Cable Break In for the Naysayers
I still cannot believe that in this stage of Audio history there are still many who claim cable break in is imagined. They even go so far as claim it is our ears that break in to the new sound. Providing many studies in the way of scientific testing. Sigh...
I noticed such a recent discussion on the What’s Best Forum. So here is my response.
______________________________________________________________________________________________ I just experienced cable break in again firsthand. 10 Days ago, I bought a new set of the AudioQuest Thunderbird XLR 2M interconnects.
First impression, they sounded good, but then after about 30 hours of usage the music started sounding very closed in and with limited high frequencies. This continued until about 130 hours of music play time.
Then at this time, the cables started to open up and began to sound better and better each passing hour. I knew at the beginning they would come around because they sounded ok at first until the break in process started. But now they have way surpassed that original sound.
Now the soundstage has become huge with fantastic frequency extensions. Very pleased with the results. Scientifically I guess we can’t prove cable break in is real, but with good equipment, good ears, it is clearly a real event.
ozzy
Really, we are just babes-in-the-woods as regards music's effects on us. There is a much wider arena of influence that may explain our befuddlement with the differences we hear between scoped measurements and our perceptions. **************************** "The LIGO project helps demonstrate that just because we do not have the tools to measure a phenomenon does not mean that phenomenon does not exist." |
@ozzy , no question my Dragon cords have improved yet again checking in at 265 hours. I do not have the Niagara, for two reasons. I borrowed a Niagara 5000 from my dealer once, and found that the transformers buzzed audibly from across the room. The manual even states that I’d this happens, you are simply out of luck. Secondly, I find that any and all conditioners change the sound in some way. I found the Niagara 5000 to enhance the sound in every way except for the upper frequencies which I found to be a bit closed in sounding. The sound was more of a hard, energized, dense, driving sound, which I actually enjoyed aside from the upper frequencies. Of note though, I had tested the Niagara 5000 with my Hurricanes, not the Dragons. I’ve found happiness with a Puritan 156, after having used a Torus RM 20 for a few years. The Puritan may not be as smooth and may not have as “black” backgrounds but in my system I found it to be more even-handed than the other options I’ve tried and it has a very free-flowing and musically engaging sound to it. It’s a bit more up-front and in-your face which I like. |
@ozzy , I’m at 240 hours on the three AQ Dragon power cords and they are really opening up starting today. I actually hung on to one of the fully burned in demo Dragon cords for a bit longer. I tried replacing one of my new cords with the fully burned in demo cord, the one feeding my Tambaqui DAC. Sure enough, the fully burned in demo cord made my system sound even less constrained, through the entire frequency band. So even at 240 hours I think my cords have a ways to go. I read a pro review of the Dragons where they say AQ says that it takes two weeks “to form the dialectric”, and two more weeks for it to fully improve. And yeah I know many give AQ flak for stuff that may not be absolutely grounded in science, with their little battery packs attached to the cords. All I know is the cords sound great and they are getting better, as I can easily hear comparing the broken in cord with the new ones. Haven’t done a blind test yet but I’m sure I could easily tell the difference. But not for long as my new cables catch up. |
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If some disagree in cable break in then they will certainly frown at a pair of speaker cable that sat in a closet over a year. I decided to put back in a system last Thursday and sounded terrible. I’ve run them 24/7 and just checked on them little while ago and they are sounding much better for the first time since Thursday. Or better yet for naysayers I moved interconnects, usb cable,i2s and power cables few weeks ago and system collapsed for a for a few day. It was a tube system so amp could only run for so long. I mean no disrespect to naysayers but I have no clue how you do not hear this. |
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. |
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. |
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.
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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... ;) 😏 |
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 |
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 😁
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@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. |
@ozzy , how long did you find it took for your Dragon source cords to fully break in? I’m finding they seem to take longer than I recall my Hurricane cords taking. |
You certainly don’t require a nice HiFi system if you can’t hear the dramatic difference between my brand new Audioquest Dragon cords and my broken in demos of the same cords. To me the difference is blatantly obvious and my system took a dive with the new cords. But things have changed after a week. Still not where things were with the demo cords yet. Or maybe the evil scheming cable companies hand out superior cables for demos! There’s a new conspiracy theory. The one thing that the cable companies may be guilty of is charging about 4X what it should cost to achieve decent margins. But I’m just an armchair critic; maybe their costs really do back up their prices. But if so I’d be surprised. It’s their high prices that fuel all the conspiracy theories. A counter argument to my criticism of the high prices of audiophile grade cables is that if margins are truly over-inflated, then you’d expect that would create an opening for a giant killer company to swoop in and sell cables that perform like the very best at 25% of the cost. And yet this hasn’t happened. So maybe it can’t be done.
