Do speaker cables need a burn in period?

“What well established scientific norms are you talking about? I certainly hope nobody broke any scientific laws. Because if anyone broke Ohm’s law I say we hang him.”

What?🙀

ganainm
Musician, Physician, EE degree, Ham, Audiophile. No, cables do not have burn in or have directionality. Many things CAN change such as your listening position, air density and your ears and brain. But for those who do believe in wires with magic properties, it is harmless fun. Unless they talk you out of real money. And you get to decide what that is. This is my thought based on experience physics and physiology.

Best Appeal to Authority award of the week. Bravo!

From experience, cables require different amount of burn-in time.  Some of their materials require different times.  I've found that copper wiring takes much less time than silver wiring to burn-in.  Even my phono-cables took a lot time back in 1989 to settle in (maybe 100 hours) despite their small gauge.  My speaker cables took a long time but sounded great as soon as they were plugged in.  My ICs of all sorts take a minimum of 24 hours before I listen to them as their character changes significantly (I'm a cabling beta tester for a manufacturer so I know how raw a cable can sound brand new).  

@tobor007 

If someone gave you a 10 to 1, $ bet that you could pick out the the direction of your cables with a blind listening test, how much money would you risk?

Oh poor 23-post dude (or dudet), go back and read from the beginning.  Nobody can actually hear the difference in a “blind” or “double-blind” listening test.  But, that doesn’t mean there is no difference.  Many can hear a significant difference, just not under the confines of actual comparison tests.  Besides, a requirement to actually hear a difference would suck the fun out of keeping endless logs of listening notes after changing the direction of each and every fuse and cable one-by-one.

You should be able to hear the difference right off the bat. If not, send them back.