I use XLR on everything that I can and on the few RCA cables the are marked for direction so that's how I put them,breaking period is a real thing that I have experienced over the years with anything in the electrical path.What cracks me up the ones who disagree with break in period the will take a cable or a fuse to a friends and pop it in and can't hear any difference.I had 2 different cables that I had been swapping out so they both were broken in which they sounded pretty good so after about a half year or so latter I did the swap and the cable that sat for that period didn't even come close to the one in use because it need to be broken in again.One of the You Tubers said he will put in a new power cord and if he hears no difference so he pulls it right out,but his friends who bring them over have had it broken in in their system and hear the difference.Fuse break in differs with going from orange to purple in pre and phono amps at first didn't sound as good as a broken in orange but a couple weeks of normal listening big difference in sound so I did the same swap with my mono amps nothing sounded better so I switch directions on both figuring they need break in time but was I wrong it was a wow moment everything sounded a lot better but the highs still needed a little more time but they got there.Break in on electronics and anything in it path on my system is real and on my fuses which I doubted directional did make a big difference and amps fuses break in faster then other equipment.
