Zen Stone Plus 2gb MP3 Player and have written about it on the joshwaller.co.uk blog.

Creative Zen Stone

A cute 1gb mp3 player for £27 - (compares favourably to the £55 apple want for their cheapest player) - and it's small enough that you can use it as a keyring / keychain! details here. I want one now. Anyone want to buy a 30gb ipod?