@Yping- That's also my method for interconnects, using the 'Irrational But Efficacious' CD's pink, white and brown noise tracks, on repeat. Personally, I feel like running in cables, at the voltages/currents they will see in use, is best. Whatever device the cable outputs to, I leave off, as the device's input impedance will complete the connection. (http://www.musicdirect.com/p-6813-cardas-ayre-acoustics-irrational-but-efficacious-ibe-burn-in-cd.aspx) |
I use cables per se that is why I am asking :) |
Touche', I say to your per se. |
No matter how expensive the cables are and how long you burn them in ultimately the odds are that the sound will not be as good in many respects as the situation with *no cables per se*. By having *no cables per se* (only the tiny 1 meter ultralight headphone cables) I avoid all the pitfalls associated with the house AC, with power cables that generate magnetic fields (that distort the sound), with vibration and magnetic fields (that uh distort the sound) generated by transformers, issues with connectors, issues with large capacitors, with wall outlets, wall duplex covers, all of those things and more. Not to mention the enormous cost associated with actually getting the various cables and cords I would like to become accustomed to having. |
Addendum: Besides, even if one burns in the cables fully whatever that actually means, there's still a very long way to go if the cables haven't been cryo'd. There are obviously other things involved with getting the max performance out of the cables we haven't even touched on yet, like contact enhancers and vibration isolation. It never ends, thank goodness. |
By what you have written, cooking/burning/cryoing/settling, it could be interrupted as a further form of the annealing process, right :) |
Good point. Annealing has to allow slow cooling to strengthen the metal (or glass) and to remove impurities. This makes me wonder if it's doable with a high dose of cable cooking vs just playing music. It's probable that it all winds up the same in the end and only the quickness of the annealing process is accomplished. Smarter people than me need to chime in.
All the best,
Nonoise |
Cryoing I would think best described as dealing with the crystal structure of the metal. Maybe you could say just another form of tempering, like heat tempering. This is not to say that cryoing would not improve the performance of the other materials as well. |
By what you have written, cooking/burning/cryoing/settling, it could be interpreted (not interrupted) as a further form of the annealing process, right :)
Yes, info for thought :) |
Yes, Good or Bad ... that is a question :) |
Good or bad? Haha! Good! There is no debate about it any longer. The debate occurred twenty years ago. :-( |
That's good because so far, I cook my cables using an old CDP and an old 25watt integrated amp, where I can set the volume, into a 10watt 5.5R resistor using a couple of music CD's that I like for this process :)
I will have a search for the different cable cookers that are out there, such as Audiodharma, and post them as I find them :) |
I had my doubts about burn in until I acquired Morrow Audio cables. They suggest 500 hours to get to full break in, although by 300 you are most of the way there. |
I seriously doubt anyone can keep track of the sound of the system when breaking in cables unless he does absolutely nothing to the system during that entire time. Surely there must be at least some changes to the system in addition to cables. I have never met an audiophile who wasn't constantly involved in some tweaks or mods or changing one thing or another. Thus, the sound is constantly changing. It would be virtually impossible to say with certainty that the sound at the end of 500 days was due entirely to the cables, or that the cables were fully broken in at the 500 day mark for that matter. To(Morrow) never knows. Lol |
I have Morrow speaker cables and interconnects. After playing them hundreds of hours, I put them on the AudioDharma Cable Cooker. There was a significant further improvement. For many cables, the audio signal cable is just not sufficient to fully break in the cables. |
Geoffkait, that's five hundred HOURS not days.
I don't know about 500 hours but I've changed nothing for 300 hours many a time . |
|
Also peoples neurological systems do not stay totally constant over time so there is always the possibility that a change heard has nothing to do with the gear.
Then there is the weather and humidity and barometric pressure that are also changing all the time and might effect fine details of what one hears.
So its very hard to reliably attribute a change over the longer term to any one thing.
All you know for sure and that matters is if it tends to sound better, worse or the same to you over time. Someone else in the exact same boat could easily reach a different conclusion. |
Ooops, of course I meant 500 hours. Schubert, how many days is that? My calculator's broken. So you don't tweak or mod? Well, good for you, Jack! |
Its obvious that some have not heard Morrow cables at various points of breaking in. They can sound quit awful, and it isn't subtle. Way worse than whatever you had in there previously. And then they start to get it together, the soundstage grows, detail you've not noticed before appear and you can't stop smiling. Probably many expensive cables sound as good as a 2-500 Morrow cable, but the silver plating is the secret sauce. I once unplugged them to move things around and it took them a day to settle in again.
