Interconnect Break In?

@ghdprentice a note on your approach.
The preamp to amp signal, unless you’re cranking it up, is much lower voltage than source to pre which is typically 2v rca and around 4v xlr. Running preamp at low volume to break in the ICs between pre and amp will take slightly longer than the set between source (i.e. DAC) and pre where you’re driving a line level signal to the output. 

Why not "break in" while listening?

audphile1,

I disagree. If the Preamp is not on, the signal is not moving from CD/streamer through the cable into the Preamp.

You might as well just disconnect the cable and let the air break it in. LOL!

ozzy

Wire DOES break in. Anyone who’s owned upper-tier Nordost, with its shriekingly strident treble before it (finally) breaks in, knows this to be true. It took what it always takes with Nordost: 300+ hours. And this was Frey 2, and Tyr 2, which I bought on the last day of October years ago, and it took until November 25, the day my conductor friend came to visit, for it to not be unbearable, although, by the 20th day, I could listen the a Supremes anthology CD, which - BELIEVE ME - was SO bright the first 3 weeks, I couldn’t listen to it, no matter what volume level I used.

I’ve owned many of the top cables (Nordost, Shunyata, Synergistic, MIT, Transparent, Goertz) and they ALL needed at least 100 hours. Oh, they’d play music, but if I wanted to hear a coloratura run clearly, I’d have to wait at least 100 hours (Nordost and Shunyata take the longest, although not Shunyata’s newer lines) to hear each descending note. And this was not just one CD, this was hundreds, as, at the time, I was awaiting surgery, so I was home for the entire month after I got the Nordost, listening to it constantly.

The idea that we all just need to let our ears break in and that the cable is just "sitting there" is absurd.

Anyone who listens to classical or opera music and has good discs (along with good ears) could hear that particular break in. Actually, when your ears start to bleed, you won’t need any other confirmation, and Nordost - more than any other brand - will sear your ears in its early weeks.

I have never been a fan of people commenting on something they’ve never heard and just commenting on the "theory" of it all, as if that explains the good (or the bad) of anything. Empirical evidence seems to no longer be the order of the day in audio, quite contrary to what it was like 30 years ago, when people actually listened to a component before commenting on it. This thread if full of people giving their opinion and passing it off as fact, when doing the experiment of listening would prove how wrong they are.

Explain please @ozzy 

if the cd player is playing it outputs signal thru the interconnects. If you don’t hear it because the preamp is off it doesn’t mean the signal isn’t flowing. 
If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?