Does Power Cord Require Burn-In To Sound Good?

Perhaps but that would require ignoring the ops question. Do they not deserve an answer?

Because the definition of an "audiophile" is subjective. Often, an audiophile is one who says: "...and if I spend that much money I KNOW it will sound better!

Why is it the fallback position on practically any debate or argument on cables is one of a binary nature, that being, obscenely priced cables vs. zip cord, when it was never brought up to begin with? Is that all you've got?

Maybe I should have qualified it by asking it this way: Why is that people with a grudge and an agenda masquerade as audiophiles and get their sadistic kicks haunting and trolling audiophile sites?

Here's a excerpt of a link from a very well respected recording engineer on what he terms HLO (hard lined objectivists):
https://www.stereophile.com/content/spectral-x-contamination-problems-op-amp-chips-hard-line-objectivists
The whole article is worth a read as the main thrust of it (problems in op amp chips) allies to all aspects of audio reproduction in 

All the best,
Nonoise

Respected recording engineer who has published a lot of nonsense like that silly test at RF of cables with Kimber and tries to claim it applies to audio (showing technical ignorance), or his claims to have eliminated masking from loud sound ( I call bull), or to raise tinnitus inducement by 30db (bull). I love his rants on crosstalk in op amps which I don't dispute but claims the audio is triangle waves internally is not accurate, and at best implementation and op amp dependent. Convenient to invite the variable and huge crosstalk in the predominant at the time vinyl playback. My favorite though is probably claiming electronics can ameliorate room issues.

And proof of his claims ...

So says you.

All one needs to do is consider the source.

All the best,
Nonoise

It is not a matter of "So says you". Simple fact, that so many of his claims are wrong or unsubstantiated. He should stop his rants long enough to realize that AD is Analog Devices and still very much in business. BB and LTC were just purchased by larger competitors and the the sub is often better than the pieces.

How power influences the sound depends upon the equipment: The power supply in an amplifier could do so thorough a job of filtering out noise along with hum that it might make power conditioning irrelevant. If you use single ended triode amplification it will always draw the same current rather than demand more current for loud passages in a recording and the resistance of a less expensive power cord will be trivial. Higher audio frequencies are easier to filter out than 60 Hz hum and many vacuum tubes have cutoff frequencies at higher radio frequencies.
Watch out for the placebo effect for cables in general. There is some junk science used to market audio.

Be suspicious when the recommended break in period is likely to take longer than the return policy last. Pretty hard to get 200 hours of listening in 30 days for most people. Just a thought. 

Like all audio products, the power cord must burn in for 90 days, i.e. until the credit cardfcannot be refunded.  Ask any sales person who works on commission.

Why is that people with a grudge and an agenda masquerade as audiophiles and get their sadistic kicks haunting and trolling audiophile sites?

To, of course, balance all the unscientific, unproven, useless bull crap that is put out on this forum by questionable sources and to protect the newbie from seeing only the bull crap.  Sorta like walking by a guy beating on a woman and doing nothing about it.

On the other hand.... who praises the significant, if not impressive, improvements in sound quality that can be achieved by buying very expensive "high end” cables? Two groups. Those that manufacture, distribute and sell these products at a serious profit and those who were talked into drinking the Kool Aid and would NEVER fess up to being fleeced. Actually there is a third group. This group gulped the Kool Aid and are victims of the insidious audio expectation bias that causes you to hear the advertised, albeit impossible, sound quality enhancement.

Different power cords do different things to the sound of your system. Without being technical, they have to match your system. Everything needs to burn in, but I agree with millercarbon. 

To, of course, balance all the unscientific, unproven, useless bull crap that is put out on this forum by questionable sources and to protect the newbie from seeing only the bull crap. Sorta like walking by a guy beating on a woman and doing nothing about it.


+1

My advice: If you bought a $5K amp and it doesn't sound good with the cord it came with, but you think supplying it with a $5K power cord will make it sound great - save your $5K and buy an amp. that has a decent power supply and sounds great with the cord it comes with....Jim

Clarification: Most amps, pre-amps CPDs and DACs do sound better after a period of warm up (usually 20 - 30 min. for tubed gear and sometimes several hours for SS gear) and most equipment will sound marginally better after a period of break in - hours, not hundreds of hours. So the above statement is assuming that the amp is a good match with your other devices and speaker load and has been adequately warmed up and broken in itself....Jim  

Well what I think is that burn in is not enough. I put a heat strip around my power cables to maintain a minimum of 150 degrees F. If you do not do this the burn in reverts to unburn in and then you are back to square one. If you ever let your power cable temp drop below 150F the degradation to your fidelity is quite pronounced. Also you need to keep your power cables suspended above and off any hard heat absorbing surfaces. There is a tendency for the side of your heat stripped cable adjacent to the heat absorbing surface to be a bit cooler. This can cause there to be an unbalanced audio signal which can be quite distracting. Carpet is OK for a contact surface for instance where an oak floor is not. I also recommend that your heated power cable be sheltered from AC ducts in the summer for the same reason. You can never be to careful when the finest outcomes in audio are what you not only strive for but demand.

