Questions prompted by cable burn-in sound imrovement discussions


Learned hearing:  
I recently read an article concluding that, over time, the brain adds detail to the raw information detected through the ears.  This neural detail may be good (more nuance, more detail, better sound) or quite bad (tinnitus “noise” from damaged hearing receptors).  

Physical changes in cables (speaker or interconnects):  
About twelve years ago I recall seeing some “burn in” data collected on cables and conductors alone (excluding components or speakers) that was rather equivocal as to what, if anything, was actually changing during the burn-in.  
Note: This is not meant to argue about burn-in of components or speakers.  A complex variety of physical changes, which may occur over time of use in tubes, resistors, capacitors, crossovers and especially in sound transducers, would be far more difficult to document.

Q1:  Is anyone aware of any “sounds better” studies isolating new conductors alone, wherein measurable changes in conductance data support a true “burn in” improvement over time?

Q2:  More generally, assuming some amount of learned hearing occurs during the burn-in, what portion of sound improvement is neural vs. attributable to data supporting physical changes in conductors?

Q3:  Finally, what is the likely burn-in priority attributable to conductors versus speakers and components?




 
davesandbag
Thanks for your response, JWP.
I hadn’t considered improving the performance of a conductor by burnishing the cable’s insulation at the conductor interface ...  

Is there enough heat generated in a speaker wire to burnish the dielectric?  
Is it attributable to chemical changes in the dieletric (like oxidation) or something else?
Yeah, right. It’s the brain thinggie. 🧠🍳 If it’s not the brain thinggie it’s UFOs or mass hypnosis or some other crackpot reason. It can never be what it is. It’s getting harder to tell the crackpots from the audiophiles without badges.
My own suspicion is the effect is simply physiological. Our brains merely adapt to something new. I have retinal damage in one eye as of a year ago, and my brain has simply compensated for it, over time. Now, it is normal. 
HI Dave- several things about burn in.  These are GENERAL terms - there ARE exceptions.

Actual conductor burn in is generally accomplished in 24-40 hours depending on length, termination gauge and voltage/current.  After that, the performance WILL continue to change because ( again for the most part) you are burning in (or more accurately burnishing) the dielectric where it contacts the conductors.  That length of time is dependent on the material used as a dielectric. Cables like Tara with AIR as a dielectric obviously are burned in with the first 24-40 hours.

I doubt if anyone has ever done an empirical study of learned vs actual hearing of the changes.  On THIS forum, there are still a lot of non-believers that cables in general make any difference, so that is a HUGE can of worms to open. Audio memory is short- at best about 15-20 minutes at best, so it would be HUGELY difficult to do even a rudimentary "yesterday's sound vs todays sound" test.  I suppose the best practical way to do that would be to record the intervening sound and then listen to day 1 then day 1+24 hours then day 1+48 hours, but even that plan has flaws.  Best I can do however....