Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

Hello 70242, in reply to your above post I can only say that I am not attempting to find fault with the assertion made by stevemj or anyone else. I am also not saying that there are different electrons. However I am asking if stevemj (or someone) would care to expand on their assertion. It is my understanding that sometime ago a person called Schrodinger proposed that the electron should be thought of a continuous distribution of time dependent waves and denoted this by means of a forumla. This became known as the "Schrodinger wave" but this is only true if the wave remained confined to the atom. However, it is also my understanding that outside an atom electrons can be found in a small region of space so that in general the wave density does not agree with the formula. Another person by the name of Bohr later proposed that the intensity of this wave does not represent the actual charge density of the electron but the probable density of the electron and conceived as a small local particle. It is these and others studies that lead to the belief that there are possible differences in electron charge patterns and their subsequent behavior and that this may have some relationship to the perceived differences we experience between components..??? The subject will always be open to debate and useful and meaningful contributions can only help all our understanding and listening pleasure. Regards, Richard.

Anyone who resolutely believes that the flow of current through conductors - be they copper, silver, gold - does not affect the physical properties of said wire should chat with any competent and experienced electrician. These guys work with this stuff day in and day out. I had a minor epiphany a few years ago when an electrician was doing some work at my shop and told me that the metals (wiring and switches) implicated in his repairs had simply failed owing to long use and continued exposure to currents. In simple English, the physical, and therefore electrical, properties of the conductors had been altered with use. They had failed because the metals had become embrittled and acted more like resistors than conductors, almost porcelain-like in their behavior; i.e., they weren't conducting, rather they were highly resistive. "They just wore out", he said.

Now given the truth of this, it seems to follow that there is a life cycle to cables, just as with anything else. If you accept that, you must also allow for a youth, maturity and old age to cables. (That's bad news though for those of us who put significant dollars into them, hoping they'll outlast us.) Methinks entropy figures in here somewhere. Any metallurgists here who can elucidate this phenomenon of changes to metals when current is induced?

The proof is in the hearing, at least this is what I feel that this hobby is all about. In that any difference perceived is in fact "real" as in "I think, therefore I exist." Proof other than that perceived through the senses does not really mean anything to me (look at various amplifier specs and then listen to the amps themselves and you will see where I am coming from). There was an English tube amp produced a few years ago that looked like garbage on paper and spec'd the same as well. It sounded wonderful. According to the spec's though it should have sounded like a tuner placed between stations, go figure. There is no way that a scientifically measurable difference can be proved to be an audible one (for everyone) and in the same vein it is impossible to prove that a scientifically non-measurable "difference" does not exist to the senses. We know very little, IMO, about our physical world and even less about the human brain and perception. I am all for an open discussion, however if one has not actually auditioned (whether it be blind or not) the gear that is being disrespected then that "one's" opinion is an ultimate act of "pon-tune-if-ica-tion" (my new made up word) and is a waste of cyber space. On the other side of the coin though, I was upset to read Jostler's thread of today in that he obviously does listen to music and audition equipment and is therefore actively involved in this hobby. In this regard his (unpopular) opinions are valid one's, IMO, and should not be censored.

Dekay is right, when listening to music and auditoning equipment you have to trust your senses-- also in many other endeavors in life.

Vantageaudio: The wave properties of electrons do not seem to be the issue here, but instead whether electron flow as "burn-in" will somehow alter the crystal structure of the wire and over time improve its properties of conduction. (Wouldn't simply moving, bending, twisting, or coiling the wire affect its "crystal structure?") Schrödinger's wave theory does not even hint that electrons differ amongst themselves, although they will have different energy levels if they receive different amounts of energy. Millikan calculated from his observations that electron mass is about 1/2000 that of a proton or neutron. If it's true that only the valence electrons make up the electron cloud about the positive ions and the electron flow in an electrical conductor when a voltage potential is applied, then it just seems that in any kind of "burn-in" scenario anyone's described here, there's not nearly enough mass or energy in those electrons to even nudge those positive ions about in the lattice, let alone "realign" them.