Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

Uh-oh-- seems like I stepped on some toes without even meaning to. Adamanteus, if you'll look at my post again, you'll see that I said "Stevemj does not have the psychological or intellectual capacity TO GET WEIRD ENOUGH for this audiophile". Actually, although I too disagree with Steve, he makes very well written and civil posts. I would say that I complimented him by saying that he cannot get WEIRD enough for me-- straight out of HST's best works. But if I offended, my apologies. Craig.

Getting back to the topic-- can Stevemj demand that we prove our contention, ie that there is a difference in music character with "burn in", but we cannot demand that he prove his, ie that there is no difference with "burn-in"?

Personally, I have no particular "need" to explain the phenomenon as I trust my own senses. But if he wishes to prove his case, I would love to see the results of his study(s) with peer reviews, publication-- the whole works. And I surely do wish him the best of luck. Cheers. Craig

Yes, sloshing electrons through a cable changes it: the cable heats up. Temperature changes mean physical changes. Physical changes can change electrical characteristics--work hardening is an example.

Sean - My opinion, for what it is worth, is that most people here are probably better listeners than I am. I would not want to be in a listening contest with anyone here where we were trying to distinquish between signals with measureable differences. I am pretty sure the folks here have ears that are as good as ears get.

I would not hesitate, however, to bet a huge amount of money that, in a true double blind test, no one could tell if a cable had been "conditioned".

If it really would mean something to you I will try to dig up evidence that electrical signals won't change the property of metals. I hear over and over again the argument that science doesn't know everything therefore what one hears is real. This makes it pointless to give scientific evidence.

KD - Let say that we run a 10 volt square wave, that's 10 volts RMS. Say cables have .2 ohms resistance and the load is 10K. Current is E/R or 10/10000 = 1/1000 amp. Power (watts) is current squared times resistance so Watts = 1/1000 X 1/1000 *.2 =1/5000000 or one five millionth of a watt.... I think we can rule out heat as a factor.

If this doesn't make any sense, here's another way to look at it. If electricity cost 10 cents a kilowatt/hour, you will have to leave a cable on the conditioner for 57,000 years to get 1 cent worth of electricity heating the cable.