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@audphile1 Ty. That makes total sense. It’s kinda what I also figured. Appreciate your response sir. 👍 |
@tattooedtrackman great question/point! I definitely noticed with some cables I purchased used, there’s about a 24hr and some time longer period that’s needed for the component/cable pairing to start to gel. This applies largely to power cords. Less so with interconnects and speaker cables. And I have not noticed this with Ethernet, USB and other types of digital cables - there is or isn’t any difference it will be apparent right out of the gate. Nordost power cords are a case in point. I connected the cables, listened for an hour and came back to it next day to find it sounding completely different than when I left it. And yes there’s a getting used to new sound phase but that’s after this change has already occurred. There’s no denying a few days usually is what’s needed to start to get into the subtle differences with cables and components unless you jumped from a stock power cord to a top of the line big $ cabie or jumped from a Bluetooth dac to a $5,000 high end one. That’s been my experience. |
I definitely believe in cable break in. However most of my cables including PCs I purchased used. Now here’s my question. Used cables are most certainly broken in. But ….. are they still broken in with your components? Or do they still have to break in with your components. I’ve always wondered about that. |
"30 hours of usage the music started sounding very closed in and with limited high frequencies. This continued until about 130 hours of music play time.Then at this time, the cables started to open up and began to sound better and better each passing hour." Can’t help laughing... and wondering how many AQ influencers are active on Audiogon. (or one person with multiple user names) It’s pity that they don’t seem to have basics knowledge about cable/wire electronics. |
fleschler, Thank you for your post. I never claimed to be able to explain cable breakin. But it is apparent to those who care about the final outcome. Phono cartridges hmmm. Amazing, thank you. Just to get the deniers more riled up (just kidding) but I found the Critical Mass footers also had a breakin period of about a week. ozzy |
As a beta tester for a boutique cable manufacturer, I wouldn't listen to a cable without 24 hours of break-in. Certainly significant differences can be heard immediately. There was often a significant change of character between new and broken-in cables, mostly better but sometimes worse, emphasizing a negative change. Professional cabling less significant, especially balanced cables. To those who claim only speakers require break-in, NO! phono cartridges (maybe other than DC Audio systems) require break-in of 20 to 100 hours to optimize the suspensions, just as in dynamic cone speakers. My numerous Dynavectors and Benz cartridges-50 hours then, wow! |
I don't understand it and therefore the phenomenon of "break-in" doesn't make sense to me, except perhaps with speakers. But nonetheless, I have perceived a difference between when I first hooked cables up and ran them for 50 or 100 hours. So who knows. As with all of these debates, it does seem reasonable to say that if it sounds different, it should measure different, either on a scope or REW or something else. But I am surprised that no one has formally organized a true double blind test as suggested above, with some from each side of the cable debate and a couple of neutrals. I would be very interested to see the results of that experiment! |
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. Testing is good, great in fact, it just does nor cannot measure everything we can hear (or otherwise sense) but maybe someday gear will be invented than can do so. Those that refuse to believe we may not yet know everything we think we do might one day be surprised to learn there really are tooth fairies, not saying I believe there are but if so I bet they would not call themselves that:) Rick |
I really don’t understand why these arguments continue. Why do the two camps care about the “experience”, “perceptions” or “biases/expectations” of those in the other camp. If you don’t accept cable break in as real, why even open this thread, let alone contribute. If you do accept break in as real, why engage with comments from those who don’t. As somebody said previously, the debate has raged without resolution for decades, though it seems less visceral and nasty nowadays. RE: this thread and at risk of being “perceived” or “experienced” as nasty, I think it churlish to continue to hijack threads about cables/cable break in with one’s well worn and predictable rejections of the validity of a poster’s observations, or must I say perceptions. We know already that you reject the very possibility of the phenomenon, so you add no value to the discussion when you repeat your incredulity in yet another thread. I wish we could have a discussion of the topic without petty comments insisting, for example, that a post should have used “perceived” rather than “experienced”. Aside from the fact that, in this context, it is a distinction without a difference, it is redundant and tedious. RE: the suggestion that a blind test with five “believers” and five “nonbelievers” would settle the controversy: I’ve been there. Although the experiment changed one or two participants’ views on cable burn in, most went away surer than ever they were right all along, regardless of whether they arrived as “believers” or “nonbelievers”. Lines have been drawn and few have the will to cross over. This is a big, complex hobby in which there is room for all of us. I await arrival of the day when we can live and let live without derision and ridicule. Enjoy your music as you will. I’ll do the same. |
Evidently... I am not saying that cables alone will transform a system beyond its capability. But cables that work well with your system, will allow that system to perform to the best as designed. Afterall, we are connecting a component to another through the cabling. Remember the phrase "it is only as good as the weakest link"? All in all, cabling can only degrade the potential. Keep an open mind and experiment to hear what works best. ozzy |
@unreceivedogma Bingo ! You hit the nail on the head said the carpenter. Some get cranky as they age, some are just plain argumentative, Some are misguided, and many are just plain boring. Cheers |
I agree absolutely with getting the room right is far more important than cables can possibly be whether they make a difference or not. As for cables, there are things we just do not know and might not for generations to come, real science is a bunch of theories tested until something works out and tested again and again to find improvements. It is a never ending cycle thus we are not at the end of any of it yet and should never assume we know all there is, about anything. It is not a dead end Dogma which happens far to often in nearly all things humans do and it is only a tool to maintain the status quo, not to further enlightenment into the yet unknown. Are there those that cannot hear a difference, sure, why not, good for them actually. Are those that can, I am sure there are, good for them as well. Are there those that believe there is a possibility of improvement, sure there are, I am one of them and have personal experience to the level I am comfortable in. Instead of arguing over such a trivial pursuit it might be wise to invest some of that time and energy into things far more critical to the betterment and survival of all things living which includes everything.
