Do speaker cables need a burn in period?

@andy2

Again in order for you to be right, everyone else must be wrong.

And I just explicitly said I’m not proposing that I have an answer "that I am right about" in regards to cable burn in. I just wrote that I DON’T claim to have that answer, so I’m wondering why you are ignoring the actual content of what I’m writing.

I guess you’re saying our hearing is not a valid way of measuring. If you cannot trust your hearing, then what else can you trust? Once in awhile a person hearing can be fooled, but what you’re saying is everybody hearing on earth has been fooled.

No, I haven’t said or implied any such thing, which is why I specified: "It’s the same when we are talking about audible differences that are either very small, or exist in areas that are controversial. "

Clearly our hearing is to a significant degree reliable! It helps us successfully survive and get through every day, after all. And we can reliably identify all sorts of sources where the characteristics are large enough to reliably distinguish. For instance, we reliably identify the voice on the other end of the phone as our mother, our friend, etc.

But as audible differences become ever more subtle, our ability to discern and remember those differences tend to reduce as well. If I played you an audio file at 40 dB and you went away for a day, and when you came back and I played the file at 80 dB, you would have no problem identifying which session was played louder. But if the difference were only 1 dB, you’d have a MUCH harder time (essentially impossible) having confidence about whether which session was louder or not.


To the degree we are talking about subtle sonic differences, it makes sense to take this in to consideration, wouldn’t you agree?


(This is why being able to switch quickly between A and B is helpful for reliably identifying subtle differences - where audiophiles often presume that they can identify identify subtle differences over much longer periods of time - "that trumpet sounds a bit more burnished with these cables than it did the last time I listened to this piece, a month ago with my old cables!")

Most of the audible differences we discern in life are those we would EXPECT to be reliably differentiated, based on the gross timbral/spectral/harmonic characteristics we are talking about, and given what we know of human hearing. Grossly audible differences can be measured between, say instruments (or even the same instruments played differently).

Speakers fall in to this category. The measurable differences between speakers tends to fall well in to the category we know to be audible to human hearing, so when someone talks about hearing a difference between speaker A and B their claims are entirely plausible.

In contrast, we have little to no measured differences being shown between things like an audio signal using different high end AC cables, or burned in vs non-burned in cables. And the technical explanations made on behalf of these claims, aside from often being all over the map depending on which manufacturer or audiophile you are talking to, are disputed among those with the credentials to know better. (E.g Electrical Engineers who are not trying to sell you expensive cables).


So there are grounds on which to be cautious about some of the claims of audiophiles and the high end audio companies - the ones in which the technical grounds are dubious or in dispute, in which objective measurable evidence seems missing (unlike that which can be shown for any number of audible differences we know to exist), and in which the claims are vetted almost entirely in a subjective manner susceptible to bias.

Is this position clear enough, and I hope, reasonable to you now?

Thanks.

prof, (or should I call you professor Hume :-)

First I appreciate that you're being very polite in your response considering some of the other posters around here.

I think I have to make an assumption that in order for the human race to work, one has to at least establish that most people are honest and tell the truth.  Yes there are people who are dishonest but I don't think human has evolved this far if most people are dishonest and all we do is just lying to other people.

Second, we have to assume that our ears are reliable after all they are transducers just like any other sensors.

Now let's say somebody gave me some data that prove cable burn in does exist, I could very say "I don't trust your equipment.  It's possible that the equipment is not accurate."  The person would say it's not possible because the equipment has been calibrated.  I then would say how do I know the calibration was accurate because the equipment you used to calibrate is not correct.  That person then told me it's not possible because that piece of equipment that he used to calibrate was already calibrated by another even more accurate equipment.  I then would say I don't trust that either.  It's possible that equipment is not even accurate.  I want you to prove to me beyond any doubt that the data is absolutely accurate.

There you see, I am using your argument against you, professor Hume.

I have found that directionality in wires can commence with insertion into a circuit whereby the directionality is set by usage.  My cabling has directionality markers which are employed to install them in one direction for all future uses. 

Whether or not the wire is directional from it's inception/drawing out is possible but doesn't appear to make a difference in my cabling.  The wire in my cabiling has been flattened and embossed under high pressure so that it's crystal structure must have been altered anyway.  

I keep my cables directional after first use and continuous use.

