Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

OK Sean you know my answer but for the others...
I bought 2 pair of Synergistics (from Albert) the Resolution Reference MKII's, not exactly cheap. Charactaristics were initialy pleasing, but after several days use the highs were very veiled & I'm thinking "oh no" they're broken in now & I've made a mistake here. Albert says continue playing them so I did that. Highs came back a few days later, then dropped out again days after that. I was driving him nuts over the phone "keep playing them" he insists; I'll even take them back but I want you to wait A MONTH. OK Albert. I even called Synergistic; got the same story from Scott Novak. I got tired of listening to them fluctuate so I connected a pair to my VCR's audio out's & looped back to its' inputs as a dummy load. The other pair went on the tuner's 2nd. pr. of outputs routed into a signal processor's inputs as dummy load. Didn't touch them for 30 days. Finally put them back online & guess what - all was fine it it stayed that way too. Added the active shielding later on which greatly expanded stage & image.

Hi Sean, I hate breaking in cables in my system so I offer my cables to friends or I will put them in my Moms system without her knowing about it. I also have a duo tech cable break in thingy that does a good job. The difference after break in is like the difference between a cold start and a system that has been warmed up for several hours. It makes a HUGE improvement IMO.

There was a post (forget which thread) and the individual described a method for making a cheap SE resistance cable break-in device. Half watt, 10K ohm resistor and an RCA plug. Sounded like a reasonable approach. Does anyone know of any similar cheapo methods for making your own balanced device for breaking in cables? Is the described approach okay? Thanks.

Hi Sean,
I too use the Duo-Tech Cable Enhancer with good results and yes, after using this devices to break in the cables, there is an obvious difference. Even did a comparison on 2 cables, same brand and the ones on the Duo-Tech sounded better overall. Another cheaper product is the XLO burn in cd.
Regards
Ramesh

I have noticed nothing but improvements as a cable breaks in. Becoming smoother, less bright, more extended at both frequency extremes. I don't have a fancy apparatus for cable break-in. For speaker cables, I simply run them hard. Usually for two to three weeks. At least a few hours a day. For interconnects, I learned a nice little method here on Audiogon(thanks to whoever suggested it, apologies for not remembering their name). I insert the cable between my tuner and integrated amp(preamp for those who have one). I keep the tuner on(which I always do anyway). The amp is off, but the tuner is selected. I have found that this actually works!