Cable Break-in....again?

If your cables require break in then I would very be suspicious of either the design or the manufacturer.

There should be absolutely no scienific reason that cables driven at normal AC current levels and made of appropriate materials, such as copper, with reasonable diameter, shielding and insulator, would change their response over time. From time to time ( over months/years ) the contacts might need cleaning (due to oxidation) but that is about it!

Anyone who designs cables that require a break in must necessarily be using some materials that are not stable or fit for purpose in either the cables or the components driving them ...in essence probably a very bad cable/system design as nobody desires that the audible output drift over time.

Anyone who claims that any of the commonly used audio cables actually requres a break in period is probably deluded....most are designed to do their job and would never be driven to the kind of extremes that would cause drifts or changes in their properties.

Phd,

A good system design should require very little break in...any design that drifts significantly over time is likely to require regular maintenance or calibration...something a good designer will try to avoid.

Fortunately regular copper speaker wire driven with normal AC audio signals and within its design tolerances is so extremely stable with time that it should far outlast everything else with no drift in properties that would affect the sound....this means that a break in is simply not required for your regular run of the mill copper speaker wire. (only a cable made from materials that were not stable over time/electrical use could conceivably require a break in period, but this would be a poorly designed cable in the first place)

Ridgestreetaudio,

Wow. That was authoritative...cable burn is real. Doesn't matter what anyone thinks...it is real, like it or not.

For the benefit of others....especially the skeptics out there.....let me play the devil's advocate a bit and challenge you a little on this.

It will give you a chance to convince others which may lead to more special cable sales ;)

So here goes...

Do you have any references or studies backing up these claims that you could share with us?

Testimonials doesn't really cut it for me when it comes to something as well studied as cables. If it is a "real phenomena" and if it makes an audible difference for some then surely the effects ought to be studied in electrical engineering somewhere; but I don't recall having seen anything. Perhaps you can point us to IEEE papers or other reputable engineering journals that have studied these effects in audio applications.

As you can see, I am more than a little skeptical. There are other skeptics out there too...

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/interconnects/speakercablebreak-in.php

I assume are we talking about the same ordinary copper wires that most people use...or are you referring to some other exotic cable conductor material that is known to be affected by AC electrical signals in the audio frequency range and therefore drifts in response and requires break-in?

If it is something exotic that drifts in properties and response under normal operating conditions then why is this material being used at all for audio applications? Surely, given alternatives, nobody would choose to use an exotic material that significantly changes properties over time, and for an application requiring accuracy and stability. This is simply poor engineering.

Like it or not, it seems this discussion thread has gone quiet.

Robert,

Apologies if I came across a bit abrupt...you are right...I see now that you were just making a comment in a light hearted way and I took it more seriously than you intended. ( I see the end of your post was a bit tongue-in-cheek ) I was just trying to get a discussion going and I can see you don't want to go there. Nevermind.

In any case, there is never much fun in taking things too seriously, which maybe I did.

I understand that the lack of anything but anecdotal evidence on the benefits of exotic speaker cables will never prevent some audiophiles from dramatically increasing enjoyment from their audio system when they install these new wires; whatever the cause, good fortune to those who do, and enjoy!