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cable burn in process

Hi folks, do you also share the same experience regarding cable burn in process? A not yet broken in interconnect (or speaker cable), right out of the box sounds during the first 10-20 hours of listening quite good. We are hearing some or the cable's characteristics and how it would sound when fully broken in. After 10-20 hours the sound gets worse, the cable sounds totally off. After >50 hours (a few weeks of listening) the sound returns to baseline, but with more body, smoother treble and bigger soundstage. This is a phenomenon which I have encountered many times during my cable journey. I believe cables need burn in time, but the sonic changes in this particular order remain one of the mysteries of audio.

Chris
dazzdax
dopogue
1,773 posts
 
I'm surprised that we haven't heard from all those folks who think that cable break-in is a figment of our imaginations. It isn't, of course, and I've also heard the gets-worse-before-it-gets-better phenomenon.
phd
1,314 posts
 
I don't know how one can prove that cables do require a break-in period since cables cannot be removed from their connections to test separately. It leaves the question as to what truely is breaking in, the components/tubes, cables or all since a whole system is a combination of its many parts. If I could speculate on cable break-in I would tend to think that the electrons would have to establish their shortest signal path thus producing an eventual change.
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
4,908 posts
 
same experience here. especailly with interconnects break-in.
mcmiller
30 posts
 
Cheapest and easiest cable cooker you can get is an FM tuner off ebay. An old tuner can be had for $10.

It may not work as quickly as a dedicated cooker that uses higher voltages and signal sweeps, but you can walk away from your ICs for a week and comeback to 200hrs of nicely cooked ICs.

You could do the same for speaker cables using an old receiver and a dummy load.
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