Burn in is experienced by many people. Enough to lend an argument that it could very well be viable. We have barely scratched the surface of physics. Just the basics.
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
OMG, I can’t believe what I’m reading here. Speaker cable burn in? Are you kidding me? In this universe, what magical, non-scientific process are these speaker cables going through that’s going to change their physical characteristics? Basic physics people - there is nothing you can do to speaker wire by hooking it up from your amp to a speaker that will ever cause it to change itself. You can get your cables cryogenically frozen, add batteries to them, twist in a few "feedback loops" and it won’t change the wire or the manner in which it carries a signal in any way. Yes, speakers go through break-in periods and electronic components do go through what one might term a "burn-in" but wire is wire. Some good 10ga stranded copper wire is all you need to effectively get the signal from your amp to your speakers. If you actually saw the wiring used inside your speaker to go from the terminals to the crossover and the various drivers, you’d probably faint. You can spend all you want to get that signal to your speakers but on the other side of that terminal you just connected to is much lower quality wire heading to the crossover - industry standard stuff. Don’t get sold on all this hype and snake oil that’s out there. |
That is why I mentioned that existence of burn-in may not be important. Regardless of if it exists or not, what can you do about it? It is not worth getting all riled up about it. All joking aside, for the consumers, cable burn in may not be important since the cables will sound good or bad eventually. For cables manufacturers, I think it's important since they have to understand how those little electrons will affect the sound. |
Except for the part about me needing to get out of my cave more often, everybody is right. I am already out way too much. I also doubt that I would run into Ms. Upton on the street. She lives in Texas, it seems.
In reality, anything is more interesting than discussions about cable burn-in. Even more so when they get crowded in some dead-end which is often, if not always, the case. This thread included. That is why I mentioned that existence of burn-in may not be important. Regardless of if it exists or not, what can you do about it? It is not worth getting all riled up about it.
Microphone back to whoever has more on Ms. Upton. |
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geoffkait, "Have you considered maybe getting another hobby. Macrame, perhaps, or stamp collecting."You may not remember but we discussed stamp collecting before (hints: Freddie Mercury, Ron Wood, Queen Elizabeth II). You even thanked me for informing you about it. I am not a stamp collector but do own a fairly large collection of Lichtenstein stamps, along with lesser numbers of some others. Have you considered maybe getting another hobby? This audio stuff is not going well, I am afraid. Restaurant napkins? Stamp collecting? We can trade. |
I also do not think there is a wide anti-cable conspiracy going on. Maybe a mild anti-"anti-cable" paranoia. Does it really matter if speaker cables need burn-in? Is anyone going to buy cables and listen for a few hours only? If they do need burn-in, you will get there at some point. If they do not, you will get there sooner. Why do people care so much? |
glupson geoffkait, No worries, I still do good things for humanity. It is just that I tried doing a few small experiments here. Like changing direction of wires or removing the cover from an amplifier. Responses, yours included, revealed more about responders than expected. Unless one strives to uncover different personality traits/flaws of others, I would not recommend posting own results of some experiments in these threads. They do not contribute to discussion about whatever is discussed. >>>>>Gosh, glubson, you must be the unluckiest guy in the whole wide world. A few experiments for man, one giant step backward for mankind. 👨🚀 Have you considered maybe getting another hobby. Macrame, perhaps, or stamp collecting. |
Interesting ancedote tarras22 or is it Steve Stone? At any rate the best thing about that test is it points out what the objectivist admits we all have biases and can be as dogmatic as anyone else which is why the objectivist argues for blind testing and replicability. In the case of this thread I freely admit I would probably not be a good test subject on whether a lenght of wire used for x number of hours sounds better or different than a new lenght of wire. The notion to me is preposterous. |
geoffkait, No worries, I still do good things for humanity. It is just that I tried doing a few small experiments here. Like changing direction of wires or removing the cover from an amplifier. Responses, yours included, revealed more about responders than expected. Unless one strives to uncover different personality traits/flaws of others, I would not recommend posting own results of some experiments in these threads. They do not contribute to discussion about whatever is discussed. |
