If burn-in valid, then materials cannot be inert. If the materials are not inert, then they must always be affected. If the materials are affected, then a cable that's had thousands of hours of playing should have measurable deltas to its twin that sat on the shelf in the same environment for those same thousands of hours.
Technology exists to measure femto values, so it should be possible to measure deltas.
It is possible, per Heisenberg, that measuring may negate the change. By the same token, different program must also affect change. In that case, change is constant and therefore indeterminate.
Many years ago BAS reported on the results of test at UWatterloo with Linn's Ivor Tiefenbrun who gave rise the 80's single speaker in the room gospel.
The day began with two brief tests of the Tiefenbrun claim that undriven transducers (digital alarm watches, telephones, headphones,
or other loudspeakers) in the same room audibly degrade the sound quality - a claim which forms the rationale behind their "single speaker"
demonstration demand. Firstly, a digital alarm watch with piezoelectric "beeper" was held about 500 mm behind Tiefenbrun's head while he listened
to the loudspeaker reproduction from his stereo seat on the couch, with the watch either fully exposed or clasped firmly between the palms of my hands.
We were assured that the latter artifice would muffle any deleterious effects. This was thus a single-blind test: The testee did not know the covered/uncovered
status of the watch at each trial, but the tester did know. A random series of 20 trials was conducted while Remington cued up the turntable (playing
a female vocalist) on each occasion, as he did throughout the day. Tiefenbrun's result: 10 correct responses in 20 trials, an outcome which shows no
ability to discriminate between the two situations.
The second test, also single-blind, used a Linn "Kan" loudspeaker as the undriven transducer. Again the female vocalist
was used as source material. The loudspeaker lay on the thickly-carpeted floor behind the listening couch. It was placed either on its side (the "uncovered"
condition) or on its face (the "covered" condition) according to a random series of choices. Ten trials were conducted during which Tiefenbrun
achieved a score of 5 correct out of 10. Again, this demonstrates no discrimination ability beyond what one would expect purely on the basis of chance.
from
https://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/bas_speaker/abx_testing2.htmSomeday cable burn-in maybe similarly debunked.