More recently I disconnected them and they were fine with it. Just like a woman! |
So, you would say Cookin/Burnin Time and Settling Time are definitely real (Real Time) events :) |
I'd say they are real depending on the cable. |
11-08-15: Geoffkait
That's an interesting theory. How would you explain break in of cables with an air dielectric? Furthermore, how do you explain the barrage of testimonials regarding the break in of capacitors?
Hi Geoffkait, air dielectric? The closest you can get to an air dielectric in audio cables is putting bare wire into tubes of insulation. The wire will still touch the insulation in spots and is still surrounded by insulation. This also separates the wires more which will raise inductance. There is no free lunch.
As for capacitors, it's still the same concept except you need a specific capacitance. In cables we do not want excessive capacitance or inductance lest we change the frequency response.
I am not disputing that the sound does change with "break in" I am just suggesting that the sound changing is not necessarily a good thing. Yes that is contrary to what people report.
You are correct, it is just a theory but so are most of the other thoughts on the subject.
I have not had a chance to play with a cable burn in machine yet. I would like to, but find the price of admission a little steep. I have heard good reports from people I respect. From what I have heard reported about them, they do not use a music signal to break in cables. They use a higher voltage signal that I'm guessing does something else to the dielectric than a normal music signal does. This possibly takes the cable farther away from normal "break in". From what I've heard reported the effect does wear off. Requiring further burning on the machine. This simple fact leads me to believe it is doing something other than accelerating normal break in.
Just my 2 cents. |
Sarcher30 wrote,
Geoffkait: That's an interesting theory. How would you explain break in of cables with an air dielectric?"
Not sure I can explain it. Except that it hints that break in involves more than the dielectric. Perhaps the metal crystal structure is affected, difficult to say.
"Furthermore, how do you explain the barrage of testimonials regarding the break in of capacitors?"
I myself did not mean to say there is no break in of capacitors, I'm just saying there are reasons to doubt everyone who testifies is actually hearing what he says he's hearing, that's all. Who decides that 200 hours or 500 hours or whatever is the point when the sound stops improving? I mean, come on! Monkey see monkey do. ;-)
"Hi Geoffkait, air dielectric? The closest you can get to an air dielectric in audio cables is putting bare wire into tubes of insulation. The wire will still touch the insulation in spots and is still surrounded by insulation. This also separates the wires more which will raise inductance. There is no free lunch."
Yes, but touching the insulation in spots is better than touching it all along the entire length, no? Besides you. An use standoffs like cotton or foam to prevent the conductor from EVER touching the insulation. |
Geoffkait,
I think you're 500 miles high.
What did you use?
I wanna try! |
Geoff, Cotton and foam still have a higher dielectric constant than air. Ideally we would want to have the cables in a vacuum as air still has a dielectric constant of 1.0. Not likely to happen though. We just have to do the best we can that is practical to do. |
Yes, cotton and foam DC is higher than air. The foam or cotton are barely touching the conductor. And cotton and foam are guess what? Mostly air! Hel-loo! Air sounds the best, you can trust me. This is a case where what measures best actually sounds best. |
Air might be the best but it appears that cooking/burnin is still required! So as indicated, there is much more to cooking/burnin than just dielectric cooking/burnin. It would appear that Morrow method is flawed if it directed at just dielectric cooking/burnin... right :)
It would appear that the cooking/burnin process is definitely an extension/continuance of the annealing process which to me makes alot of sense :) |
Yping, that's a big 10-4. By extension, ALL wire should be broken in, all transformers, all capacitors, all resistors, all connectors, all fuses, in short, EVERYTHING. |
do you have to cook/burn air too? |
Air has a problem. It allows oxidization. |
Runnin, that is correct. Also the wires need to be separated enough to not short out with each other. Using some form of insulation is unavoidable.
Yping, On the subject of annealing, you need to get copper red hot in order to anneal it. Which is over 840 degrees F. If your cables are getting anywhere near 840 degress F in use or on a cable burn in machine you will have a fire and burn all the insulation off the wire. So please pick a more likely theory than finishing of the annealing process. |
i'd cooked medium rare air with at least beer. |
Yping did not put the annealing completion out there, he quoted KLE Innovations opinion.
Personally, I have no opinion on the annealing thing.
