Do cables age or become too old at any point?

Sugar, have you ever looked at the color of the copper in some clear jacketed "monster" type cables after a few years and compared this to brand new cable ? It is definitely darker. Some of this has to do with the type of materials used within the jacket itself though. The plasticizers in the jacket tend to "leak out" and taint the conductors. One would have to use what is called a Type II mil-spec jacket to alleviate this type of problem. Even then, corrosion would set in over time as nothing that is man-made will last forever. For all practical purposes, this would take a LONG time though, especially if the open ends of the cable were properly prepped i.e. "sealed".

I do agree that wire that is exposed will tarnish FAR, FAR faster than wire that is protected, especially when exposed to varying levels of humidity. Sean
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I hope there is some assumption of quality. Just because 25 cent per foot Monster cable oxidizes in the jacket, does not mean much. I would not consider that monster stuff air tight. It is pretty easy for even a child to pull the copper wire out of the plastic cover of Monster cable with a pair of pliers. Try doing that with a run of JPS Labs Super 2s, or any high end cable. You could tow a train with some cables.

The capacitors in a $79.00 KLH receiver from Circuit City may go bad after two years. It does not imply that the caps in a $20,000 pair of Mark Levinson mono-block amplifiers will go bad that soon (or any other high-end gear); and we better only buy new stuff.

Yes cables become too old at some point. I had two pair of very old Purist cables, one was 10 feet long, the other 8 feet long.

I placed them in a dark cozy environment for several days, hoping for a baby Purist cable (at least 2 feet long), but even with Handels' Water Music playing softly in the background (their favorite) NO BABY CABLE.

Albert: Next time try wine, candles, and Ravel's Bolero.

Sugar, you're missing the point. It is NOT a matter of whether the cable is "air tight". For one thing, it would be next to impossible to achieve without DRASTICALLY raising the cost. Nor does it really matter how tightly the stranding is compacted within the jacket. It is a matter of the materials used as the insulator and the degradation that the JACKET undergoes with time. If you don't believe this, contact Belden or any other manufacturer of cables.

If one has the proper test equipment ( TDR aka Time Domain Reflectometer ), you can also measure the electrical characteristics of cables and compare new samples to old samples. The impedance characteristics, levels of dielectric absorption, velocity factors, etc... of cables DO change over time, albeit very gradually. These rates can be accelerated by exposing the cables to various levels of direct sunlight, fluxuating temperatures, different levels of applied pressure, etc...

Besides that, the originator of the thread made no mention of price range. With that in mind, we all know that a LOT of cables are simply "dressed up" versions of mass produced cables. As such, the "KLH" vs "Mark Levinson" pricing analogy has little to do with "you get what you pay for" i.e. "quality" when it comes to cables.

While one would hope that more expensive cables from a reputable brand made use of better quality materials and had a greater amount of research and development in them than cheaper cables from some generic company, there really is no guarantee of that unless specified as such. Even then, i've seen companies PURPOSELY mis-label products so that they could charge more for them even though they knew that they would not meet spec. Since the average end user would have no way of verifying spec, they get away with it 99% of the time.

Like anything else, let the buyer beware. Sean
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PS... I've bought and used many older cables. So long as they make a good connection and sound good to your ears with no potential for damage to your equipment, i would not worry about it. I was "debating" from a purely technical standpoint.