Do speaker cables need a burn in period?

blueranger
Hey here is something to think about. All the naysayers need to think about what lays beyond known physics. The unknown. People are hearing differences and the current testing equipment cannot pick up on the differences. AB testing is a farce. You have to evaluate for long periods of time to notice the small differences.

>>>Actually, neither burn in or wire directionality disobeys any known laws of physics. So, you can forget about what might or might not happen in the future. It’s irrelevant. 

Once one wraps their head around the perfectly acceptable concept of our hearing being better than a measurement (more exacting, differentiating, etc.)

Why accept something untrue?

Or, at least, we have to separate the untrue implications from the true implications in such a statement.

We have tools that measure the presence of frequencies you can not hear, and levels of distortion you can not hear. Why do you think we develop a huge number of measuring tools in the first place if our senses, including our hearing, were sufficient????

How is that x-ray vision of yours going?

Measurements only take you so far.

Agreed. Ultimately the point of any audio product lies in what we humans actually hear from that product. A good understanding of measurements and of human hearing can to a degree predict the sound
one might hear from, say, a pair of speakers. But given all the complexities involved, and some of the unknowns, perfect prediction escapes us. So we can always be surprised. That’s why anyone should listen to whatever audio gear they produce, to make sure they didn’t go wrong somewhere in the design.

I’ve used Devore 0 speakers as an example a number of times for this: they’ve been attacked by some audiophiles/DIYers and speaker designers as "doing things wrong that are likely to produce bad sound" and yet when I and many others actually listen to them, I find the claims overblown in terms of actual results and I love the sound of the Devores.

But "it’s hard to sometimes predict results purely on measurements" is an entirely different thing than claims like "our ears are better/more sensitive than instruments." It really depends on what you are claiming to be able to hear. And on what grounds.

To simply pooh-pooh such statements as "tested by ear" betrays a dogmatically and hermetically sealed mindset.

No, it’s an eyes-open LACK of dogmatism, where we admit to the fallibility of our senses. It is rather dogmatism to cling to the idea that your perception is infallible, or a golden standard unsullied by the (well known) problems of bias and error.

Imagine you went to your doctor with a sore throat. The doctor says "Well, obviously you have cancer of the throat!"

You ask "why?"

The doctor says: "Because throat cancer can cause sore throats."

And you say" But...can’t many other things cause sore throats, like maybe I have a cold or a flu? Shouldn’t you show me how you have ruled out those other causes"

Doctor: How DARE you be so dogmatic as to question my diagnosis!

Now...who is actually being dogmatic there? It’s not the person who is acknowledging the variables involved, and that the doctor’s claim doesn’t seem to have taken those variables seriously enough, when deciding he can’t be in error.

It is just as strange and mixed up to try to portray someone who is pointing to the simple fact that your method is ignoring existing variables, and why you seem to have unwarranted confidence, as if the person raising these cautions is the "dogmatist." It’s literally got things the wrong way around.

@prof
" Using my current Thiel 2.7 speakers this is true, but it was eve more true with my bigger 3.7 speakers. I could go to my friend’s place, listen to a system using $50,000 of Nordost cable and come home to bass reproduction that easily surpassed that system. When over the past couple years I auditioned a large variety of speakers, in systems using many of the top high end cable brands we could name, every time I came home and played the same bass torture tracks on my system, it distinguished itself in how controlled, beautifully pitched and even holographically placed the bass could appear. "

And surely you have ample measurements to absolutely and fully prove all those assertions beyond the shadow of any doubt ( really looking forward to seeing the measurements that define just how holographically placed the bass really is ). Or are we going to have to trust hearsay based on information drawn from listening experiences using your, uhhhh, ears ?

And one more little thing, is it just me or is anyone else detecting the acrid smell of burning hypocrite suddenly wafting through this thread, though it could well be that three day old burrito I had for lunch, I mean it looked OK....but you never know eh....

