Do speaker cables need a burn in period?
I have heard some say that speaker cables do need a 'burn in', and some say that its totally BS.
What say you?
What say you?
1,164 responses Add your response
Admittedly with the lack of seriousness in the thread, combined with many of the weird things claimed in the audiophile domain, we can get in to a Poe's Law situation. That said... nonoise wrote: May I ask (just in case you were serious): How in the world do you think a cable could cause "one note bass?" (That is a cable that wasn't flat out defective). |
Nonoise, I still don't think you understand. When you compare two cables side by side, it's a relative thing. No need to remember what a "chime" sounds like. You just need to know relatively how two cables sound with respect to the chime. If a person can't tell the difference from listening to something side by side, then there is no point of going any further. Is that person you? Are you saying you are incapable of listening to something side by side and cannot tell the difference? This is the basis of your logic. How sad. |
Andy2, the logic seems to elude you my friend. I object to your saying I can't handle the truth when, if you bother to actually read what I said, I'm referring to music one is intimately familiar with being the standard to go by and not the memory of the cable is was played through. Lots of cables can come close in sound just as some can tamper with it. So, once you know how something sounds to your liking, the rest is easy. No audio memory is needed when you have exacting familiarity with how a chime or bell sounds when played back through different cables. The same goes for fine, tonally textured base compared to one note base that can be introduced by an inferior cable. That, and the fact that you need not spend serious coin to get great sounding cables. But having said all that, you'll screw it up to your way of seeing things, as is your wont. All the best, Nonoise |
Snark aside, of course it does. One only has to have a highly resolving integrated, like, say, the Kinki EX-M1 to amplify the differences that other, lesser gear can’t do as well, to the point where it’s painfully obvious. As for Andy2, I’m fine with the truth, it’s your premises I can’t handle. All the best, Nonoise |
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Why are we back to auditory memory stuffs here. I feel like we are going back to the stone age. Something we already talked about. When you take that trip back to the stone age, don't forget to pack your beliefs in mass hypnosis, mesmerism, mass delusion, being unable to trust your senses, high enough levels of naturally occurring drug like substances in one's system to promote hallucinations, and other voodoo and superstition. Oh, and stop repeating it as well. All the best, Nonoise |
cleeds, This isn’t a scientific group. I understand, but please make sure are not closing ranks too tightly; I and others who share my skepticism about some areas of high end audio are part of this group (insofar as you mean members of the audiogon forum). But the seemingly endless demands that posters provide upon request some set of scientific data to accompany their listening observations isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. I’m not asking anyone here to become a scientist and do all the testing themselves. I only ask sometimes in the more controversial areas of high end gear: "is there any data from anyone ELSE you can point to, to support what you are claiming?" I’m not a scientist who has worked in the field of evolution, but if I say evolution happened I can certainly point you to all sorts of data supplied by those experts who HAVE done the work. Nor am I chasing down everyone in every thread on the forum, cable forum included, demanding they justify their subjective claims. If I debate this at all, it’s almost entirely in threads that people create, like this FOR THE DEBATE on the subject. As I’ve said before in other such threads, my system uses a mish-mash of cables; ones I bought long ago, loaners from friends who have gone through the high-end cable thing. So for instance, I recently needed another pair of interconnects and a pal has loaned me some Nordost interconnects. Will I blind test them in my system? Very unlikely - it’s a hassle, I’m busy, my pal is busy, I just need some interconnects. I might do a brief sighted shoot out to see if I perceive a difference from my other interconnects. And who knows, it’s possible I’ll hear something that sounds distinct, and I’d be happy to say "When I switched out my old cables for the Nordost, I perceived X, Y and Z change in the sound." But, personally, I will not promote that beyond the level of "evidence" it really is. I’ll say it seemed to me to make a difference, but not that my anecdotal evidence gives me utter confidence. I’m just too aware of the facts about human bias and perception to warrant such a claim. But here, you often get subjective impressions as some inviolable measurement. If someone hears cable differences and you say you don’t, well because their experience PROVES cables obviously make a difference (or burn in) then YOU must have bad hearing, bad gear etc. The person maintaining skepticism is cast as a fool or a dogmatist. That’s an attitude that I think really doesn’t help any forum, this one included. |
