Cable Break In for the Naysayers

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.

I make DIY "cores" applied at strategic positions on my vintage Western Electric cloth wire speaker cables to manage "treble noise." The core is not ferrite but is instead a ring of beads made of girasol quartz. It is astonishing what a difference in sound they can make which would seem to indeed suggest that what runs down the wires is not just internal to the wires.

Shunyata Cable Talk

Shunyata has some of the more elaborate explanations of their cable designs which I find compelling only because I really like their cables especially the Alpha XC's which I have added as feed cables to some older Shunyata power conditioners I got off of Ebay years ago. The difference these made to sound quality was palpable.