However, I have a high opinion of KLE Innovations products. |
It just occurred to me that the manufacturers of cable would be well advised to add heat tempering to the metal conductor manufacturing process in addition to cold tempering (cryo) which most of the high end cable companies already do. Just thinking out loud. |
... heat tempering to the metal conductor manufacturing process in addition to cold tempering (cryo) Geoffkait, would you call cold tempering (cryo) an annealing process? If yes, then I guess Cooking/Burnin could be called an electrical annealing process or simply, an extension/continuance of the annealing process :) |
I would not call cryo an annealing process. I would probably call it a mechanical stress relief process, among other things. |
Perhaps the annealing process could be called a mechanical stress relief process, also, just a different way from Cryo and Cooking/Burnin. There are probably other ways, also :) |
Annealing and Thermodynamics (wiki page)
Annealing occurs by the diffusion of atoms within a solid material, so that the material progresses towards its equilibrium state. Heat increases the rate of diffusion by providing the energy needed to break bonds. The movement of atoms has the effect of redistributing and eradicating the dislocations in metals and (to a lesser extent) in ceramics. This alteration to existing dislocations allows a metal object to deform more easily, increasing its ductility.[citation needed]
The amount of process-initiating Gibbs free energy in a deformed metal is also reduced by the annealing process. In practice and industry, this reduction of Gibbs free energy is termed stress relief.[citation needed]
The relief of internal stresses is a thermodynamically spontaneous process; however, at room temperatures, it is a very slow process. The high temperatures at which annealing occurs serve to accelerate this process.[citation needed]
The reaction that facilitates returning the cold-worked metal to its stress-free state has many reaction pathways, mostly involving the elimination of lattice vacancy gradients within the body of the metal. The creation of lattice vacancies is governed by the Arrhenius equation, and the migration/diffusion of lattice vacancies are governed by Fick’s laws of diffusion.[2] |
Cryo treatment is permanent unless the material is brought to or near its annealing temperature as told to me by Dr. Randall F. Barron of Louisiana Tech University. A thousand years ago or so I emailed the Dr. about the benefits of cryo treatment because of all the nay sayers on Audiogon. Less are saying nay today.
http://engineringcorner.blogspot.com/2011/09/cryogenic-heat-treatment.html
For me the sonic benefits of cryo treatment are added upon with several or many additional treatments though the first makes for the greatest level of improvement. The directional alignment of the the material can be seen in the photo. My senses tell me that even further material alignment benefits direction and focus of energy. Material modulation is also enhanced with a much more uniform and reactive response. Tom |
Less are saying nay today? Interesting....;-) |
The directional alignment of the the material can be seen in the photo. My senses tell me that even further material alignment benefits direction and focus of energy. Material modulation is also enhanced with a much more uniform and reactive response. Perhaps the electrical cooking/burnin (treatment/annealing) process is doing something quite similar... just takes a little longer :) |
Cryogenics benefits all or almost all materials, steel, aluminum, plastic, whatever. So most likely one shouldn't equate cryo with burn in. If you wish to burn in the entire system look no further than the XLO test CD burn in track. Put the player on REPEAT and let 'er rip. Case closed. That doesn't mean you can skip the cryo bit. See, there's always something. Lol |
Why do you think that electrical burn-in is as simple as that?
Do you think that Cryo is as simple as sticking some material (steel, aluminum, plastic, whatever) in liquid nitrogen then pulling it out again and it is all done!
Heating and cooling annealing is an exact process and in fact there are many standards...
There are probably many methods/processes of electrical annealing! ... isn't metallurgy/alchemy an amazing :) |
I certainly do not think that cryogenics involves dipping something in liquid nitrogen and pulling it out. Whatever gave you that idea? It's all computer controlled or should be. I also am a big fan of home freezing, you know, to save on the cost and time of sending things off to the cryo lab. ;-) |
From what has been written it would appear that a change to the physical state of metal could be loosely referred to as annealing!
So, heat annealing (heating and cooling), cryo annealing (freezing and warming), and electrical annealing, all change the physical state of metal (and other materials) and even the temper of the metal. It would appear that they could all be loosely grouped under the heading of annealing :)
I have tried Home freezing but it seems to be a temporary annealing or have you found a way that it is permanent? :) |
Ahh, did you meant liquid nitrogen home freezing? |
I am referring to the home freezer circa 10 degrees F. As I said previously all thermodynamic processes are permanent. When one cryogenically treats a CD are you suggesting the CD is annealed? ;-) |
No! Although I have done the CD in the freezer and found that the effect/change was temporary and maybe lasted about 1 play of the CD!
You have found putting wire in the Freezer has a permanent effect/change. Interesting, do you do this in a particular way and did you find it beneficial? |
definition of annealing...
1. Annealing is a process used to bring a metal closer to its equilibrium state. In this soft state, the uniform microstructure will allow for excellent ductility and workability.
2. To Soften... a process of softening a material (such as glass), metal (such as cast iron), or an alloy (such as steel) to make it less brittle by (1) heating it to a particular temperature, (2) maintaining it at that temperature for a particular duration, and (3) cooling it slowly to normal temperature at a particular rate. Opposite of tempering.
3. To Strengthen/Harden... a process of heating and slow cooling in order to toughen and reduce brittleness.
4. Biochemistry: recombine (DNA) in the double-stranded form. |
