Is it worth it to buy the Cable Cooker?

Quote: "The quality of the thoughts expressed on this and other topics by the person who advocates the cable cooker above, in this and other forums, inclines me to believe that you would be wasting your money on such a device. Moreover, my friends in the industry opine that there is no scientific basis for believing that such a device would have any beneficial effect. If you like the stories people tell, go ahead and buy one, and have fun."

There's no direct experience, references or sources mentioned in this quote. What is its value, if any?

Cable cooking improves cheap cables to the point they are very close to expensive ones. I have done A/B comparisons on the same cable cooked by Sean and uncooked. The results were nothing short of stunning on two brands: Phoenix Gold and RCA. My Phoenix Gold Digital cable also showed *remarkable* improvement.

Well Paul, i guess when you can't hear the difference between an amp from NAD, Rotel, B&K, etc... and an amp from Threshold / Pass, Boulder, Rowland, Electron Kinetics, etc.., it wouldn't make sense to put money into cables or tweaks of ANY type. Since some of you might not know what i'm referring to, take a look at this thread and consider the source for yourself.

Other than that, why do you bother to lurk / read forums like this if that is your attitude ? If you have such a problem with comments / information that i post, why not join in and offer a contrasting point of view ? After all, if you have enough knowledge & experience to be able to discern errors in my posts or knowingly disagree with what i had to say, you should be able to put those thoughts and ideas into words / posts that might help others that i would otherwise be leading astray. Right ???

C'mon Paul. Come out and play. Snipers / hit & run drivers are no fun : ) Sean
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Under what periods of unuse do cables de-cook, or are the benefits persistant?

Now, otoh, someone I have a lot of respect for, and from whom I bought some speakers a few years ago (see the website at signals.demon.co.uk), does recommend some kind of cable cooker. So, you never know.

What would be interesting here is if someone with scientific and/or engineering credentials could offer a reasoned explanation for why one of these devices might make a difference.

Ok psychicanimal, you say "Cable cooking improves cheap cables to the point they are very close to expensive ones." Do you mean very close to uncooked expensive ones? What happens when you cook the expensive ones? And which expensive cables are you talking about? You dont need to answer, but what is the value of any of these comments? Has anyone done a controlled experiment, double blind with a trained/knowledgeable panel of listeners? Every product or tweak mentioned in this forum has its advocates. How should one decide to give any weight to one point of view or another?

Paulwp states: "Every product or tweak mentioned in this forum has its advocates. How should one decide to give any weight to one point of view or another?"

I would suggest simply reading responses from those that post / respond on a regular basis. If you find that one / some of those poster's comments and experience match your own on a regular basis, then believe them.

Having said that, the people that you don't agree with might not necessarily be "wrong". There might be variables involved in the situations that caused your point of view / experiences to differ with theirs. That is why it is important that we ENCOURAGE different points of view. This can only help us to break things down to a point that we can analyze and learn from the various and different observations that have taken place. As a case in point, that is why i asked YOU to post YOUR comments when you disagree with what i've posted.

As to my experience with "cable burning", the results are not hard to tell between identical "burned" and "unburned" cables. Keep in mind that my comments are in regards to interconnects.

I was supposed to have a "straight wire bypass" device some time ago that would allow me to do SBT and DBT, but that fell through as our schedules didn't jive. This device allows you to put multiple active OR passive devices in series with the main system and let you switch them in and out of the signal path in a controlled or random fashion. I've got to contact the individual that has this device and see if i can still purchase it from them. I just dumped quite a bit of money this weekend on a bunch of small purchases that have really added up, so this might be put off for just a bit longer. If i do pick this up, i'll be sure to let you know : ) Sean
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