Corona: The use of a signal generator by itself only works for interconnects due to the voltage and current levels that it can generate. For speaker cables, one needs to feed the generator into a power amplifier and use this to drive the cables into terminating dummy loads of appropriate power handling / heat dissipation.
While using lower impedance loads such as those found in most speakers ( 2 - 12 ohms ) will more closely represent what the cable will be connected to, the increased current flow caused by such low impedances generates a LOT of heat in the amp and the dummy loads. Since the voltage is what is doing most of the "break in" here, one can avoid the higher levels of current that low impedances bring with them and still get 90% of the benefits of "burning" the cables. This allows one to devise a burner that is easier to configure, cheaper to build and offers a higher safety factor.
By having the amp feed the speaker cables terminated into a higher resistance, the amp no longer runs near as hot and the current absorbed by the dummy load is reduced. Everything runs cooler and there is less potential for a fire ( power supply and / or output devices failing in the amp or the resistors in the dummy load igniting ). While the maximum voltage that the amp can develop into the higher impedance is reduced, the over-all effects as far as the cables are concerned are near the same. Something along the lines of 24 - 40 ohms seems to work pretty well for this purpose as the current required to pass through the output devices and the dummy loads are reduced by 300% - 500% as compared to a typical 8 ohm load. Granted, a higher level of current flowing through the speaker cables would make this procedure a little more thorough and speed things up, but it also makes things more expensive to set up and do in both a reliable and safe manner.
What i've mentioned here is a "budget DIY" approach to both an interconnect burner and speaker cable burner. One can do both simultaneosly if they pad the high level output of the signal generator feeding the amp while driving the interconnects directly with that higher voltage. Obviously, the speaker cables and interconnects will have to be terminated with their own loads, otherwise "bad things" would happen. If you've gotten this far and are even contemplating doing something like this, you should be able to figure out why you don't want the high level speaker cables terminating into the same load that the low level interconnects are. For those of you that can't figure it out, the amplifier would see the signal generator as part of the terminating load and try feeding the amplfied signal back into it. While it would be severely attenuated due to the terminating resistors that linked the two together, it still wouldn't be something that you would want to do.
As a side note, one could purchase a high powered L pad and terminate it into a low impedance dummy load for use when burning in the speaker cable. This would allow one to vary the impedance that the amplifier / speaker cables terminate into in a manner that allows manual regulation and reasonable power handling. Once again though, the safety factor is reduced, costs are increased and the generation of heat goes way up.
Another tip is to keep the terminating impedance on the interconnects up relatively high i.e. several Kohms at least. As mentioned above, it is not so much the current that breaks in the cabling as it is the higher than normal voltage levels on the interconnects and / or the more consistent voltage levels when doing speaker cables. There have been reports by more than a few people that using devices that present interconnects with an uncharacteristically low terminating impedance has resulted in poorer performance with possible damage being done to cables making use of some type of impedance compensation and or "networking". While one might think that pulling more current would speed things up, it seems as if such is not the case with interconnects and that the voltage is doing most of the work ( as mentioned above ).
Both the interconnects and speaker cables will require some "actual use" playing time to fully settle even after being "burned" using the prescribed methods, but the interconnects should be pretty much "done". The speaker cables will be "close" and give you a good idea of what to expect out of them, but a few more hours of "beating" within the actual system will finish up the task. Sean
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PS... Corona: Were you picking my brain here to see what i came up with or are you not as much of a brain surgeon as you've led us to believe in the past ?
PPS... There is another way to do all of this that works phenomenally well and is far more thorough than what i've mentioned here. I'm not going into that approach as it is more complex, more costly and could be the grounds for me divulging "intellectual properties" for a product that i might end up marketing. The smart "electro-heads" may have already figured out what i'm talking about without going into further details : )