Rick |
@unreceivedogma Nailed it. |
“…But if you had the audio equipment and ears you would be a believer.…” This is the giveaway with Ozzy. He just wants to argue his superiority over everyone else. The scientific basis for his assertion is non-existent: his expectation is instead that we bow down and revere his anecdotal experience as A Thing handed down from The Gods at the Summit of Mt Audio, where I presume He Himself fancies he resides. Now I’m outa here. |
“….Sorry, but your system looks like a beginner’s system. Like we all started out with. It may be good for home theater though….” Who exactly, is this directed at? You are sounding like a troll now. Why on earth did I respond to this thread? I must have gotten out of the wrong side of bed this morning. Carry on. I’m outa here. |
I just got off the phone with my audio engineer. He has 40+ years experience in the industry. Besides building and repairing audio gear and guitar amps, he is also a recording engineer. He is also a guitarist and in the blues hall of fame. We were talking about other issues but at the end I asked him about The Cable Wars. it was a good 10-15 minute discussion but the Cliff Note version of his response is this: it’s all about the Benjamins. Make people believe, and you make more money. At the end, he said at best, cables may - may - make 1% difference, if that. The money is better spent elsewhere. He agreed that far more attention should be put into room acoustics, that is where there is still a relative dearth of knowledge: witness how many times concert halls are redesigned and they still get it wrong. I will conclude by posing the following question. Suppose for the sake of argument - pun not intended - that it is absolutely true that cable interconnects make a big difference. Why then, is this philosophy not applied to all the internal wiring through all the components in an audio system: turntables, CD players, amps, preamps, speakers … and I am thinking in particular about those two skinny little braided wires that connect the spider to the cone. I anxiously await the informed responses. BTW, a few years ago I said that I was disappointed in the sound of the recording that you did of the Mikis Theodorakis / Pablo Neruda “Canto General”. I played it for the first time since I got my amps back from being away for months for refurbishing. My engineer said that due to the 40 year age of the amps, many parts - not just the tubes, which were running at only 60% of full strength - were at the end of their useful life. Without going into details at the moment, other than to say that he discovered an error that Julius Futterman made in his design over 50 years ago that for some reason everyone missed all of these years and that he corrected - it appears that the problem was with my aging - and ailing - amps and not your recording. My bad! |
Really Ozzy, you want others to hear you and believe that cable break-in exists yet anyone who doesn't hear/perceive/believe in cable break-in is a "naysayer" who doesn't hear well enough and/or doesn't own a capable system, and who apparently has not progressed through the hobby to the point of enlightenment? Seems pretty one-sided. No wonder these threads are divisive. You can do better. |
“…I just experienced cable break in firsthand…”
Good for you! Some of us ascribe that to the placebo effect. I’m one of them. In my 55 years experience since building a Dyna70 at age 14, I have had plenty of time to experiment with dozens of cables. In all that time, I perceived differences in only a few, and that perception could be ascribed to my mood as much as any concrete material quality of the cable, and certainly nothing that justified the outrageous sums that were being asked for them. I do have brand name cables, but they are only because they are the least expensive of the ones that I settled upon after all the experimentation. I cannot tell you what they are because I settled this question for myself decades ago. Imo those sums of money are instead better on room treatment. If 1/10 of the time was spent discussing the science of room acoustics instead of cables, we would all be better off.
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I will put my system up against any out there and I’ll bet that it comes out as equal to far better than any out there 99% of the time, at any price point. I will also say that once you arrive at the quality level of my system, it’s mostly subjective: what sounds good to me may very well sound like a crapper to you and vice versa. Please note in the link below that I do not bother to include cables in my list of system components. I do include the room designer. If people only spent 1/10 of the time discussing room design as they do cable design, they might find themselves getting some genuine improvements to the sound of their system.
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