Cables "Burn In"

I wasn't all that sure if the audio interconnect burn-in thing was my imagination or not, but I'm convinved after buying a new Monster M2000 S-Video cable and watching a few DVDs. When I first hooked it up the picture was pretty bad...extrememly grainy, very weird color saturation, and I was very disappointed. I watched it that night and then left it hooked up with a DVD playing on repeat. It was better the next night, but still far from perfect. I bet it took a week of letting in run by itself and watching films before it looked good (and it now looks very good). That experience really made me a believer because I could "see" the process. I guess I trust my eyes more than my ears.

Pbb: not to get into the subjective vs objective thing, but your analogy "seeing the blackheads on the nose of a stadium-full of people at two hundred and fifty yards because of extra high resolution bionic vision" completely misses the point, yet completely summarizes the objective point of view.

The more ACCURATE analogy to in this situation would be "hearing the crowd in an open stadium at 250 yards, and figuring out which team is winning".

In your analogy, a machine (ccd imager with telephoto lens) would certainly perform better than the human eye. HOWEVER, in my analogy, no oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, or distortion meter could tell me which team is winning. But my 5 year old could.

Point is, "subjective" criteria are not about the microscopic details as much as the big picture - believable music presentation. It is just that us humans are taught from birth to describe these things in a microscopic way.

I have personally found many cables to change the musical presentation with burn in. If you haven't tried it, try it. If you don't hear, don't burn it. But don't redicule the concept based upon what you have heard from "objectivists".

Audiofile9, I really don't care what you found, since you appear to have missed my point entirely. This forum is for you and yours in any event. The whole thing is so predictable at any rate that my post indicated what the likely comeback would be. You served your side of the argument as well as anybody else who would have come up to say that you are entirely satisfied that your own well trained golden ear is all you need to satisfy yourself of the existence and relevance of absolute horse feathers. I'm content in listening to music on my system and have no need to chase the will-o-the-wisp. My very last point is that there is no debate left, Audiogon is dedicated to believers and no one else. I have received many e-mails from people who have come to this realisation. The discussion forum is merely a sideshow to the only true raison d'être of Audiogon: encouraging the sale of the most outlandishly priced equipment.

Pbb, while i have watched and measured the differences in electronic circuitry "settling in" using test equipment, i had thought that "wire burn in" was a complete joke. I found out differently and the results were undeniable after some first hand experimentation.

I have also burned cables for multiple others that have had the same thoughts and experiences. Every one of them BECAME a "believer" after hearing the results. One guy was going to throw some cables out they sounded so bad in his system. After burning, they are now residing within the confines of his system and he is quite happy with them. Is he fooling himself ? Given my past experience using the same procedure and getting similar results, i sincerely doubt it.

Others have sent me cables to burn for them and kept identical "unburned" cables at home to compare. The results ? The "burned" cables always sound fuller and smoother with greater transparency.

Bottom line: You really don't know until you try it for yourself

Grandpad: I've never tried "burning" a power cord with any type of "special device". My beliefs are that the only way to burn in a cable is to put it into a situation that is above and beyond what it would normally be used for. To be exact, you would need increased voltage and current draw. Even just increased current draw would help speed things up but i don't know by how much. As such, no "cable burner" is capable of doing what you would need to burn a power cord. As such, it is really just "marketing hype" and a feature that has no real merit in my opinion.

If you wanted to speed up the process, you could try making up an adapter to use on your fridge, etc... This is a high current device that cycles quite frequently. As such, it should offer some benefits in terms of "advanced break in" of PC's. Just a guess though based on my other "burn in" experiences.

I would agree with your observation that cheaper cables seem to really come to life when cooked. This may have to do with the fact that less expensive cables typically use lower grade dielectrics than more expensive cables. It is possible that "burning" is more effective at "curing" ( figuratively and literally ) problems with absorption and "junk" dielectrics. Since Teflon has such a low absorption factor as it is, the benefits may not be as noticeable or drastic on "fancy" cables.

PsychicAnimal felt that devices such as the Mobie were a threat to the Hi-End cable industry. After burning various grades of cables for him, he felt that the differences in performance between cheap cables and expensive cables was drastically reduced. I would tend to agree and i think that your findings support this also. I know that Bob Crump has also had similar findings as he once told me that "a Mobie can make Bat guano sound good after 30 days" : )

Having said that, i still believe that a cable that uses superior materials and superior geometry will always perform better given the same amount of "treatment" that one gives a cable of lesser quality and design integrity. With that in mind, we can't QUITE turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, but it is getting pretty close to that. Sean
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Pbb, I understand your point on the last sentence of your post---I posted my response to Famaraca in Portuguese and it didn't get posted (I knew it wouldn't). Doesn't matter, I emailed it to him...

What I am going to write you're not going to like it--but "truth is a virus":

You lack good hearing--either clinically and/or cultivated.

I bought a pair of used Tice interconnects and I noticed the sound opening up after a few hours of play. At first I thought this was weird--weren't they TPT treated? I called George Tice and he told me I was hearing right--that it would take about 5 days for an old interconnect to open up.

If I can hear that imagine my reaction after Sean cooked some of my interconnects on his modded Mobie! Truly an amazing difference--even on my digital cable.

BTW, I am strongly anti-Voodoo--just read my analog posts defending a true turntable against the cult crowd.