This whole argument highlights in no uncertain terms the ever widening chasm that exists between the mid fi community and the high end community. If it were not for the fact that many audiophiles have learned how to get their systems to the point where hearing cable and fuse directionality and other tweaks that provide subtle but powerful improvements to those who deserve to reap their benefits. But these tweaks are not silver bullets. Not by a long shot. They won’t necessarily make or break a system, they won’t even necessarily be audible in many systems, or audible by some people who may or may not be trained/experienced to hear changes in tweaks. So it goes. Live and let die.

Made the scene, week to week
Day to day, hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

@andy2

Ha, as a bit of a philosophy nerd, yes Hume is one of my favorites!

*nerd hat on*

Yes, best to assume most people are telling the truth - which is justified inductively (most of the time people tell the truth), by the principle of parsimony (prima facie acceptance of truth-telling tends to explain people’s behavior without the additional hypothesis they have a motive for lying) , and in discussions by the principle of charity (if we didn’t accept that people believe what they are claiming to believe, and instead presumed the other side is lying, conversation would be impossible, not to mention it seems special pleading if we hold ourselves to be truth-telling but do not presume this for others).


See what happens when you bring up philosophy?! ;-)


But that idea was already taken care of in my previous replies as a red herring.

Second, we have to assume that our ears are reliable after all they are transducers just like any other sensors.

The assumption of the general reliability of our senses. Yes. But of course not wholesale. We need to recognize their limits, and where they are fallible too, right? That’s why I have a carbon monoxide detector in my house.

Now let’s say somebody gave me some data that prove cable burn in does exist, I could very say "I don’t trust your equipment. It’s possible that the equipment is not accurate." The person would say it’s not possible because the equipment has been calibrated. I then would say how do I know the calibration was accurate because the equipment you used to calibrate is not correct. That person then told me it’s not possible because that piece of equipment that he used to calibrate was already calibrated by another even more accurate equipment. I then would say I don’t trust that either. It’s possible that equipment is not even accurate. I want you to prove to me beyond any doubt that the data is absolutely accurate.

But it’s not simply good enough to raise possibilities in negating a claim; we need to raise "plausibilities."


If my peanut butter sandwich disappears from my picnic table, and I know my dog is around and my dog likes to snatch food from the table, and likes peanut butter...AND my dog has bread crumbs now around his mouth...then this is a plausible explanation for the missing sandwhich.

If someone suggests that Kim Jong Un’s secret agents "could have" stolen the sandwich for him to eat, that’s logically "possible" but hardly "plausible."

Now, presuming that the type of data and measuring techniques your "somebody" used are IF WORKING appropriate to the task (if not, the whole analogy fails anyway)....then there is already plausibility on the side of the measurements and conclusions. If you raise an objection that the equipment "might have been" out of calibration, it’s up to you to show that’s plausible, not merely possible.

As it happens, you probably could raise some case for the plausibility, in the sense that equipment can go out of calibration and this is one reason we want to try and repeat our results - especially by other parties trying to replicate your results or prove you wrong. (If this person was presenting his data as decisive, I’d be already dubious about this).

So it’s fair to say something like "this data looks sound for your hypothesis...and constitutes some evidence in favor of it. However, given what can go wrong it terms of equipment or experimenter error, I’d like to see these results replicated."

(There’s also background assumptions and facts that will demand more before we assent to a conclusion in some cases over others - the infamous Opera Experiment yielding faster than light particles being a good example - but will leave that for now) .

The problem is that each time you raise the ante by saying "But THIS could have been out of alignment, but THAT could have been out of alignment" you raise the burden ever further for the plausibility of your alternative explanation. Are X, Y and Z measuring systems USUALLY out of calibration? The more you add, the less likely your alternative explanation.

Presumably your friend is starting off with a plausible hypothesis derived from what is generally known and generally accepted about the properties of electricity and cables, which makes his hypothesis "there shouldn’t be an audible difference with burned in cables" plausible in the first place. And as an alternative hypothesis to explain the reports of cable differences with burn in, we have mountains of established evidence for bias/perceptual errors making that alternative plausible.

If you wanted to raise objections, mere skepticism isn’t enough, you’d have to show there are actual good reasons to doubt the results, not raise mere "possibilities" that "something might have gone wrong."


And if your friend is using in his tests generally accepted methods used successfully and reliably elsewhere, then you have the harder road to plow in defending your skepticism.


And nothing is "proven beyond any doubt" in the empirical method.

Cheers, and thanks for the conversation!

(Will a bunch of people find a conversation like this a bore? For sure! But as analogluver pointed out, some people will no doubt find it interesting).