It would be a good way to do it, but around here it would be even more flammable. It could happen that, once he conducts his own test and reports results that are not in line with what was expected by others, he gets called different names and his results get dismissed as crap. That happens here. It is just a no-win situation. |
koan2 ... please provide some fact-based explanation as to why speaker cables may require breaking in. I will keep an open mind ... until any plausible explanation is presented, I've got to call BS.It doesn't sound like your mind is very open. If this matter interests you, why not conduct your own listening tests? |
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again, please - someone - anyone - please provide some fact-based explanation as to why speaker cables may require breaking in. I will keep an open mind, but I am unaware of why this would make any difference, or any factual attempt to measure such a difference. I supposed there were people back then who didn't believe the earth is round. They demanded someone to travel around the earth. Of course you didn't have to travel around the earth since there were plenty of evidences without having to actually going around the earth. A lot of smart people already knew that. You sound like that sort of people who were skeptical back then. |
again, please - someone - anyone - please provide some fact-based explanation as to why speaker cables may require breaking in. I will keep an open mind, but I am unaware of why this would make any difference, or any factual attempt to measure such a difference. Unless and until any plausible explanation is presented, I've got to call BS. Please prove otherwise or at least suggest a theory? I think it is more likely one perceives a difference rather than if one really exists with speaker cables. |
"What is a robust test? Robustness testing has also been used to describe the process of verifying the robustness (i.e. correctness) of test cases in a test process. ANSI and IEEE have defined robustness as the degree to which a system or component can function correctly in the presence of invalid inputs or stressful environmental conditions. " Which produces.... "Robust statistics are statistics with good performance for data drawn from a wide range of probability distributions, especially for distributions that are not normal. Robust statistical methods have been developed for many common problems, such as estimating location, scale, and regression parameters." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Standards_Institute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Electrical_and_Electronics_Engineers |
That’s what I like to call the Backfire Effect. It can work both ways but usually occurs with skeptics who have pretty much made up their minds on a particular subject but who may create arguments that make it seem like they have an open mind. The Backfire Effect occurs when a skeptic is faced with contradictory evidence, perhaps even a barrage of contradictions. Rather than weight the evidence the skeptic holds his beliefs even more strongly. Plus they’d rather fight than switch. 🤼♂️ |
Speaking of ABX testing. Interesting result, very interesting. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I had a long conversation during the show with Thorsten Loesch of Abbington Musical Research and IFI. He told me a fascinating story about confirmation bias. That’s when you are so sure of something that even strong evidence to the contrary will not persuade you to change your mind. Thorsten put together a blind ABX testing where he told participants it was a comparison of two power cables. But when he went behind the curtains, ostensibly to change the power cable, what he actually did was switch the speaker cables on one channel, so the system was playing out of phase. Thorsten had three different types of audiophiles take his test: subjectivists, objectivists, and those who were neither. The subjectivists and neutral listeners heard the effects of the system being thrown out of phase. The objectivists heard no differences. It was a robust test with clearly correlated results. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The fact that the objectivists in Thorsten’s test were the ones who were so set in their opinions that it blinded them to the aural facts in front of their ears is a delicious irony. Why? Because those audiophiles who embrace ABX testing with the most fervor are those who believe most strongly in effects of expectation bias, which is why sighted testing is, in their eyes, flawed. Thorsten’s test indicates a strong tendency for objectivists to listen with closed ears whether the test is blind or sighted, which isn’t very objective, is it? |
chazro, I have to disappoint you. Those three deleted posts were mine and were actually only one. Something was wrong with Audiogon and it would give error message while posting it. It put it out three times with one click. I tried to delete two but all got deleted so I gave up posting. Sorry, it was not that exciting after all. |
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