Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

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.

Bmpnyc: I know a few wine experts, and they've never done that either. But if someone did, their actions in the scenario I described would show them to be a poseur and not an expert.

Garfish: Trust your senses, yes, but also keep them in check through investigation and understanding, including knowing how to make a comparison. My senses suggest that the sun, planets, and stars all revolve around the earth--that's what it looks like, right?--but I know that's not what actually is happening.

Detlof: I said cables have not been proven to change over time. I may be skeptical about any prospects that they will ever be, but I don't see what's absolutist about that.