Nice anecdotal story — thanks for sharing. I’ve shared a somewhat related story where I inadvertently installed my fully broken-in digital cable backwards and that just killed my system to the point it sounded broken. I fairly quickly found my mistake and everything instantly returned to normal when the cable was reinserted the proper way. I don’t even think the cable was technically designed to be directional and my take on this that, and as a corollary of break in, it takes time for a cable to get settled into a system and for the signal “flow” for lack of a better word to get optimized even if a cable is already broken in. That’s just an uneducated guess, but I sure as hell know what I heard that day. Combine this phenomenon with the break in of the physical materials in a new cable and it’s no wonder they can change so dramatically. Now, how long before the flat earthers invade and wreck this thing?
Cable Break In for the Naysayers
I still cannot believe that in this stage of Audio history there are still many who claim cable break in is imagined. They even go so far as claim it is our ears that break in to the new sound. Providing many studies in the way of scientific testing. Sigh...
I noticed such a recent discussion on the What’s Best Forum. So here is my response.
______________________________________________________________________________________________ I just experienced cable break in again firsthand. 10 Days ago, I bought a new set of the AudioQuest Thunderbird XLR 2M interconnects.
First impression, they sounded good, but then after about 30 hours of usage the music started sounding very closed in and with limited high frequencies. This continued until about 130 hours of music play time.
Then at this time, the cables started to open up and began to sound better and better each passing hour. I knew at the beginning they would come around because they sounded ok at first until the break in process started. But now they have way surpassed that original sound.
Now the soundstage has become huge with fantastic frequency extensions. Very pleased with the results. Scientifically I guess we can’t prove cable break in is real, but with good equipment, good ears, it is clearly a real event.
ozzy
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- 189 posts total
- 189 posts total