​Cable Burn In?

[2M Mark]

4est, Thank you for your time. This is my first time to use the Internet for such purpose, its an eye opener because I presume most of the persons replying here are in fact grown adults. Regardless what one chooses to spend money on is no concern of mine. Its sad but it's a big world out there

I believe I know the cable you're talking about I have 2 of them in the AC's BIG improvement. Some work some don't some are excellent and you want to keep them. Win some loose some

Makes sense what you say

[plissken]

Implied by some of the post so far, is an implicit, and in some cases, explicit act of dishonesty on the part of the audio industry.

 

There are clearly overt examples of this in the industry. So in some cases there is no implied what ever it actually is explicit acts of dishonesty. Just look at the AQ HDMI cable debacle where the audio levels were played around with in post production in an attempt to show clear and audible differences in the audio quality.

 

How is it a $1000 HDMI cable can't improve Color, Contrast, IRE etc... of video signals vs a $10 cable? But a $1000 audio cable can for signalling that is orders of magnitude less demanding?

[mansr]

There are clearly overt examples of this in the industry. So in some cases there is no implied what ever it actually is explicit acts of dishonesty. Just look at the AQ HDMI cable debacle where the audio levels were played around with in post production in an attempt to show clear and audible differences in the audio quality.

 

How is it a $1000 HDMI cable can't improve Color, Contrast, IRE etc... of video signals vs a $10 cable? But a $1000 audio cable can for signalling that is orders of magnitude less demanding?

I tried a $1000 SATA cable for my games, but the weapons didn't improve the slightest.

[Ralf11]

Have you heard the phrase "eternal September"?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

 

I had to look it up - I wouldn't allow undergrads on the internet either!! as a guy at a leading univ.'s cpmputer support div. put it to me "we have all the students ghettoized onto this DEC machine"

 

I am more familiar with the term "eternal springtime"

[plissken]

Have you heard the phrase "eternal September"?

 

I remember when Usenet became shit. It was nice when you had to have a brain to get online. For us it was an Amiga 2500 with SLIP over 56Kbps to an architectural firm in Cleveland.

 

It took some work and it was the first time for me to actually have to implement TCP/IP. That was a learning experience.

[mansr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

 

I had to look it up - I wouldn't allow undergrads on the internet either!! as a guy at a leading univ.'s cpmputer support div. put it to me "we have all the students ghettoized onto this DEC machine"

 

I am more familiar with the term "eternal springtime"

Ah, DEC. I still have a couple of Alpha systems in working condition. Good stuff.

[4est]

My pleasure 2M Mark!

 

'

4est, Thank you for your time. This is my first time to use the Internet for such purpose, its an eye opener because I presume most of the persons replying here are in fact grown adults. Regardless what one chooses to spend money on is no concern of mine. Its sad but it's a big world out there

I believe I know the cable you're talking about I have 2 of them in the AC's BIG improvement. Some work some don't some are excellent and you want to keep them. Win some loose some

Makes sense what you say

[OldBigEars]

First off, I am sorry that so many feel the need to chime in childishly/negatively. One would hope that others weren't so insecure in their perceptions to feel the need to chastise someone else who has experienced something differently. Be advised that many of them cannot hear differences in most anything -other than speakers perhaps. Sadly, there appears to be a contingent here that would like to evangelize their perspective despite your obvious interest in cables.

 

I agree with Roch/elcorso on this. If after 100 hrs, give or take 95, the cables do not sound inviting, dump them. If a cable actually takes 700+ hours to settle, they should have had more break in at the factory or something, but it seems unreasonable to expect one to wait. With that said, there are occasionally products that warrant such a wait, but I haven't experienced it with cabling. I will freely admit publicly that I have spent thousands on cabling, and do not regret it. The peanut gallery may slay me for this, but my best cable has cryo'd silver wire and Bybee thingies in it. I do not WANT to think it sounds great, as it is single ended, too short and well, has Bybee thingies in it, but hot damn, it sounds great...

 

+1 Nice note

[Jud]

The consumers probably maintain their position either out of embarrassment or simply because of the bragging rights associated with a $1000 cable. There's also an attitude ingrained in the audiophile community that if you don't own super-expensive everything, you're not to be taken seriously. Peer pressure, in other words. This is the reason I rarely mention specifics about my equipment.