@mahlman  I put a heat strip around my power cables to maintain a minimum of 150 degrees F

 WOW! This keeps getting more bizarre all the time....Jim

This is an open ended question, as a manufacturer I know what my customers tell me.  While a quality cable will show an immediate change, burn in time will show additional changes.  It can be as short as 5 hours or as long as 100 hours.  The changes are usually in openness, bottom end and sound stage, and brightness can soften over time.  In general there is a minimum of 10 hours before you should even start to develop an opinion.  As an example, our Interconnects are all over the place in the first 50 hours, then they start to settle down and do what they are supposed to.  There are to many variables to say just how long a burn in time should be.  But that's my 2 cents...

Take a deep breath, be open, be inquisitive, hold a modest amount of skepticism with unproven assertions, be careful opening your wallet, but also question current scientific tenets and limits because life is full of experiences that are valid yet unexplainable. Many, many respected audio designers and manufacturers willingly admit that science gets an idea part of the way to reality and then listening and tweaks beyond current logic fine tune many of the finest products we love to listen to. Science, alchemy, dumb luck, and art are all relevant. Don’t kid yourself. Don’t be so rigid, to think you can no more prove than disprove. If you believe your brain and your ears can be tricked, this cuts both ways. I am more then willing to give up a portion of my fortune to be continually tricked into being so caught up in a musical performance out of my HiFi that I momentarily quit thinking about the gear and all the crap and politics coming from folks that are so full of shiit that they feel the need to defecate all over the rest of us who are just enjoying our selves. And bye the way, on my kit and with my ears, I hear warm up, burn in, settling, and all kinds of other seemingly psychedelic phenomena. Everything counts. Everything is in play. Happy Listening! [|;^)>

By jhills:  "My advice: If you bought a $5K amp and it doesn't sound good with the cord it came with, but you think supplying it with a $5K power cord will make it sound great - save your $5K and buy an amp. that has a decent power supply and sounds great with the cord it comes with....Jim."

I have to say, this is the most lucid summary on this topic.  Well stated.  

I'd like to add: buy a better amp for the difference in money when that difference is greater than 15% of the cost of the device itself, if you feel the compulsion to upgrade.  I sunk my money into the cost of the devices.  I also second:  power supply to support circuit topology and build quality.  

Power supply...POWER SUPPLY...((((POWER SUPPLY)))) - in short: Transformers. Think Peter Dahl.

Then, capacitors, quality (tolerance) of resistors and adherence to tolerance in support of the circuit topology of your choice in class of service; i.e., Class A —> Class D and SS v Tubes.

Money is best spent there. If you have accomplished that, then by all means buy a $5👀K Power Cord. You might hear a difference and assuage your expenditure on wire. 👍🏿

"What are non audiophiles doing on an audiophile site?"
Why trolling of course!

"What are non audiophiles doing on an audiophile site?"
Why trolling of course!

Actually a true, intelligent "audiophile" is more likely to call BS on snake oil tweaks than one who THINKS of himself as an audiophile.

@twoleftears said it well..  I agree, Money is better spent elsewhere, especially the room and speakers.. A well designed and sized power cord doesn’t need to cost a fortune to function well.. Some folks use badly designed cables to coverup a much larger system issue or deficiencies. After everything is sorted out, then cables is a place to go and bleed money.  

Yes and there are great value power cords...but, MIT actually has unique patented technology in their PC’s which can be quite illuminating when all else is set up properly!

I use an MIT non networked AC3 pc and it was obviously great as soon as plugged in. Likewise with the AC1 and AC2 :)   No need for break in to notice improvements with my Spectral gear. Even using just an Oppo 205 for movies :)

Just return the PC. 
What a bunch of knuckleheads. We will know who you are by your response. 

It really depends on the cable.  I have had cables that break in had little to no impact.  Yet with others they sounded close off when first plugging them in and after 100+ hours they opened up quite a bit.