Cable Break In for the Naysayers

@classicrockfan - The fallacy in your argument is that if cable break-in is real the marketing around cable break-in absolutely would make sense. Because of this, I don’t consider this a compelling argument.

i would like to see a system setup with identical sources feeding a preamplifier. Then the goal would be to utilize two identical interconnects from the sources that had exactly the same time on them. If the listeners could agree that they sounded identical then on could be swapped with a new one and then any difference could only be attributed to break-in. 

@raam 

That's good- thanks for sharing that. I would love it if you could post that at ASR, and see what kind of negative reactions come your way 😁

Not sure I have written about this here but I have plenty of experience in test gear use as spent 20 years in the US Navy as first a Data Systems Tech then it was merged with Fire Control Tech and re-titled that. The most complex gear I worked on, one out of two left still in use, no training on it, cannot say to much but it had a large number of critical circuits that the block diagram was 20 pages long. The most important aspect took 4 scope probes to look at and if dialed in according to specs which was very difficult and hugely time consuming to do, the whole system did not work well and it was absolutely critical to the operation of the whole battle group. What did work, tuning it by ear, then it was so good we broke ever record of reliability by a far margin. 

I recently took a look at some rather good threads on that site and found there are those that are far more open minded than I thought would be the case. Of course there are those that are very closed minded as well. I believe all things are possible unless proven otherwise and then that is only until someone comes along and figures it out.

The gear I worked on took a great deal less time to make it work well beyond original specification tuning by ear even though it would not pass inspection going by the "book". I was flown around the battle group a few times, while at sea, to take a look at other ships newer versions systems which were much smaller and even some were tiny in physical comparison and had few if anyway to tune them though they met specs....best I could advise was retuning couplers, which other techs said were in tune, sometimes that improved things and my advice was from listening to the signal, not using a scope, etc. I used to get in quite the heated debates over this but when we set records so high we had a high level week long all they way up the chain investigation, VERY high level, that we came out great in...just saying, our ears can be quite the judge:)

Not sure I will post this stuff on ASR but anyone wanting to quote me by all means do so.

Rick

HMO....I still find it hard to conceptualize that, in ’turning’ any cable ’180’ would make it perform like a resistor....or a diode.

If such Is the case...something is wrong, and one is paying exorbitant amounts to be romanced into a flaw.

OFC 100% copper, silver, platinum, or even gold may exhibit ’subtle’ differences 'between themselves..in both ’directions’ they ought to ’play alike’.

Granted, I’m not ’gifted’ with perfect pitch hearing, nor the ultra-SOTA means to allow to A/B these items....but, then again, I’m cynic enough over a myriad of more plebian concerns to not lose sleep or my ’waters’ over this...

Call me irresponsible....or any vegetable for that matter... ;)

But in the latter, I will respond to You... ;) 😏

My only experience in turning a cable 180 degrees, the only one I have done and it was an error, not an experiment, was using Star Quad DIY cables, of which I always make up and use. I attach the shield at the input end and cut it back and tuck it into the jacket at the receiving end, the idea being any noise picked up goes back to ground at the equipment up instead of down the chain of gear. That made sense when it was suggested to me and what I always practice and never have noticeable noise in my systems. I cannot say I ever noticed a change swapping it back to the right orientation but that might of been so, it has been well over 20 years ago.

If a cable is specifically designed to go one way then I would just use it as such, if not I would have to hear it in person to agree it made a difference which ever way it was installed. Not saying I do not believe it would or not, I just do not know.