 

Perhaps I just don't travel in the right circles, but I fail to recognize any of the consumers I've known in this hobby in that description.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[Jud]

more fundamentally, we live in a time of magical thinking when few have even a rudimentary education in basic science (and I am speaking of those who have college degrees)

 

this allows a great deal of woo-woo to proliferate

 

another effect is that the internet is now open to the public - I think I may have liked it better before everyone who could type was able to use it

 

That's true, and endemic not only among overly credulous believers, but also among those indulging in cheap skepticism on the basis of "common sense" and half-vast expertise. We've all seen them on the climate science and evolutionary biology blogs, telling scientists who've spent careers in these disciplines they're wrong.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[cjf]

I'm a believer in cable burn in to an extent. For me, there needs to be at minimum an equal sound out of the box from the previous cable and after a few hours a large gap forming in favor of the new cable as a good starting point.

 

If after a week the new cable doesnt sound consistently better then the first cable it replaced then I call it a dud.

 

Waiting hundreds of hours for a cable to come into its own is a total joke and nothing more than the maker hoping the return policy expires before the user notices they have been sold a bottle of snake oil.

 

The cables I currently own all have made themselves known almost immediately upon installation. Some of them are fairly expensive and "almost" all of them were tried via the Cable Co Trial policy first. The ones that weren't were of minimal cost so cost was never a deciding factor in their contributions to begin with.

 

I will say this though:

 

1. Power Cables make the most impact

2. Speaker Cables are next

3. USB Cables are last, but still important enough to make the top 3 on my list

 

Swapping any one of these three should return an almost immediate diffference for better or worse (assuming the speakers and other gear are up to par to notice it) and if they don't then your heading the wrong direction.

 

Just my 2cents

[elcorso]

That's true, and endemic not only among overly credulous believers, but also among those indulging in cheap skepticism on the basis of "common sense" and half-vast expertise. We've all seen them on the climate science and evolutionary biology blogs, telling scientists who've spent careers in these disciplines they're wrong.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

Science and scientist are fallible.

 

How many times in the short history are science theories replaced?

 

Even mathematics theories. Please remember and PHD in mathematics ends as a philosopher. Then, is a philosopher infallible?

 

Maybe the problem today is there are too many specializations and too little 'compendiators'. It's like when you are sick with an strange disease, you enter in an hospital and each specialist looks only his field. I you don't have an MD that summarize your condition better buy a tomb.

 

Please note, I'm not again science, but is better to have a dud. This is what brings new discoveries.

 

From the other side, not all human beings are the same. If someone, but not you, can perceive 'different' from you, please don't go the 'science way' to justify the 'impossible'. I have seen the impossible possible in many fields.

 

And no, this is not 'magic', or something like that. And I agree sometimes senses make you a bad move.

 

Roch

[gmgraves]

I don't know that it's "foolproof," but I've already suggested (twice) a potentially better method: simultaneous comparison, one cable (or other DUT) to each channel. Would you be able to try this, George, for example with interconnects or speaker cables?

I have tried it. I heard no difference. Of course it's important to note that (1) I don't expect there to be a difference, so as sort of a "negative" expectation bias, one could argue that I wouldn't hear a difference even if one existed. (2) One would have to use good headphones (such as the HiFiMan HE-1000, or Stax SR-9 or equivalent) because no two speakers are enough alike that one mightn't hear the speaker difference as a cable difference, and unless both speakers were occupying exactly the same space in the room, one couldn't be sure that any differences heard wouldn't be as a result of room acoustics acting differently on speakers in different parts of the room.

In a trial of 4 USB cables, I liked the most expensive one least, and by far the least expensive one ($25-$30) second best, so I'm not sure how far your model about people wanting to hear a difference from expensive cables actually extends to reality.

 

Neither do I. I'm not a psychoacoustician, after all. But I'll bet there is some sort of expectational bias at work there too.

[gmgraves]

Science and scientist are fallible.

 

But mathematics isn't.

[4est]

If you can teach a cable to multiply, you could get rich off of it! The rest of the math is simply combinations of RLC being used to approximate the behavior in cabling.

