Cable Burn In

@subaruguru your ad is gone thank God.

Sorry that I don't have the time nor bandwith to argue the old stuff re expectation bias, blind studies, anecdotal experience. I CAN tell you that in the 70's I had extensive experience with molded and machined very expensive PVDF (fluorocarbon) structures used in laboratory measurement tools. We noticed that these structures migrated slightly over many months, sometimes even cracking!

Thermally retreating the product housings before or after assembly resolved the problem. End users (hospitals, research labs) were advised a DIY in-house corrective procedure. Som I learned that although we knew that softer "Teflons" indeed "cold-flow", even the very hard and supposedly completely inert iterations migrated across time unless the formative stresses were released.

So when I provided a few hundred A'goners cheap all-Teflon power cables, boxes, and DIY Kits years ago I took the trouble to thermally process the raw Cu/Teflon cable to assure no audible break-in from a non-fully cured dielectric. My contenbtion is that the conductive metals used in our audiophilia aren't what require burn-in, but the associated dielectrics. Too bad we couldn't just build devices without ANY insulation, eh?

Start a dedicated post on that one geoffkait!
.

Next up, the top ten things that affect sound quality. Independent variables we call em. Who wants to go first?

ieales

So all the CBI fans listen in climate controlled inert environments, always eat the identical menu, always get 8.5 hours of sleep, listen at precisely the same time and the same level, stop electronic and speaker aging, have their own power generation...

That's the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle." You might want to look it up.

The scientific method allows changing only one variable at a time.

So all the CBI fans listen in climate controlled inert environments, always eat the identical menu, always get 8.5 hours of sleep, listen at precisely the same time and the same level, stop electronic and speaker aging, have their own power generation... ALL systems are a collection constantly changing variables.

CBI is about the MOST Unscientific topic in audio.

@andy2 

First, cables are just more than resistance.

Preaching to the choir. See http://ielogical.com/Audio/CableSnakeOil.php. 
Please don't regurgitate that which you don't comprehend.

First, cables are just more than resistance. It has inductance and capacitance as well. But that is not the whole story. The inductance and capacitance are distributive so the rated inductance per foot or capacitance per foot don't tell the whole story either. Also the inductance and capacitance is frequency dependent so it gets even more complicated. Not only that inductance and capacitance are current and voltage dependent so it gets even more more complicated.

Now it's not just the metal. It's the dielectric material which are also current, voltage, freq. dependent.

So you can see. Hopefully you can see.

 

Now as for the measurement, how can you measure the effect of burn-in?

It can be measured but it's not that simple and you need some pretty sensitive equipment. Some stuffs from Fry’s is not enough. Not only that you need a fairly complicated setup to capture things in time domain and you need some serious fourier transform software to analyze the data.

 

Now you want to know how a cable burn-in? Just run some 20A current through some tiny wire and see if it burns.

🐍💩🙀

No one can keep track of it that well. Things change all the time, even things that you can’t control and things you don’t even know about. Nobody’s going to sit there for days on end and see when the break in stops, Cut me some slack, Jack!

ieales

... CBI proponents How do you know it's the cable and not everything else ...

The scientific method allows changing only one variable at a time.

@elizabeth & CBI proponents

How do you know it's the cable and not everything else, all of which are measurable?

The parasite of Bora Bora, 🍑🎩

I am the Paraclete of Caborca. 🐍💩

blueranger
You hit the nail on the head. Ears are like the microphones and our brains are like the tape recorders in the studio. Oh well maybe not a good analogy. Steve Guttenberg in on of his youtube videos predicts that in the future we won’t be listening to music by our ears but the music will be fed directly into our brains for ultimate fidelity!!

>>>>If you don’t think it’s a good analogy why did you say it? Microphones and recorders, well, quite. Ears are like microphones and brains are like transceivers. And the transceivers work on the conscious level and the subconscious level. Much of the noise and distortion you’re perceiving (hearing) is not from the recording or anything in the system. It’s still S/N + D. You can’t tell the difference, whether the N or D is from the system or outside the system. The brain doesn’t differentiate. I’m from Guttenberg’s future.

In TBCBI [Time Before Cable Burn In] we experienced everything attributed to it.

What primitives we were putting it down to weather, connector outgas & pollutant contamination, electronic variability, diet, rest, ad nauseum.

Riddle me this, Batmen: How does a cable 'know when to stop' burning in?

You hit the nail on the head. Ears are like the microphones and our brains are like the tape recorders in the studio. Oh well maybe not a good analogy. Steve Guttenberg in on of his youtube videos predicts that in the future we won't be listening to music by our ears but the music will be fed directly into our brains for ultimate fidelity!!

