Breaking in power cords

Fatparrot's suggestion to use one of those little "ceramic" space heaters should work great. On low power, they pull about 750 watts and on high power, most are up around 1250 - 1500 watts of draw. This is steady state draw too, so there is a lot of thermal stress on the dielectric of the cord. On the other hand, the in-rush current of a refrigerator is VERY high, especially on older models. The steady state current draw might not be as high, but the constant cycling of the refrigerator may work to one's benefit too. Both are good candidates and much better than light bulbs, computers and other devices that aren't real high in current draw. Then again, i suppose that something is better than nothing, but at that rate, i'd just use it on my amp and be done with it. Sean
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Warren: I too noticed that we agreed on something. It is nto the first time and i'm sure that it won't be the last : )

Cooking an interconnect regardless of how many hours of actual use it has on it will typically improve the performance of the cable in my experience. I say that with some hesitancy as some cables supposedly respond poorly to cooking, but i think that this is more of a problem with the type of cooker used and the length it is used for.

Even after cooking the cable and placing it into the system, i find that a good dose of the Ayre Acoustics disc track 7 placed on repeat for a few days can push things just a bit further. Obviously, one can use the system as desired and just place the disc on repeat when not listening.

If i was doing interconnects, this is the approach that i would use. I have used it many times with excellent results. The difference in before and after is quite noticeable. Sean
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Warren: "overcooking" an IC has more to do with the improper design of the cooker being used, not so much the length of cooking. A simple test would be to cook the cable for a period of time and then pull it and listen. Typical signs of "over-cooking" are a dulling of high frequencies and flatness of presentation. The cable will return to normal, but may do so only after an extended period of normal use. Cables that make use of lower grade and / or higher quantities of dielectrics need to cook longer than cables using very little or very high grade dielectrics.

Mwilson: While you bring up a valid point, my experience is that playing back this disc actually improves the sound of the deck being used too. If you read some of my other posts, you'll see that i've "broken in" many a machine in this manner. In fact, i did this with one machine that was known for breakdowns and it lasted longer than most of the others of the same vintage before developing problems. Sean
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One should be careful with what they try to hook up an "audiophile grade" power cord to when connecting it to something other than an audio component. Some of these very expensive cables aren't capable of passing more than a few hundred watts of power on a steady state basis. Rather than "breaking in" your power cord, you could "burn it up" literally. Check with the manufacturer as to how much current it can pass safely before making a costly mistake, either buying it or damaging it trying to "make it better". Sean
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One would think so, but there are "audiophile grade" power cords that cost hundreds of dollars that will shrivel up and die if used with such a load. Sean
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This is a good question. I have no doubt in my mind that "most" interconnects and speaker cables undergo some type of sonic change after being exposed to specific electrical stimuli for a given period of time. I don't know if i really believe this about power cords or not.

Most all of the power cords that i've ever purchased were used and / or new and had high amperage pulled through them right away. As i've stated before though, power cords don't make that much of a sonic difference IF the AC coming into the power cord is clean and the power supply in the component that it is connected to is properly designed. All of my AC is filtered before getting to the outlet and the power supplies have been upgraded.

With that in mind, my main concerns are reducing the potential for the PC to act as an antenna for RFI and making sure that the PC doesn't mechanically transfer vibration / resonance into the gear itself. This can happen if the PC itself is too rigid and / or arranged in a position that helps it to pick-up air-borne vibrations.

Some power cables are so rigid that you can literally feel the beat of the music in the PC and / or the component itself from the speakers resonating the PC. As i've mentioned before, i've had power cords that when you "knock" on one end, you can very clearly hear acoustic output being radiated at the other end. This is not good.

I actually measured increases in the noise floor of a component when varying the amount of vibration that it was exposed to via the power cord. Changing the amount of mechanical damping within the unit itself and / or the PC feeding it corrected this problem. From this one instance, i learned that rigidity with a lack of mechanical damping is not a desirable trait when it comes to a PC. Sean
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