smitchem1 pretty much hit the nail right on the head as to why the "wire is wire" people (new batch / where did they all come from?) can't hear any difference with this: "They had an electrical engineer explain". Enough said.
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
@geoffkait Once again you have avoiding providing DATA/Documentation on your claims that wire is direction OR that it requires/benefits from break-in. You make unrelated statements like below, claim you won the Nobel Prize (see quote below) but NEVER provide us with any DATA! Please share with us the measurable, repeatable data the proves wire is directional AND that wire break-in is real! “If I could explain it to the average person they wouldn’t have given me the Nobel prize.” >>>>I guess you would have to know that everything that’s in the electromagnetic spectrum, including visible light, which is actually an extremely small portion, is comprised of photons. It’s pretty obvious visible light cannot travel through most solid materials except transparent ones like water, polycarbonate, glass and clear plastic. The electrical signal and the audio signal, are also in the electromagnetic spectrum, but can travel through copper or silver. I bet you thought the signal was electrons, right? |
The quote is not mine, it’s Feynman’s. That’s why it’s in uh, quotes. Why would I say I won the Nobel prize? Obviously you have difficulty following technical arguments. These demands for proof of yours serve no purpose, especially given your inability to follow relatively simple technical arguments. This conversation can serve no purpose any more. ta, ta |
Has anyone considered the possibility that a person gets accustomed to the sound of a new component or new cables after listening for 200 hours, then decides that they like it? That IS human nature after all.(sorry if this has already been said - I don't have time to read ALL the posts but the first 20-30 were unanimous in favor of the burn-in effect.) |
@geoffkait Many of us are engineers on this forum, you make statements of FACT but provide NO proof. As rldwv wrote: All us doubters are saying is "prove it". I don’t know how else you can prove it without a measurement. Most engineers embrace the addage "In God We Trust, all others bring data". In typical geoffkait fashion you give up when it comes to proving what your claims. You provide NO technical arguments you just make undocumented/proven claims and give up when challenged for proof of your pseudoscience. |
Many of us are engineers? But not you, one assumes. Just going by what you say, no offense. You haven’t made any technical argument. Plus any real engineer, especially one experienced in this sort of discussion, would have certainly recognized Feynman’s famous quote. You brought a knife to a gun fight. If you don’t actually HAVE a counter argument then maybe it’s time to pack your bags and head back to AudioKarma. You have to explaining to do. You know, like things over on A-Gon are a lot tougher than you guys thought. 😬 “Shut the cave door and back to pigmy country!” 🦍 |
Perhaps listen to your cables when they are new (no burn in). Have a friend take your cables for a week or so. Tell him to burn the cables in or do nothing, but don't reveal it to you. Listen to the cables again for the obvious difference in sound and confirm your findings with him. Then feel good that at least this audio myth didn't cost you any money. |
@geoffkait You posted the Nobel prize quote as if it was you, yourself who one it. And for the record, I brought a gun to this fight, i'm tired of your ridiculous pseudoscience claims on these forums. They are bad for this hobby we all enjoy and confuse people who are not technical. I do have a counter argument to your claim that wire is directional when implemented in a AC circuit (interconnects & speaker)? AC is ALERNATING CURRENT! So the electric charge in alternating current (AC), changes direction periodically. The voltage in AC circuits also periodically reverses because the current changes direction. How would wire directionality work in a AC circuit? The "preferred direction" would be wrong half the time! And please keep your response out of the world of photons, its NOT relevant to this discussion. We are talking about HOW AC current actually works. Here is a challenge for you which I know you will squirm you way out of, please tell us all where one can purchase directional wire, besides your favorite audioquest plug. I asked you about this before, go to any home depot and ask the guys in the wire department for directional speaker wire, the will laugh at you because it does NOT exist. Call up Beldon, a very well know producer of wire, tell them you want to purchase directional speaker wire and give us their response. I can go on and on with other challenges so bring it on! |
Engineering fact and law reverts to Scientific theory.. in the moment you have unknowns and are in the act of exploring. Laws and facts are for punishing the outlier for being different than the clan. It’s all theory in the given exploration... as the record is subject to change in the face of said exploration. If it’s all facts and laws then the future will be exactly the same as the past. Science guides gently with aim and direction, it does not force and exhibit tyranny and dictatorial rule, like the laws and facts of engineering. If it does (exhibit forced prior conditionals)...it means no one will be alive or change or grow and we’ll all be mindless dead automatons. Humanity as a corralled and controlled commodity. Is that what you are looking for? Importantly... the very heart of science, what it is, how it works, what embodies it’s very meaning and flow --- is the outlier. No outliers.... no science, no change, no life. All you’d be left with.... is a boxed dead commodity. I think you misunderstand how science works. |
@teo_audio Well, if that were the case i would had trouble staying employed for the last 40 years. So reading your response you are trying to say that in some cases AC current does NOT behave in the way science & engineers understand it? Your statement sounds like the definition of Pseudoscience which consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual, but are incompatible with the scientific method. |
I can see the argument for "directionality" if the condition is not symmetric. Let's say if one end of the cable is subjected to one condition, and the other end is subjected to different condition, then it's possible that the cable could be conditioned differently if you reverse the direction. For example, if one end is constantly biased to one voltage, and another end is biased to another voltage, then there is a possibility that the argument for "direction" has some merrits. No if the current is DC then of course you have directionality, no question about it. But music signal is AC so that is the tricky part to argue if you are the proponent of "directionality". But if the current is truely AC, then the current is always symmetric. But is the currrent always AC? Could there be a small DC offset current? For example, you have an amp driving a speaker, one terminal of the cable is being biased by the amp output transistors and the other terminal of the cable is connected to the speakers. If the output transistors are DC coupled, then you have a servo on the amp output to adjust for the DC offset, but this servo circuit does have a small (maybe even very