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Cable Burn In

I'm new here and new to the audiophile world. I recently acquired what seems to be a really high end system that is about 15 years old. Love it. Starting to head down the audiophile rabbit hole I'm afraid.

But, I have to laugh (quietly) at some of what I'm learning and hearing about high fidelity.

The system has really nice cables throughout but I needed another set of RCA cables. I bit the bullet and bought what seems to be a good pair from World's Best Cables. I'm sure they're not the best you can get and don't look as beefy as the Transparent RCA cables that were also with this system. But, no sense bringing a nice system down to save $10 on a set of RCA cables, I guess.

Anyway, in a big white card on the front of the package there was this note: In big red letters "Attention!". Below that "Please Allow 175 hours of Burn-in Time for optimal performance."

I know I'm showing my ignorance but this struck me as funny. I could just see one audiophile showing off his new $15k system to another audiophile and saying "Well, I know it sounds like crap now but its just that my RCA cables aren't burned-in yet. Just come back in 7.29 days and it will sound awesome."
n80
ieales's avatar
ieales
1,201 posts
 
Detailed just emphasizes the leading edge of notes.
And just, pray tell, how does a wire emphasize the leading edge of notes? That makes as much sense as saying that some ethernet cables italicize while others CAPITALIZE

The electrical signal is a continuously changing value which when transduced to moving air, our brain decodes into 'music'

Cables are equalizers and just as they may emphasize upper frequencies and sound 'detailed' they may just as readily roll the top and sound 'warmer'.

What any cable does when is utterly system dependent. See http://192.168.1.160/Audio/CableSnakeOil.php/ 

In over half a century of listening, EVERYTHING ascribed to cable burn in has been found to be connector related. See http://ielogical.com/Audio/#ConnectorCleansing
hifiman5's avatar
hifiman5
1,826 posts
 
@ieales   Nice anecdotal evidence.  Not an establishment of fact, however.    🤔
boxer12
8,655 posts
 
n80's previous post:
" Believe what you want, but don't be so pompous as to tell me what I can or can't hear."

"That cuts both ways, right? How is it that person 'A' can say "I hear a dramatic difference" and another person 'B' with equally good hearing and skills say "I don't hear a difference" and that makes person 'B' pompous but not person 'A'?"

A couple things here: 
1. It's a pretty big leap to state person A & person B have "equally good hearing skills. 
2. prof IS pompous.   
celander's avatar
celander
1,502 posts
 
My advice is not to worry about cable burn in. It will happen regardless, so why fret over it? And if you fret over it, then go out and buy a cable burner if you believe that will allay your concerns. But then you will fret over which cable burner to buy and whether it needs a burn in period. 
andy2
1,538 posts
 
The accusation that "burn - in" is more psychological than real only works for the average buyer since he mostly likely purchase a pair of cables and has rely on his memories to tell the difference when he bought it brand new and now.

But this accusation does not work for cable manufacturers because they have a bunch of them lying around - some brand new, some has been used for awhile.  So there is no need to recall any "memories" since they can compare side by side brand new cables and old cables.  So if they can hear the difference then there is such thing as "psychological".
Cable manufacturers has nothing to gain by this.  If you bought a cables and it sucks, you call the manufacturer, they tell you to wait until so and so hours.  If after that it still sucks, then they got nothing to gain, because it's still suck.  
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