OK....silliness aside for a moment ( and frankly this is at root just foolish fun eh ). Are you going to the Toronto Audio Fest ? We will be sharing a room with Charisma Audio. Would really love it if you dropped in and said hi, seriously ( but please don’t tell me you are a Leaf fan....there are some bridges that are simply too far ).

There are two impartial listeners as a beta tester for GroverHuffman cables.  One is his wife and one is my wife, who doesn't care at all what wire is used or scientific analysis of it.  They only compare wire as to whether they hear a difference and whether they prefer/like it or not/dislike/hate.  

Cable burn-in is a must prior to our testing.  As I have previously emphatically stated, we have tried brand newly made I/C and speaker cables against cables with at least 24 hour burn-in through use.  A/C cables are subjected to connection to refrigerators for several days to a week prior to testing.   So, when we hear very significant differences between the new cables and burned-in cables, we are not "out of our minds" or "foolish" or "wishing it so."   As I also previously stated, low end cables such as Monster cable, Home Depot cable and Blue Jean cable that I've heard, do not burn-in with a significance.  I couldn't tell the difference either between them new or with 100 hours on them.  Their resolution just doesn't allow it.  

Sure, some of you posters say all cable sounds basically the same.  Funny how friends and acquaintances who frequent my music room don't want to leave because they are entranced by the sound of the music as much as the music itself.  I say acquaintances because we host Toastmaster speechathons at our home with guests and guest speakers who don't know me or anything about audio equipment.

So, if the posters have either inferior audio systems, inferior acoustic environments, or inferior cabling, it is likely that there is no apparent burn-in of cabling.   As to directionality, my cabling is only made directional after usage for a significant period.  It is not made directional except for phono use (grounding). 

taras22,

And surely you have ample measurements to absolutely and fully prove all those assertions beyond the shadow of any doubt. Or are we going to have to trust hearsay based on information drawn from listening experiences using your, uhhhh, ears ?

Which is, as usual, drawn from a mischaracterization of my arguments.

I have been voicing reasons for skepticism when it comes to *controversial* claims about audibility - controversial in the sense they do not form a part of generally accepted, well established phenomena.  Claims that remain controversial among the relevant experts (e.g. I've seen many EEs say why the technical claims made by audiophiles or expensive cable companies are nonsense), and where the explanations are dubious, and the evidence almost purely anecdotal.

Claims like cable burn-in, and even the purported sonic advantages often claimed by manufacturers and users of expensive cables, fall in to that category.

That's different from the gross differences in sound well known to be audible, credible both in terms of technical explanation, what we know of human hearing, and what is reliable via our experience.

So, for instance, the audibility of sonic difference between various musical instruments would easily fall in to those categories.  The harmonic/distortion profiles of different instruments is measurable, and falls well within the realm understood as audible to humans.  And we reliably detect these differences all the time.

There will be gross physical, audible differences in the audio profile produced by, say, a Fender bass vs an acoustic stand up bass.  

It's not remotely controversial that we can capture and reproduce these audible differences in the recording/playback system.  Nobody is mistaking Paul Chambers' double bass at the beginning of Kind Of Blue for Geddy Lee playing his electric Rickenbacker bass, and for good reasons.  

That goes for a whole host of audible characteristics that occur between different bass instruments, the way they are played, the audible effects of how they were recorded, placed in the soundstage, eq'd, mastered, etc.  All of those differentiating factors exist well within non-controversial, known realms of audibility.  

Then there are all the audible influences that can be measured in terms of eq, room effects that cause "bloat" or "overhang," and various measurable phenomena  that can interfere with bass signals, produce the subjective perception of homogenizing bass - "one note bass" - etc.
These are all within the realm of what we know to be audible artifacts.

THEREFORE we have an entirely plausible case to stand on when we are discerning between different instruments on a playback system, between different bass instruments, between bass instruments recorded differently, between the qualities we can describe etc.

So...no...your "gotcha" relies on a naive look at the problem, not on some internal contradiction or fault in what I've been writing on here.