cable burn in process

I think your correct.

New equipment be it preamp, amp, interconnect or speaker cable will sound reasonably good out of the box, turn for the worse after a few hours, eventually sounding much better than where it began.

Phono cartridges and speakers don't seem to follow this rule as they are a combination of both electrical and mechanical break in.

Although CD players are both mechanical and electrical, they generally sound better when left on 100% of the time. My CD player sounds terrible if I turn it off for a week and then back on to listen.

Completely broken in cables require refreshing if not used for some time. Not nearly the difference experienced with the original break in, but cables with lots of hours recently inserted into my system always sound better after they are used a bit.

I now use only one brand of cable but found this applies to every cable I've owned over the last 20+ years. Perhaps it's the connectors, solder joints and insulation settling in.

Yes it is normal, IME. The wire and dielectrics are changing due to voltage/current. In electronics, I have always needed a good 300 hours before I evaluate.

I just bought 2 new sets of I/C's and my systems sounds like s##t. Looking for a diy cable cooker.

Tim

I agree, but I've never heard the sound getting "worse" before it gets better again. I've always noticed just continuing improvement.

Looking for a diy cable cooker. - Goodwill stores usually have lots of dirt cheap cd players & recievers & speakers.

Fatparrot. What I hear is (usually) the high frequencies being compressed or rolled off at first startup. Then, after a few hours of break in the top opens up and reveals all the "jagged" errors of new stuff.

After enough hours the top sounds good again but with details (and no jagged) as compared to first moment of turn on.

As everyone here at Audiogon likes to say, your mileage may vary.

Flemke - the Hagerman FryKleaner is available as a half-kit. I've heard good things about this unit.

I'm surprised that we haven't heard from all those folks who think that cable break-in is a figment of our imaginations. It isn't, of course, and I've also heard the gets-worse-before-it-gets-better phenomenon.

I don't know how one can prove that cables do require a break-in period since cables cannot be removed from their connections to test separately. It leaves the question as to what truely is breaking in, the components/tubes, cables or all since a whole system is a combination of its many parts. If I could speculate on cable break-in I would tend to think that the electrons would have to establish their shortest signal path thus producing an eventual change.

same experience here. especailly with interconnects break-in.

Cheapest and easiest cable cooker you can get is an FM tuner off ebay. An old tuner can be had for $10.

It may not work as quickly as a dedicated cooker that uses higher voltages and signal sweeps, but you can walk away from your ICs for a week and comeback to 200hrs of nicely cooked ICs.

You could do the same for speaker cables using an old receiver and a dummy load.