@andy2 Like I said, manufacturers have a lot of cables lying around so they can do A - B between new and old cables so there is no need to recall something many days ago. And that is exactly why it is suspicious that they do not (that I'm aware of) produce any objective measurements showing the physical changes between a burned in and new cable. Let alone tests correlating such changes to their audibility. (The only, rare, attempts I'm aware of to measure for burn-in in finished audio products, either cables or other devices e.g. CD players, were negative for burn in effects). Even in this thread people have appealed to the idea "high end cable manufacturers recommend burn in, so it must be a real thing!" Yet when you check out the claims, e.g. on the Nordost page (one of THE most well-regarded cable companies in high-end), anyone with a critical-thinking neuron in their head can see how dicey and unsupported the claims are. Look how many cable companies there are. None (that I know) provide objective, repeatable data demonstrating their claims and you'd think they have the equipment! Lots of them just tell you it happens, which entails that it is "only fair" that you keep the cable for the allotted "burn in" time. And that is a good marketing move - salesmen know about the "get the foot in the door" approach, where once you can say "look, just take it and try it out" the sale is more likely than if the customer doesn't even take the product. Why do things like "cable burn-in" operate like pseudoscience, where the companies (or audiophiles or hi-fi salesmen) make some technical-sounding claim that is never actually supported by measured data, but only by anecdote? Andy, could you answer the question I posed before, because I'm sure it has consequences for the assumptions you've made about cables, that perhaps you have not thought through: Do you think the "higher end" cables, such as your QED, transmit sonic information that the Belden cable is incapable of transmitting? |
Factor in favorite music selections that you know very well and it's incredibly easy to discern break in, even with cables. When your equipment is already broken in, trying new cables with music that you're intimately familiar with is actually quite an easy thing to do. Don't we always cite our favorite go to CDs and records when evaluating gear? Why would it be any different with cables? All the best, Nonoise |
Auditory memory of sounds we're exposed too frequently over a long period of time is good: e.g. a parent's voice. Auditory memory of a sound experienced once over a fairly short period of time, e.g. an auditioning of a new audio component, is very poor. Hence, impossible to judge with your ears how much burn-in of cables helps. If you listen to them once, you can't remember by the time they're fully cooked. If you listen to them over a period of time, to form a more durable impression, you're actually burning them in while you listen. All you can really judge is whether, subjectively, the experience of listening to them after burn-in is as positive to you or more so, compared to your judgment when you first listened. This isn't the same thing. |
stevecham No one here has the courage to talk about everyone’s brain burn-in period though. Neurons are far more adaptable than speaker cables. We are very good at the process of belief. >>>>Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Here we go again with the Anti Audiophile screed that it’s all psychological, audiophiles are easily fooled, directionality and burn in can’t possibly be real so audiophiles must be either lying or hallucinating. Maybe they’re two beers over the line. 🍺 🍺 Placebo effect, expectation bias, alien abduction, mass hysteria. 😂 Pick your fav. |
Being able to hear “sheen” from Teflon dielectric but not being able to hear cable direction is an excellent example of WTF?Yeah, crazy huh? Maybe I simply didn't like the cables I've listened to that had Teflon-covered wire but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. As head teleporter, I'm sure you know not everything in audio can be rationally explained. |
prof But I don’t see how we can get anywhere the way this is going because you just keep asserting claims when I’m asking what justifies your claims.Most users here base their observations on listening. Beyond that, no one is obligated to provide scientific theories for what they hear, or provide the results of scientific listening tests they've conducted, or measurements they've made of the equipment under evaluation. This isn't a scientific group. This is mostly a hobbyist's group and if you seek hard data, this simply isn't the best place to find it. Of course, every reader is free to accept - or not - whatever claims are made here to whatever extent he likes. But the seemingly endless demands that posters provide upon request some set of scientific data to accompany their listening observations isn't going to get anyone anywhere. In addition, I suspect most members of this group don't even know how to set up a scientifically valid listening test. I base that on the claims by those who say they have conducted such tests but - upon being questioned - reveal that the test was flawed from the onset ... which makes it probably worse than no test at all. |
pcrhkr If you think I am out of my mind for believing cables require burn in (some more, some less), look at yourself first! Big expert you are. I've had 20+ years experience as a beta tester for a cable manufacturer (high end cables). Maybe Belden or Monster cables are so limited in their sound capabilities/materials that burn in doesn't exist for them. I've tried Monster 300 and 400 series (about six varieties) cables decades ago and couldn't hear a difference after 50 to 100 hours of use. However, testing out high end, complex design and exotic material cabling requires burn in to extract their stable sound capabilities as well as directionality. |