small)DC offset so there will be a small net DC current flowing from the amp to the speaker. So in this case, it's not symmetric and the "directionality" argument might make sense. In the case of interconnect, you have a preamp driving the amp input. In this case, DC offset is not as important because you don't have anything driving the speakers. I am not a preamp or amp designer so I don't know how the detail of the preamp output design or the amp input design, but there is a strong possibility that the interconnect terminals on both ends are not being subjected to the same condition, so therefore there is an argument for "directionality" even if the current is always AC (for example the preamp output is capacitively "coupled" to the cable but the amp input is biased to some voltage). So in this case, you have a symmetric AC current, but non-symmetric bias condition on the terminals of the interconnect. For the proponents of "directionality", the difficult part is that you have to make a case how a symmetric AC current has anything to do with "directionality". For the opponent of "directionality", you have to explain how different bias condition on the terminals of the cable does not affect the cable if you reverse the cable direction. I am not a proponent or opponent of "directionality" but I present some possibilities for the "directionality" argument. |
@geoffkait Ok now you are lowering the conversation to insults, pretty low grade insults too which is just another way you are avoiding the very simple request to document your claims, is wire directional, and HOW would that work in a AC circuit?? @andy2 audio interconnections and amp to speaker connections are AC, there is no DC involved in these connections. There IS DC internal to pre-amps & amps, its what their power supplies are there for to convert AC power from the wall to pure DC, voltages depend on the design & function of these components. |
Another case for the "directionality" people, is that even if both ends are not being bias differently and the current is truely AC, on the driving terminal in this case is the amp, the voltage is always slightly higher than the other end since there is always some resistive losses in the cable. Think of the cable as a simple voltage divider driving the speakers as a load. You have input voltage and output voltage. Obviously for a voltage divider, the output voltage is always smaller than the input voltage. So at least in this case, you have "directionality" because the one terminal is subjected to one voltage and another terminal is subjected to another voltage. What I said above is just theoretical. In practical situation, I have to admit it would be different to hear the difference unless I guess have have a really exceptional system with top notch transparency. |
@geoffkait If you mean the pseudoscience statement you posted earlier? its NOT proof in any way, its a statement with NO actual test data to back it up. If you ask me your quote below is proof you do not understand how AC current works! If you said this in any electrical engineering class your classmates would laugh you out of the room! >>>>Didn’t you get the memo? Maybe you were sleeping. You don’t need to be concerned with any signal travel in the “opposite direction,” only any signal travel toward your speakers, I.e., the correct direction. Follow? |
We have gone from burn-in to directionality. I think the next pseudoscience ... err ... I mean cable topic to get a bunch of people worked up is does it make any difference if you let your speaker cables lying on the ground vs. having it lift off the ground? The reason behind this is that speaker cables are basically a transmission line. And all transmission lines are affected by the surrounding dielectric materials. By running the cables on the ground or your living room carpet, the ground in this case act as a dielectric material but in a non-symmetric way because the bottom half of your cables are in contact to the ground, while the upper half while the upper half is in contact with the air. So the signal may get distorted. By lifting the cable off the ground, the dielectric is now symmetric as intended so the signal will not be distorted. I can't promise this won't get people worked up. |
Andy2, you’re overthinking it. The reason cables are directional is the same reason fuses are directional, the same reason HDMI cables are directional and why power cords are directional. It’s the wire itself that’s directional. I’m amazing that so many here don’t know what directionality is since its been discussed here, pros and cons, for like forever. Cut me some slack, Jack. |
@andy2 Unfortunately you are right about changing the topic, sorry about that. @morrowaudio did make a statement about it and i asked him to present his data that shows this to be true, ie testing that shows any difference of resistance/inductance/capacitance. As for @geoffkait he has proven to be a quack, he will only respond with insults instead of providing us with real electrical engineering data to support his statements of wire directionality AND he has mentioned that he supports cable break in as well with NO meaningful data to support this claim either. I'm not the least be surprised by Mr. Kait and his inability to share with us his engineering data, anyone who attempts to sell products such as: Brilliant Pebbles The Super Intelligent Chip And my favorite, the Teleportation Tweak Has to know what he is talking about and we all should believe everything he says! |
I did ask geoffkat multiple insults ago: Please share with us the measurable, repeatable data the proves wire is directional AND that wire break-in is real! @rlwd posted this which is spot on: All us doubters are saying is "prove it". I don’t know how else you can prove it without a measurement. Most engineers embrace the adage "In God We Trust, all others bring data". In the case of Mr Kait all he believes in is condescending insults and since he is not an engineer he would not understand the concept of "prove it" with measurable data. |
It’s a two edged sword. Data dogma is what produced the Hubble telescope fiasco and data dogma is also what produced the Challenger explosion and the second space shuttle disaster when it disintegrated during reentry. Data dogma also resulted in the sales of all those horrible sounding solid state amps back in the 80s that boasted super low THD. Data dogma. Woof! woof! Bad dogma, bad! 🐕 |
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I think data is only part of the equation. If anything, data probably comes last. If you want to build anything, first you need a vision, some intuition, and some sound underlying reasons. Then you build a prototype. Then you measure and collect data. If it were data, Einstein would not have come up with his general relativity. In fact, people were not able to prove his theory back then because nobody was able to measure time and space. To demand data or all else is like abdicating your mind. The world is too complicated for data sometimes. You have to rely on your tuitions a lot of time. As going to the moon, I think data probably comes way after a bunch of people getting together brainstorming throught the night. Can you imagine one guy stood up and said "I ain't going in that rocket cause there is no data telling me it won't blow up." I am sure another guy would say, "But George, we ain't got a rocket yet so somebody has to go first". |