Blueranger
The human ear is limited to 20-20 at best. I do believe there
are parameters our scientific instruments cannot measure in the sonic realm. Its not cut and dry. To be fair a human is not infallable. We cannot be calibrated like an instrument. However with that being said the cable burn-in phenomena is real. Too many people have experienced just to dismiss It. Quick AB test are inaccurate. You have to listen for long periods at a time to pick out differences.

>>>>The ear is limited but the human brain is not. The human brain itself is sensitive to interference and noise from a variety of sources that affect our hearing, e.g., RFI/EMI and subtle conscious and subconscious influences of our physical surroundings and emotional and mental state. News flash! Our perception of sound is not (rpt not) completely based on what goes into the ears. We can be easily distracted, even consciously. For example if someone is conversing with us we may not hear the sound at all, or only as background, I.e., phase lock loop effect.

In another forum this could be a debate about the existence of Bigfoot. The UFO phenomena. Ghosts. Religion. What ever people have beliefs in. The human senses are quite extraordinary. Digital photography has yet to capture the resolution that the eye can see with our 20/20 vision. 
The human ear is limited to 20-20 at best. I do believe there 
are parameters our scientific instruments cannot measure in the sonic realm. Its not cut and dry. To be fair a human is not infallable. We cannot be calibrated like an instrument. However with that being said the cable burn-in phenomena is real. Too many people have experienced just to dismiss It. Quick AB test are inaccurate. You have to listen for long periods at a time to pick out differences.
Cable burn-in can't be scientifically proven with our primitive instruments. They are the best we have with our current technology. Coming full circle it goes back to our beliefs. Do you believe we have discovered everything? All the physics of electrical current. If you think we have its your opinion. This debate won't be settled anytime soon. I'm getting sleepy. Carry on. 

The accusation that "burn - in" is more psychological than real only works for the average buyer since he mostly likely purchase a pair of cables and has rely on his memories to tell the difference when he bought it brand new and now.

But this accusation does not work for cable manufacturers because they have a bunch of them lying around - some brand new, some has been used for awhile.  So there is no need to recall any "memories" since they can compare side by side brand new cables and old cables.  So if they can hear the difference then there is such thing as "psychological".
Cable manufacturers has nothing to gain by this.  If you bought a cables and it sucks, you call the manufacturer, they tell you to wait until so and so hours.  If after that it still sucks, then they got nothing to gain, because it's still suck.  

My advice is not to worry about cable burn in. It will happen regardless, so why fret over it? And if you fret over it, then go out and buy a cable burner if you believe that will allay your concerns. But then you will fret over which cable burner to buy and whether it needs a burn in period. 

n80's previous post:
" Believe what you want, but don't be so pompous as to tell me what I can or can't hear."

"That cuts both ways, right? How is it that person 'A' can say "I hear a dramatic difference" and another person 'B' with equally good hearing and skills say "I don't hear a difference" and that makes person 'B' pompous but not person 'A'?"

A couple things here: 
1. It's a pretty big leap to state person A & person B have "equally good hearing skills. 
2. prof IS pompous.   

@ieales   Nice anecdotal evidence.  Not an establishment of fact, however.    🤔

Detailed just emphasizes the leading edge of notes.

And just, pray tell, how does a wire emphasize the leading edge of notes? That makes as much sense as saying that some ethernet cables italicize while others CAPITALIZE

The electrical signal is a continuously changing value which when transduced to moving air, our brain decodes into 'music'

Cables are equalizers and just as they may emphasize upper frequencies and sound 'detailed' they may just as readily roll the top and sound 'warmer'.

What any cable does when is utterly system dependent. See http://192.168.1.160/Audio/CableSnakeOil.php/ 

In over half a century of listening, EVERYTHING ascribed to cable burn in has been found to be connector related. See http://ielogical.com/Audio/#ConnectorCleansing

Whoa! Back up! Beep! Beep! Did somebody say nano tubes? Is that like a really small bicycle inner tube?

Warning: I'm a cable designer and manufacturer.
Cables and a system has to be resolved enough to hear the break in period. Cables like Monster are so grainy and blurred that there is no difference and just because a system is detailed doesn't mean it is resolved. Detailed just emphasizes the leading edge of notes.

Of course other things make bigger differences but just like speakers sound better when they are warmed up, cables change usually between the 20 and 200 hour mark depending on voltage and the materials used in the cable. Ours take 225 hours because of the Nano tubes.
BTW I think music is better than one of those break in machines that causes a signature on the wire.

@n80. You speak about your cables of a recently-acquired, 15-y/o system being “burned in.”  Was the system actively used prior to your acquiring it or was it stored for awhile?

Jim, thank you. I think it is ironic that I started this thread in my ignorance, both of the existence of this phenomenon and the debate surrounding it.

