Cable 'Burn In'.

[Effem]

A silver cable my sound thin,brittel or even a little animic when green but should not distort or become unintelligible,That sounds like a sheild crossing the signal or return to me.A copper sheild crossing a termanel will do what you discribed.


I did find this to be good reading and supports Mikes current veiw,I really like the bit at the end.


http://www.audioholics.com/education...-psychological



I think this would cover both cables and capacitors during a break in prosess,but capacitors can show a very radical change unlike any audio cable I have heard.
I do feel there is a very small differance between a green and a seasoned cable the biggest differance may not be a change in scale,dynamics or bass but ease of presentation and they do become somewhat less forward sounding.It could be in my head but I like to think there is still some bit of undiscovered majic in the world.Remember it's all majic till sience figures it out.I really think at the end of the day it dosen't really matter at all if you like your cables.

This is intresting http://www.morrowaudio.com/breakin_2.html

Who the hell would wait nearly 17 days of playing music 24 hours a day to decide if they like there cables?
400 hours of break in,If you listened to music 2 hours a day on avrage it would take 200 days or 3/4 of a year!
I belive we should all demand a 1 year return policy based on manifactures own claims or tell them to burn them in for free before delivery.
How menny people would get fully burned in cables do you think, if this was requred by all cable salesmen?

Fine if it was silver, fine if it had a shield, but this is a bog standard freebie mains "kettle lead"

The longest burn in period I have experienced is around 10 hours for a solid core silver speaker cable, with the greatest majority of that happening within an hour on an exponential level.

[DSJR]

Every so often, unplug everything and plug it all back in - lo and behold, your wires will need "burning in" all over again...

[John]

How about a simple test to find out same interconect one pair really burned in the other not burnt in and then listen
I certainly believe in equipment burn in, as for cable burn I just do not know one way or the other

[YNWaN]

In my experience, cable 'burn in' does not exist. However, peoples perception filter certainly does 'burn in'.

A little while ago a novice to the world of hi-fi (a journeyman if you will) visited me and listened to my system. After a few sides he said "oh, it sounds better now that the amps have warmed up"; in actual fact it didn't sound any different (the amps are never turned off) - he had just relaxed a bit more.

[Steve Toy]

The test is burnt-in versus non-burnt-in. Quick A/B comparisons. Leave the virgin cable a while to be deflowered and recommence.

This should iron out a bit of expectation bias.

[YNWaN]

Yes, a reasonable suggestion.

[Ali Tait]

In my experience, cable 'burn in' does not exist. However, peoples perception filter certainly does 'burn in'.

A little while ago a novice to the world of hi-fi (a journeyman if you will) visited me and listened to my system. After a few sides he said "oh, it sounds better now that the amps have warmed up"; in actual fact it didn't sound any different (the amps are never turned off) - he had just relaxed a bit more.

Interesting.Speaking for myself,I have no doubt that any valve amp I've heard switched on from cold improves over the first 20 mins to an hour.Maybe it's me that's warming up then.

[Effem]

Cable burn in does exist but not to each and every cable out there.

My experience says it is predominantly pure silver cables that have a short and exponential burn in rate, with the greater percentage of the process contained within 10 hours or less then a tailing off to miniscule perception rates for another 10 which are very hard to detect.

I have around a dozen or so all copper and copper/silver plated cables that have never shown any signs of burn in.

As for people saying they need 100+ hours then that really is a crock of sh*t

[DSJR]

Equipment from cold is a different matter and it depends on the design I think.. A Quad 33/303 was tested and shown to take 15 minutes from cold before settling fully down (I suspect the 303 mainly from my experience) and that was forty years ago, my AVI stuff was "there" withing a couple of minutes. The Crowns don't need warm-up, yet both Quad 405-2's I owned (both fully serviced) needed seven to eight hours from switch-on to lose a slight "sting" in the sound. Older multi-bit CD players need a couple of hours at least and many prefer to be left on 24/7 if at al possible.

[John]

Hi Frank
I use 99.99% silver and must admit in my system this does not happen