Ok, here goes. Have the frybaby. Works as advertised really. Dont want to take away anything from anyone elses experiences here, but havent yet encountered any kind of attenuating of the highs or softening of the bass on anything Ive tried it on so far (various ICs and different speaker cables, no pcs yet). I was glad I got one, it did, the first time I tried it on some old Monster Cable ICs that had literally thousands of hours on them, wake them right up
much more open, noticeably better highs, a bit better defined transients. I could compare them directly to several other sets of the same ICs that were the same age (a big bag of orphaned wires). But, you could say in the case of the MCs it worked a little too well. It revealed the sonic signature of the ICs that the frybaby couldnt change the lower mid coloration and overall slowness of the cables still remained along with noticeable grit. Actually, because of the frybaby results, I began to suspect that the cable was not an inherently good design. At the time I was first getting my feet wet with the basics of DIY cable design and I got curious enough to cut a pair open and see for myself what was underneath. Lo and behold, after the removing the thick, thick, black insulation and the copper braid shield, the internal conductor (hot) was (for an IC) a very thick gauge of multi-strand wire
! A definite No No. Good grief. No Wonder it had so much grit and lower mid coloration
all that copper and multi-strand yet nothing but grit. No minimalist design, to say the least. Evedently these things must have been designed for only one purpose - sheer durablilty. All that was kinda crazy to me at the time.
Then I got curious again. If the frybaby was NOT changing the adverse effects of the conductor here, then what WAS it working on? I suspected it was the insulation, so I came up with a simple experiment to help shed some light. I took yet another identical pair of the MCs (400mkIIs) and cut them down, removing everything but the connectors and hot (and a white nylon tubing around the hot that I couldnt remove) and return wiring and gave them a listen. Presto! Even a bit More open than the frybabied wires that still had their insulation on them untouched. That told me something and I began to get some ideas about insulation in general and began to suspect that insulation can be a far more deleterious thing on sound quality than we average audiophiles even imagine, but still needed more confirmation.
Later on I tested some OFC speaker wires, again more than 20 years of use on them (thick polyethylene insulation). Again they were much more open than before the frybaby, even the soundstage was a little better
not night and day or anything, but I could at least tell that there was a difference and that the difference was actually an improvement and not just a sideways change. Tried it later on a new pair of MAC Silver Soundpipe ICs, this time without much success
a little improvement on first listen compared to the unbroken-in sound, but not much. I tried to repeat the treatment and the sound deteriorated. According to Hagerman it is possible to overcook something (its that burning smell
just kidding ;>). Actually if you should ever do that by accident or on purpose you then just play 40 or 50 hours of music through the wire and the problem is cured
which is what I had to do the MACs. After that I was content to continue break-in according to the maker. Some makers do not recommend cooking with their wires (or particular ones of theirs, anyway). Wasnt sure about the MACs until I tried it. Didnt know if I was entirely sure it was the silver conductors or the insulation (different kind than that black, rubbery/spongy type that MC and others use which was so prevalent for so long, until more recently. Then I tried it on some Monarchy PCOCC speaker wires (good stuff!). Out of the box the wires were better in all respect that what Id been used to, but things werent very open yet, although I still had great faith in break-in for that. But, they were covered in the very same soft, black insulation as the MCs were
so
This time instead of using the frybaby on them I simply (and with painstaking care not to stress the PCOCC conductors) removed the insulation with an Exacto knife. (removing the outer jacketing can mess a trifle bit with capacitance with a star-quad design, but found it to be sonically negligible in my setup). Not only did everything spring to life in the openness department, but from that point on there was zero more break-in period nada, gone, zilcho.
What that told me was twofold: that insulation in general can be a big factor (maybe the single biggest factor) to consider in (wire) break-in and also that this very kind of black, spongy insulation may well be the frybabys favorite food and, by way of its algorithm, that may even be what it was designed to do
a cheap (single-algorithm) cooker thats squarely aimed at the insulation thats on about 60% of the wiring out there and most especially on the lower-cost wiring (on about 60% of the wiring at the time of the frybabys inception, at least). But, owning the frybaby has been eye-opening and Ive even begun to look at my wiring purchases differently as a result. Purchased a pair of Mapleshade Excalibur ribbon ICs (and have been delighted with them) on the strength of the attention given to insulation (among other things) and despite the fact that Mr. Sprey insists that they be burned in with music only. Big lesson for me: black, spongy insulation = always BAD, period. Better even to not have it at all than to cook it (with the frybaby at least). Why would you want to use a bandaid when you can avoid getting a bruise in the first place? Sure the difference between sonics of the wires with removed outer insulation and the frybabied wires was only about 5-10% improvement, but removing the problem stuff was free. Destroying resale value may not be for everyone, but I must be enough of a DIYer that, for my own purposes, I dont always really care about that so much, unless it's a big-time investment, anyway. There may be other insulation out there the frybaby is either just as good with or maybe not nearly so good with, but I will leave that for others to pick up on, but unless I should run across an experience to the contrary, this is pretty much my own 2 cents so far. Regards.