@andy2, Your analogy to a Ferrari and a Toyota is begging the question. (There are obviously gross physical differences in design and well-attested technical reasons why a Ferrari can outperform a Toyota in various ways - and since we are talking about the real-world, they are measurable. If you suggest high end cables outperform belden cable in an analogous way, can you tell us how this occurs, and provide or point to any measurable data for the claim?). But I don’t see how we can get anywhere the way this is going because you just keep asserting claims when I’m asking what justifies your claims. Maybe one more try: Do you think the "higher end" cables, such as your QED, transmit sonic information that the Belden cable is incapable of transmitting? |
I believe Blue Jeans cables use Belden. Correct. I bought a set of QED for not a lot more money than Blue Jeans cable but easily better considerably. So you had Belden cables and thought QED sounded better? It sure would be interesting to see if those impressions held up if you didn’t know which cables you were listening to. I'd also wonder about your explanation for why one would sound "better" than the other. I was subjectively "sure" my new music server sounded distinctly brighter and different from my old one. But in a blind test I could not tell one from another. Same as when I blind tested some expensive AC cables against a cheap one. The expensive cable at one point seemed to alter the sound of my system. As soon as I didn’t actually know which cable was being used, the "obvious differences" between it and a $15 ac cable disappeared. Blind testing can be sobering, and educational, that way ;-) You didn’t really answer my other questions, though. |
Whoa there people. I, for one, believe in burn in but not the outrageous pricing of cables. There is a lot of gray area here so generalizations should be greeted with about a pound of salt, when they occur. There's lots of overlap in these discussions that seems to be glossed over or neglected for the sake of a point. I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. My current speaker cables are designed by a former Belden engineer, required break in, and were very reasonable in cost. There. I've covered three areas of contention with an acceptable solution. All the best, Nonoise |
@andy2, Cables are definitely worth the asking coins. Really? Is that an across the board statement? Are ethernet cables costing $10,000 (Audioquest) "worth the asking coins?" If so, why? Is the Siltech Emperor Crown cables at $40,000 "worth the coin?" Or any of the others in a similar stratosphere? I’m just wondering what metric you are using when deciding "cables are definitely worth the asking coins" and if you use any discretion in judging this, and what that would be? BTW, some people like to respond to such questions by saying things like "a piece of audio gear is ’worth’ whatever someone will pay for it." But the market value of something is a different question from the one being asked, which is more along the lines of "How much do you have to pay to reach a certain level of PERFORMANCE and why?’ Cables are like car tires. A car needs a good set of tires for optimal performance. Sure. But at a certain point, the practical limits of tire design are reached, not to mention diminishing returns before that. You can buy cables from very knowledgeable, experienced manufacturers that are vastly less expensive than the prices often charged by high end cable manufacturers. So the question is: on what grounds do you NEED to spend that extra money for the expensive high end cables? Even if you’ve spent many thousands on expensive speakers and amplifiers, why wouldn’t cables (selected with suitable specs for the system) from a very experienced cable company like Belden, far cheaper than the audiophile brands, be good enough? |
There is no way that speaker cables need a burn in. Anyone who says that they do is out of their mind. All that a conductor does is allow a current path from point A to point B. The distance between the negative and positive conductors and the gauge of the cable does make a huge difference. The type of materials as in the conductor, how they are wound and insulator make a difference. As frequencies go through the speaker cable you have natural capacitive and Inductive reactance occurring as frequencies rise and fall from as they travel through the cable. The most noticeable difference in higher powered systems would be a current capability of the speaker wire. The higher the frequency rises the more frequency radiation off the speaker cable will happen. A properly wound / spaced cable may sound slightly brighter because it will pass higher frequencies better. Since there are no active components in a Speaker Cable there is nothing to burn in. It is simply an electrical conductor. Most people could not tell the sound difference from 10 Gauge speaker cable from Home Depot from a cable costing thousands from some esoteric speaker cable manufacturer. You would be best to concentrate your efforts on the active components of the system. Speakers, Pre-amp, Power Amp or receiver. Don't take anyone's word for it. Many people are out to make a fast buck. Go listen and decide if you can tell a difference and if the cost is worth the price mark up.