 

But mathematics isn't.

[elcorso]

But mathematics isn't.

 

I had a great-uncle who was a world eminence in mathematics, with all the PHDs available.

 

He always said that they were fallible.

 

Roch

[Jud]

I have tried it. I heard no difference. Of course it's important to note that (1) I don't expect there to be a difference, so as sort of a "negative" expectation bias, one could argue that I wouldn't hear a difference even if one existed. (2) One would have to use good headphones (such as the HiFiMan HE-1000, or Stax SR-9 or equivalent) because no two speakers are enough alike that one mightn't hear the speaker difference as a cable difference, and unless both speakers were occupying exactly the same space in the room, one couldn't be sure that any differences heard wouldn't be as a result of room acoustics acting differently on speakers in different parts of the room.

As I suggested, speaker-room interactions are easily ruled in or out simply by switching sides with the cables.

[semente]

I need your thought regarding Cable Burn-In

I've just spent a couple of thousand dollars on cables, the company clearly states 400 hours burn in and Ive done everything I was told to, I'm now on 480 odd hours the sound's thin and boring

I talked with the company and I was informed of The New Burn-In time of 700 hours PLUS

The owner of the company is a good guy and I'm not here to give him a bad name

Your thoughts please?

Get better speakers, ignore reviews and manufacturer propaganda.

 

R

[mansr]

Science and scientist are fallible.

 

How many times in the short history are science theories replaced?

 

Even mathematics theories.

 

Quite rarely, actually. Although our scientific understanding is frequently amended (that's what research is all about), old results generally remain valid under the conditions they were initially obtained. For instance, Newton's laws of motion work perfectly at everyday energy levels; it's only when speeds reach a significant fraction of the speed of light that relativistic effects need to be considered. Most scientific discoveries in the 20th century are refinements of existing theories to cover extreme conditions previously unattainable. In many cases, these conditions only exist in the innards of giant particle accelerators. Unless your audio system includes one of these, you need not worry.

 

As for mathematics, I does happen that flaws are found in old proofs of theorems, but this is exceedingly rare. When it does happen, the flaw can usually be mended without affecting the validity of the theorem. If a major mathematical theorem is invalidated, it's big news.

 

Finally, stating that scientists have occasionally made mistakes does not make a convincing argument for supposed effects contrary to pretty much all known physics. If science wasn't right most of the time, nothing would work.

[Jud]

Science and scientist are fallible.

 

How many times in the short history are science theories replaced?

 

Even mathematics theories. Please remember and PHD in mathematics ends as a philosopher. Then, is a philosopher infallible?

 

Maybe the problem today is there are too many specializations and too little 'compendiators'. It's like when you are sick with an strange disease, you enter in an hospital and each specialist looks only his field. I you don't have an MD that summarize your condition better buy a tomb.

 

Please note, I'm not again science, but is better to have a dud. This is what brings new discoveries.

 

From the other side, not all human beings are the same. If someone, but not you, can perceive 'different' from you, please don't go the 'science way' to justify the 'impossible'. I have seen the impossible possible in many fields.

 

And no, this is not 'magic', or something like that. And I agree sometimes senses make you a bad move.

 

Roch

 

 

Hello, my friend.

 

 

Here is why I love science:

 

 

Science is simply following your curiosity faithfully, trying your best, working your hardest, taking no shortcuts. Every child is curious, but not many have the courage and the energy to follow that curiosity wherever it leads, no matter how long it takes. The fellow who first thought of the Higgs boson had to wait 50 years until its existence was confirmed.

 

 

Magic and stories are some of the most wonderful things we can think of, but only with science can we find things more wonderful and magical than anything we can think of. A scientist once said "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." Only science can truly surprise us, so that we can delight in the surprise.

 

 

Things get shorter and heavier as they go faster (I must be going very fast), and time slows down for them. If they are going very fast toward you they turn blue; very fast away from you, they turn red. You can imagine flapping your arms very fast and flying; science found out we are flying through the universe at thousands of miles every second without even having to try. We can imagine getting sick from "bad air;" science found for us soldiers, armies, entire kingdoms smaller than we can see, fighting epic wars inside us. And these warriors are not aliens; an Englishman in the 1800s found that if we traced our family trees back billions of years, there they would be, our million times great-grandparents.

