Can an unused cable break in?


I bought a new $300 Audioquest cable about a month ago, hoping to improve the sound of my Cyrus CD transport.  It didn't improve the SQ even after a little  break-in period.   I compared it to another transport system I had and it was quite inferior. So I stopped using the Cyrus but left it plugged in the wall for the month.
Lo and behold, I compared the two transports today and there was virtually no difference in sound between the two of them.
I’m listening to the Cyrus right now and am thrilled with it.
Either it’s my imagination, or the cable broke in while unused!  The difference isn’t subtle.
Is such a thing possible?


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Showing 1 response by hilde45

@jasonbourne

The capacity of Humans for self-deception is apparently unlimited - Mr.Spock the Vulcan
Imagination is a wonderful thing!

Quoting a fictional character from Star Trek is, er, an imaginative move. And are you really "Jason Bourne" the action hero or is that just more of your imagination?

But I digress. These and other playground-style putdowns are not the best argument or even arguments at all. Snarky disputation doesn’t cut it on a forum where people are giving and asking for reasons.

Besides the experienced members here on Audiogon, let’s take as Exhibit B the hifi podcast from Darren Myers and Duncan from The Music Room. There, they discuss burn in, settling in, etc, in multiple episodes. These guys have been in audio their whole lives. They work with equipment every day, of many kinds, they tweak and listen to their systems constantly. They have the time, energy, acuity, and resources to keep variables stable and to compare their findings with other listeners.

On the one hand, we have two guys with experience, critical listening and skepticism as part of their job, along with engineering chops, and they hear effects such as burn in, break in, settling, isolation, etc.

On the other hand, there are snarky put downs. Um, who wins that "debate"? That’s pretty easy.

Not only do I take them at their word, for all the reasons above, I take the members here at their word about their critical experiences. The alternative would be that everyone is deluded, everyone is beholden to a kind of audio gambler’s fantasy. That, instead, is the delusion -- that everyone else is deluded.