I agree, this is a main reason also. A sound signature can grow on someone making them believe it got burned in.

Thank you for reading my post/comment correctly, or guess I need to improve my delivery.

Either way, I'm starting to regret discussing on reddit. I think I'll stick with Quora, its more suitable for me.

It is a factor.

Correct thats the point, pad wear could be mistaken for burn-in, this is exactly what I'm trying to say.

Hahaha you got it! but I didn't want to rename pad wear, I wanted to make it as a causative factor.

There is circumstances where it is noticeable, say for example when the treble is too harsh it hurts. I was able to notice the pain fading as the treble got smoothed with time. Or in a non-gradual A B testing old/new pads. But for headphones with balanced RF I didn't notice the change.

I wasn't referring to sound changing with pad wear as a theory, instead I was referring to the link between pad wear and burn-in. To rephrase and make what I meant clearer, I was trying to find why burn-in exist and presented my opinion as a "theory".

I see, I want to hear your opinion on this then, how did "burn-in" ideology came to be?

Perceived burn-in is the keyword. In other words, pad wear is perceived as burn-in.

Found it, yeah these measurements I was referring too. And as you mentioned when using the new pads the sound is subjectivity worse, I agree this is my experience also.