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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
andy2
1,545 posts
 

First, cables are just more than resistance. It has inductance and capacitance as well. But that is not the whole story. The inductance and capacitance are distributive so the rated inductance per foot or capacitance per foot don't tell the whole story either. Also the inductance and capacitance is frequency dependent so it gets even more complicated. Not only that inductance and capacitance are current and voltage dependent so it gets even more more complicated.

Now it's not just the metal. It's the dielectric material which are also current, voltage, freq. dependent.

So you can see. Hopefully you can see.

 

Now as for the measurement, how can you measure the effect of burn-in?

It can be measured but it's not that simple and you need some pretty sensitive equipment. Some stuffs from Fry’s is not enough. Not only that you need a fairly complicated setup to capture things in time domain and you need some serious fourier transform software to analyze the data.

 

Now you want to know how a cable burn-in? Just run some 20A current through some tiny wire and see if it burns.

ieales's avatar
ieales
1,201 posts
 
The scientific method allows changing only one variable at a time.
So all the CBI fans listen in climate controlled inert environments, always eat the identical menu, always get 8.5 hours of sleep, listen at precisely the same time and the same level, stop electronic and speaker aging, have their own power generation... ALL systems are a collection constantly changing variables.

CBI is about the MOST Unscientific topic in audio.

@andy2 
First, cables are just more than resistance.
Preaching to the choir. See http://ielogical.com/Audio/CableSnakeOil.php. 
Please don't regurgitate that which you don't comprehend.


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cleeds
5,943 posts
 
ieales
So all the CBI fans listen in climate controlled inert environments, always eat the identical menu, always get 8.5 hours of sleep, listen at precisely the same time and the same level, stop electronic and speaker aging, have their own power generation...
That's the logical fallacy of the "excluded middle." You might want to look it up.
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geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Next up, the top ten things that affect sound quality. Independent variables we call em. Who wants to go first?
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