 

 

A Frenchman who never listened to a DAC found out in the 1700s that no DAC can be perfect; recently scientists found that it may be possible for our own ears to be more perfect than DACs in certain respects: Human hearing beats the Fourier uncertainty principle

 

 

The world has many beautiful stories of creation. But it took scientists to find that we - all of us, and our dogs - are made of the insides of exploding stars.

[Priaptor]

So I guess none of you cynics are buying the following anytime soon?

 

High Fidelity Cables

 

Personally I think that this cable would be perfect for Wgscott's system.

[AnotherSpin]

Thank you guys for the input

The cables are still very well within the return period in fact I still have around 60 more days from now

The cables may require burn-in time. This time span would bring at least two changes – either cables will sound different or your ears (and brain) would adjust to the sound which you not happy with at the moment. However, if I would be on your place I would most probably return these cables. Such vendors as The Cable Company provides variety of cables to make choice from and return back those which you like less.

 

Some people believe any piece of wire will transmit the signal on par with expensive high end cables, other people believe cables are different. I belong to second group.

[mansr]

If you can teach a cable to multiply

 

Straight wire with gain?

[lmitche]

Hello, my friend.

 

 

Here is why I love science:

 

 

Science is simply following your curiosity faithfully, trying your best, working your hardest, taking no shortcuts. Every child is curious, but not many have the courage and the energy to follow that curiosity wherever it leads, no matter how long it takes. The fellow who first thought of the Higgs boson had to wait 50 years until its existence was confirmed.

 

 

Magic and stories are some of the most wonderful things we can think of, but only with science can we find things more wonderful and magical than anything we can think of. A scientist once said "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." Only science can truly surprise us, so that we can delight in the surprise.

 

 

Things get shorter and heavier as they go faster (I must be going very fast), and time slows down for them. If they are going very fast toward you they turn blue; very fast away from you, they turn red. You can imagine flapping your arms very fast and flying; science found out we are flying through the universe at thousands of miles every second without even having to try. We can imagine getting sick from "bad air;" science found for us soldiers, armies, entire kingdoms smaller than we can see, fighting epic wars inside us. And these warriors are not aliens; an Englishman in the 1800s found that if we traced our family trees back billions of years, there they would be, our million times great-grandparents.

 

 

A Frenchman who never listened to a DAC found out in the 1700s that no DAC can be perfect; recently scientists found that it may be possible for our own ears to be more perfect than DACs in certain respects: Human hearing beats the Fourier uncertainty principle

 

 

The world has many beautiful stories of creation. But it took scientists to find that we - all of us, and our dogs - are made of the insides of exploding stars.

Jud, very well said my friend. Let's hope that reality doesn't take too much of a bashing in the coming years.

[OldBigEars]

Unfortunately the OP unwittingly opened the door and all the usual suspects piled through with their tired old rubbish, based on their infallible scientific knowledge. It's quite extraordinary how determined they are to quash any belief that cables do actually make a difference to sound quality.

 

In my personal, recent experience - the impact of cabling has been substantially more beneficial that similar levels of expenditure on potential upgrades to either my DAC or amplifier.

 

After replacing my speakers with Kudos Super 20's I needed to change cables, as I was moving from b-wiring to single wiring. Tried various solutions...Blue Jeans, Anti-Cables Reference 3. It was very frustrating - all kinds of music in my library I simply couldn't listen to any more. I was beginning to wish I'd never bought new speakers. Then I tried Morrow SP4's and the difference was staggering.

 

Summary of my experience:

- Cables do not all sound the same - some sound better in your system than others

- The sound of some cables changes in time

- Cables can have more impact - dollar for dollar - on sound quality than DAC's or amplifiers

- The quality of cables is not directly proportional to its cost (true, of course, of all audio products - yet it's astonishing how many audiophiles seem to equate cost with sound quality).

 

So I'm sorry the OP spent a lot of money on cables that haven't worked well in his system. This could easily have been the same outcome with a $2000 "upgrade" to his DAC or amplifier.

 

My advice - take a listen to Morrow cables. 60 day warranty. You can listen for yourself and ignore all the advice from the experts on this site.