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?


128x128gawdbless
blueranger,

Maybe people thought your question was rhetorical and not true question asking for an answer. You gave the answer in the first part of your sentence and did not end it with "?" which is the usual sign to let others know it is a question.

Speaking of dodging questions, have you ever seen a metal burn?
Dodging the question. Tubes change in sound while burning in? No?  Yes they do and like wire it burns in too.
"I believe in Burn in..…...Wire or metal is the same."
Come to think of it, how many of us have seen a metal burning (in, out, in the middle, wherever)?

I think that may point towards the answer.

If your cable does burn, you need to switch to some fuse thread for suggestions.
The compass points at Kitty. 🐈💩

He is a habitual offender, and can expect to get as good as he gets. 

How is that for a bearing to the station, for a non-precision approach. 🐍💩🙀
Lets follow a moral compass and  try to respect your fellow audiogoners. Let's get back to the OP. I believe in Burn in. Tubes certainly burn in don't they. I have experienced that for sure. Wire or metal is the same.
ma prima avea ciascun la lingua stretta coi denti, verso lor duca, per cenno; ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.

Translation: I come from the land of bs.
All the 🐈 mewling sound and fury reminds me of another venue. 

Leave it to Dante.

ma prima avea ciascun la lingua stretta coi denti, verso lor duca, per cenno; ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.   (Inf. 21.137-39)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan_Is_Real

Highly recommended, together with a story about the duo. Covers do not get any better than this.
I was also wondering should we look for gawdbless who is missing in action. He did it to us. Burned us all.
now that this thread has been up well over a month, wondering if gawdbless is hearing any changes in his new/used cables...
Ok one more time. Explain to me when I accidentally cooked my ICs in my cable cookers speaker cable setting they sounded aweful. Lifeless, narrow soundstage and dull. They finally relaxed back (for a better term) out after a week. Hemigreg explain that?
glupson
So I am not the only one to doubt Einstein as the biggest science star that we made him into?

Don't put words in my mouth. I think Einstein deserves to be the big science super star ⭐️ he is simply for turning Newtonian physics on its head. He gets a pass on any mistakes he might have made.
I have a feeling that andy2 would disagree. He might say there are way too many of them.

I have nothing against lawyers.  Only the ones I know of.
no difference for breakin or direction.
variable AC exhibits skin effect and parrallel capactive coupling in all speaker wires proportional to frequency carried. 0-20khz is no problem.
only when you go a few 100khz do standing and reflected waves impact a

While resistivity of a wire can impede the flow of current and make heat, the inductance of a wire/transmission line can also impede the flow of current but this impedance does not create heat since the energy is ’lost’ in creating a magnetic field rather than exciting electrons in the material. This impedance is called Reactive impedance in AC Circuits. We used the word ’lost’ however the power is not truly lost, it is used to create the magnetic field and it returns when the magnetic field collapses.

2.) Skin Effect:
In AC power electrons like to flow on the outside of a wire. This is because the changing of current back and forth causes eddy currents that result in current crowding toward the surface.

Skin Depth

Skin depth is a fixed number for given frequency, resistivity and permittivity. The higher the frequency of AC power in system, the more current is compressed on the outside of the wire, so a wire that is used at 60 Hz at a given voltage will not be ok at 200 MHz. Engineers must always have the skin effect in mind when designing circuits. See the wikipedia site for the formula used to calculate the skin depth.
Above: engineers overcome skin effect by by using insulated stranded wire. If you make the individual strands equal to one skin depth, most of the current flows in the entire cross section and you use all of the copper. The downside is your wire must have a larger diameter as you need all the extra space for insulation. As the wire strands get smaller in diameter, and the insulation stays the same thickness, the ration of copper area to insulation can become less than one, then you will have more insulation than copper in the winding or cable.

 current traveling on the outside of each strand. This gives more surface area as a whole and allows for a large amount of current to travel through.

wires carring ability.
"There are very few criminal defense lawyers."
I have a feeling that andy2 would disagree. He might say there are way too many of them.
So I am not the only one to doubt Einstein as the biggest science star that we made him into?
The real question is, would Einstein be on board the burn-in train? 🚂  Recall Einstein was not (rpt not) on board the quantum mechanics train. He missed that train. Even thought he won the Nobel prize for the photoelectric effect, which is pure quantum mechanics.
There are very few criminal defense lawyers. The defense bar, on the civil side, is quite large. Hisssssss!  
blueranger,

You just made the firmest case against burn-in that has been posted around here.

It seems there are no lawyers on this thread. At least no defense lawyers.
A better one would be:
Why did God make snakes and lawyers?
So they have friends.
Why did God make snakes before lawyers?
Because he needed the practice.

Not funny.
I don’t want to miss out on the lawyer jokes so here goes:

Why did God make snakes before lawyers?
Because he needed the practice.
To help explain burn in, its like having faith. Like religion. Science can't prove the existance of God or burn in. Its what we hear that we believe in. Its not tangeable or touchable. Its what we hear.
So, a quack engineer dies and goes to Hades, where, because he is such a quack, he is given his choice of tortures. Room after room he rejects as too awful. Finally, Satan shows him to a room where people are standing in crap up to their chins, drinking coffee. Ah, I’ll take this one says the quack!  Satan hands the quack an empty cup, shoves him into the crap and shouts excitedly, “Coffee break is over, heads down!”

🐈💩😷🤧😖🙀
Riddle. What do you call a lawyer who’s up to his neck in wet cement? 

Answer: Not enough cement. 
Ha, ha!  A lawyer dies and stands before St. Peter, who sits at a high desk with the big book. The lawyer says he wants to be admitted to heaven, and St. Peter says you must answer one question, truthfully. The lawyer smiles. St. Peter says how old are you, and the lawyer replies, 76. St. Peter flips through the big book, screws up his face, and says according to your billing sheets you are 105!

🐈💩😷🤧🙀
I still think a large part of burn in is in the connectors. Hence contact enhanchers work but OMG the na sayers there is burn in there too!!! 24 hours
aj-s,
"Why does placing speaker cables in a pot of boiling water sound like lunacy to me but NOT to you?"
Well, I see you are new around here. Stay for some time, follow cable threads, mix with fuse threads, and you will start believing in your own theories, too. You will surely get a following. Become like, you know, Cablevangelist.

"How naive and gullible can one be?"
Apparently a lot. Still, regardless of how naive you may or may not be, do not tell people they are idiots. It is not a good idea.