The irony is that for me it makes no difference whatsoever:

1) I already have great cables (from what I've been told and the resale value I see on them.
2) They are all burned in for what that's worth.
3) The cables I bought are to connect a weak link in my system which no cable, burned in or not is, going to improve and which I don't care to do anything about.
4) I'm going to use this set of cables now....and later. If they improve things great, if not great.
5) My system sounds super incredible awesome to me. I feel no room or need for improvement.

So for me, at this moment, the issue is moot and is mostly just a curiosity to me in regard to the passions it engenders.

jea48  Thanks, that's exactly what I said.  Monster cable=no burn in noticed.
butch01  Right, it's not a contest.  It's a pleasure to hear music well reproduced.
Room acoustics are 50% of the sound.  I used to use multiple sound panels, room tunes, bass traps.  I have replaced them with Synergistic Research HFTs (32 of them).  They are great for slap echo in a too reverberant room.  

I'm wasn't implying that different cable may or may not sound better or different in a hi-rez system, although in a pure sense, properly designed and built for the application, they should do nothing at all to the sound except get it from A to B. If you can reliably and repeatedly hear a difference, better or worse, go with what sounds better to you in your system.

 As both an audiophile and a career tech I am sometimes at odds with myself over WHY this or that sounds better, worse or simply different, when technically I can't explain why there should be any difference.  Electrically and mechanically gear does "settle in" after use, that I buy, speaker cones, amps, what have you, but WIRE?? Maybe it does and I just can't hear it. I've never had the funds to buy multiple expensive cable sets  and play with them. 

As for high end MIL gear, if different wires made it "better", trust me, Uncle would be only too happy to buy it with your tax dollars. Much of the gear I worked on in my career costs more than my house and cars together. Purely from a technical standpoint, wire is wire as long as it's applicable to the intended use................Does one "sound" different than another, yes I've heard that myself. I simply can't fathom why a hundred hours of usage should change the way it behaves or sounds..........call me ignorant, I've been called worse :)
 
Our hobby is to a very large extent, subjective, and there in lies the source of many of these debates. In the end, buy what you like and can afford. If it sounds good or better to you, enjoy the music. Wasn't trying to "P" on anybodies corn flakes here, just expressing my personal opinions and professional experience.

If you REALLY want to improve the sound of your system for a fraction of its cost, address your room acoustics. Little room for debate on that one and the audible difference is obvious and significant.

" Believe what you want, but don't be so pompous as to tell me what I can or can't hear."

That cuts both ways, right? How is it that person  'A' can say "I hear a dramatic difference" and another person 'B' with equally good hearing and skills  say  "I don't hear a difference" and that makes person 'B' pompous but not person 'A'?

Prof,
Of course, perception is a major component of our extremely subjective hobby. If we all heard the same thing, we would all have the same system. Yes, subtle changes could be attributed to daily nuances in our lives but dramatic changes can not be ignored! Believe what you want, but don't be so pompous as to tell me what I can or can't hear. This is about enjoying the music and sharing our experiences with others. It's not a contest. Happy listening.
.

I’m not quite sure I see why the military would have any use for cables that outperform. Unless maybe the General was an audiophile. Obviously there are technical standards for BER, voice recognition, signal to noise ratio, that sort of thing.

I don't care why it works technically.  Just like I don't care why SR duplexes, fuses and HFTs work, or Stillpoints or Omega E-Mats.  They work for my system and my friends systems.  My cable manufacturing friend doesn't use SR tweaks or stillpoints or E-Mats.  However, he heard the difference between SR blue fuses and his stock fuses and decided to eliminate the fuse with a breaker instead which resulted in a sound similar to the effect of an SR blue fuse.  His system and room are diametrically different acoustically (mine-live, high vaulted ceilings, windows and large room with flat walls with 4.5 way large high sensitivity speakers/his-damped room, low flat acoustic tile ceilings, small room with two way high resolution, low sensitivity speakers).  Two different rooms and systems to address the cabling effects for different systems.

I don't know what cooking cables does.  Same with components in equipment (like capacitors) and speaker cones and panels.  The latter two I've heard change over time, breaking in so to speak without regard to their technical changes.   

What I think is happening is an electrical circuit or field is changed while the cable or capacitor is charged.  Speaker cones and panels vibrate and become less stiff.  One's electrical and the other is mechanical.  It's just the way it is.  I buy into the burning in concept because I can hear it.  

fleschler,

Right, so you listen to cables. Ok.

I don’t care that a machine will tell me that they all test the same other than for capacitance, inductance or resistance. The manufacturer tests for the basics. What we do is determine if sonically, we prefer the current version or the new version, usually its the current version.