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There is no way that speaker cables need a burn in. Anyone who says that they do is out of their mind. All that a conductor does is allow a current path from point A to point B. The distance between the negative and positive conductors and the gauge of the cable does make a huge difference. The type of materials as in the conductor, how they are wound and insulator make a difference. As frequencies go through the speaker cable you have natural capacitive and Inductive reactance occurring as frequencies rise and fall from as they travel through the cable. The most noticeable difference in higher powered systems would be a current capability of the speaker wire. The higher the frequency rises the more frequency radiation off the speaker cable will happen. A properly wound / spaced cable may sound slightly brighter because it will pass higher frequencies better. Since there are no active components in a Speaker Cable there is nothing to burn in. It is simply an electrical conductor. Most people could not tell the sound difference from 10 Gauge speaker cable from Home Depot from a cable costing thousands from some esoteric speaker cable manufacturer. You would be best to concentrate your efforts on the active components of the system. Speakers, Pre-amp, Power Amp or receiver. Don't take anyone's word for it. Many people are out to make a fast buck. Go listen and decide if you can tell a difference and if the cost is worth the price mark up.
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There is no way that speaker cables need a burn in. Anyone who says that they do is out of their mind. All that a conductor does is allow a current path from point A to point B. The distance between the negative and positive conductors and the gauge of the cable does make a huge difference. The type of materials as in the conductor, how they are wound and insulator make a difference. As frequencies go through the speaker cable you have natural capacitive and Inductive reactance occurring as frequencies rise and fall from as they travel through the cable. The most noticeable difference in higher powered systems would be a current capability of the speaker wire. The higher the frequency rises the more frequency radiation off the speaker cable will happen. A properly wound / spaced cable may sound slightly brighter because it will pass higher frequencies better. Since there are no active components in a Speaker Cable there is nothing to burn in. It is simply an electrical conductor. Most people could not tell the sound difference from 10 Gauge speaker cable from Home Depot from a cable costing thousands from some esoteric speaker cable manufacturer. You would be best to concentrate your efforts on the active components of the system. Speakers, Pre-amp, Power Amp or receiver. Don't take anyone's word for it. Many people are out to make a fast buck. Go listen and decide if you can tell a difference and if the cost is worth the price mark up.
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There is no way that speaker cables need a burn in. Anyone who says that they do is out of their mind. All that a conductor does is allow a current path from point A to point B. The distance between the negative and positive conductors and the gauge of the cable does make a huge difference. The type of materials as in the conductor, how they are wound and insulator make a difference. As frequencies go through the speaker cable you have natural capacitive and Inductive reactance occurring as frequencies rise and fall from as they travel through the cable. The most noticeable difference in higher powered systems would be a current capability of the speaker wire. The higher the frequency rises the more frequency radiation off the speaker cable will happen. A properly wound / spaced cable may sound slightly brighter because it will pass higher frequencies better. Since there are no active components in a Speaker Cable there is nothing to burn in. It is simply an electrical conductor. Most people could not tell the sound difference from 10 Gauge speaker cable from Home Depot from a cable costing thousands from some esoteric speaker cable manufacturer. You would be best to concentrate your efforts on the active components of the system. Speakers, Pre-amp, Power Amp or receiver. Don't take anyone's word for it. Many people are out to make a fast buck. Go listen and decide if you can tell a difference and if the cost is worth the price mark up. |
This thread has veered so far off course that I'm sure it will be impossible to bring it back, but consider this. Burn-in on wires is, by definition, a process that takes place over time, quite a long time (even with cable cookers and the like). Substituting one component in a system for another can take 5 minutes or less. If what we know about auditory memory is correct, how can you ever effectively demonstrate to a non-believer the effect of burn-in? There's time lapse photography of grass growing and glaciers moving (and melting). But there's no equivalent in the world of sound. Or is there.....? |
