Life expectancy of Interconnects & Speaker Cable?

About 20 years ago, I saw a cable that had to be charged with freon. It was about 2-2.5" in diameter and had what looked like a grease fitting where you injected the freon. The idea was to keep the cable as cold as possible for the best sound. The rep said that they would need to be recharged, or topped off, about once or twice a year. I think the retail on them was around $2500 back them. I never got a chance to hear them. They weighed a lot; it took two of us to carry them into the store. I guess $2500 is not that bad today, but back then you could buy a car for under $5000.

As far as cable life goes, I have a pair of Esoteric's that I purchased about 20 years ago, for about $200-300 that still sound incredibly good. Every once in a while I do the recable thing, but I just keep putting that cable back in the system. I do agree that you should clean the contacts about once a year. Don't forget to clean the connectors on the equipment also.

connectors can get dirty/corrode and may need cleaned.

In my oppinion (and others) cables will degrade over time. There will be oxidation over time, as no insulation is truely air tight (at least in the long run).
Also the more you move around with your cable, the more it will tend to "crack" between the crystals.
So what is average lifespan? According to VDH you should expect around 10 years.

Aarsoe....that's something to think about. Spend 5-10k on cable only to have an approximately 10 year expiration date.

For sure, amps and other items in the system would have a much longer life expectancy.

So, super expensive cables actually cost a lot more than their sticker price because in ten years or so they will need to be replaced because they will have degraded.

Mitch4T

Be honest - how many components do you still have in your setup that are more than 10 years old?
Anyway - assume 10 years for average cables, better ones could be double. In 10 years time or at least in 20, much better technology will exist, more vodoo or even new types of cables (HDMI and all the others that will follow).
If you have a "scrap" box, like I do, with old cables then try to take one that you used to use (but dont any longer) and try to listen. Did that with some old ones, and the sound was horrible..