So what puzzle me here is:

If the cables need burn in, how are the manufacturers determining what is causing this phenomenon? As we aren’t talking about magic, presumably manufacturers identify some "pre-burned in" state they can measure, vs post burn in, where the measurements change. Otherwise...how do they know what’s going on at all?

That’s what I’m not seeing yet in this thread, including in your post.

What exactly do you think is technically happening to cables when you "cook" them, and have you, or the manufacturers you work with, any actual data showing these differences?

Works for me. 👍

I test cables without electronic testing equipment. I’m sure my high end system is junk to professionals although I’ve appraised 27 SoCal & San Fran recording studios in my former profession. I must say, the recording engineers had hearing deficiencies by the time they were 50 and result in non-flat sounding studio audio setups in many of them. Luckily, I’m friends with some remastering engineers with superb hearing, Kevin Gray, Steve Hoffman and Robert Pincus. I also do recording and remastering for a local orchestra, choirs, chamber orch., etc.

Back to my testing. I receive up to four versions of a cable, differing sometimes as little as having a 26 gauge versus a 30 gauge conductor or return wire or a copper, silver or rhodium connection difference. I won’t seriously compare them to the current, burned in version until I’ve cooked them as they generally (90% of the time) sound worse to start with. Sometimes, the newest version is better sounding than the current model due to significant changes in the design, such as when the new version reduced capacitance by 50% through additional teflon shielding over conductors and/or returns.

I don’t care that a machine will tell me that they all test the same other than for capacitance, inductance or resistance. The manufacturer tests for the basics. What we do is determine if sonically, we prefer the current version or the new version, usually its the current version. When multiple changes have occurred in the new version and it is significantly better, the manufacturer renames it. This has happened a half dozen times in the past 15+ years. A high percentage of the time, the cables do not meet up to the current version. The manufacturer is continually tinkering with his formulas, design and materials to produce the best cabling he can (although his speaker cables have only seen three or four versions in 20 years and A/C cables maybe three versions in 10 years).

We also test other upscale cables to his cables to see how they compare on at least two systems, mine and his. We’ve tried High Fidelity, Magnan, Kimber, Furutech, Nordost, Audioquest (not all of their cables but a selection over the years) as well as others he has tested on his own. He also take his cables to shows and upscale audio systems locally to compare to their current cabling. Never have compared them to Transparent Audio cabling which retails for 50X more for speaker cabling or Masterbuilt at 100X more. I heard them replace Siltech, Triode Wire and Shunyata as well as shows.

I don’t know what the manufacturer finds as far as the three electrical testable variables in his cables before and after he burns them in/tests them. I or the both of us compare the cables at my house and at his factory for a sonic evaluation. I don’t have any other relationship with the manufacturing of the cabling.

Well, one interesting thing fleschler said was that the burn-in makes things different, not necessarily better.

I have found it strange that this has not been pointed out before. There seems to be an impression that whatever happens to a cable as it "burns-in" somehow makes it better. Even if one accepts that something changes it seems a bit of a stretch to presume that that something is always going to make it change for the better. The packaging on the cables I bought, that caused me to start this thread (in complete and total ignorance) said the burn-in would yield optimal performance.

I also don’t think comparing a violin to a cable is maybe the best analogy. I’m sure there are variations in metallurgy and production in the same model of cable but it is hard to imagine that such variations would be anywhere near as significant as those found in wood, no two pieces of which will be the same.

fleschler,

Just curious:  What do you mean you are a "cable tester" for a small manufacturer?

Do you mean you are an electrical engineer and you are part of production, and take various measurements of the cables and find an objective measurable difference?  If so, can you pass on to us what measurable differences you've observed between the same cable new vs burned in?


Or do you mean a small manufacturer gives you cables to listen to and report on?

shadowcat2016  You sound just like an electronics engineer who looks at the numbers only and applies commercial products specifications to all audiophile gear.  Audiophile gear is not a by the numbers application.  Violins can be made exactly the same on an assembly line to mimic a Stradivarius, yet never sound as good as a Strad.  Why is that?  You are so certain that audiophiles are stupid or deaf that we believe what we hear is make believe. 

I'm a part-time classical musician and recording engineer.  My time with hearing differences in cables is critical to the sales of one manufacturer. I KNOW that his newly made cables sound different than a burned-in cable of at least 24 hours (after I get his new cables, I burn them in for five days, minimum).  They can sound better or worse after burning-in, but not the same.  He uses a very complex design and materials that are altered over time/stabilize including a mastic encased mesh copper shielding with tungsten, nickel and carbon powder.  

As I previously mentioned, not all cable requires or is effected by a burning-in process.  I have found that cheap and balanced cables are not as effected.