Cable did need a burn in! WOW!

[Peter Larsen]

I bought 0,5 meters of Chord Chameleon Silver to connect my DacMagic to my Cambridge 740A.

I had read that the cable neeeded burn in (because the silver sounds harsh just out of the box).

I was sceptic!

I had also read that alot of people who don't believe that cables make a difference, have stated that your ears get used to the harsh sound and therefore you fool yourself into believeing that the cable has been burned in after a while.

So I plugged the cables in. Listened for half an hour. Was shocked at the harsheness the cable produced. Guitars almost hurt my ears, and the soundstage was strangely light and fluffy. Not good!

So, I decided not to listen to the cable anymore for 4 days. To rule out that my ears would get used to the awful sound.

I turned off the amp, and set Metallica's Death Magnetic to loop for 4 days which ought to be sufficient for the burn in.

Needles to say, I was pretty excited when I turned on the amp again to listen if anything had changed.

It did! Away was the harsheness, the soundstage was wide and open, and the increase in details was significant compared to my old Tara Labs cables.

So if you ask me, burn in is not cable voodoo. It worked for my Chameleon, and I would guess, also for other cables.

Tha' tha' thats all folks...

 

[chebby]

As you say, it is not a problem after a few days.

Whether the process is electrical, metallurgical, psychological, or metaphysical (and whether one is a 'believer' or not) it obviously does not matter either way after a few days of use.

Anyone with a brand new pair of speakers or a brand new cartridge has to be far more patient waiting for optimal performance.

Not sure why cable burn-in is such a Big Thing in the forums. Whatever it is (or whether it is) ceases to matter after a short time in use even to those who are the most passionate about the phenomena.

Personally, I find the idea of waiting for new hifi equipment to 'mature' tiresome rather than a source of excitement.

 

[aliEnRIK]

Hi peter ~ thats EXACTLY what ive found with every silver cable ive ever used

One day the results will be 'measured' and upon that day the 'cable voodoo posse' shall weep

 

[SteveR750]

I've still got an open mind in both directions - the SHB IC's have definitely improved slightly since I first installed them about 4 weeks ago, whereas nothing has changed since I installed the speaker cable.....

 

[aliEnRIK]

SteveR750:I've still got an open mind in both directions - the SHB IC's have definitely improved slightly since I first installed them about 4 weeks ago, whereas nothing has changed since I installed the speaker cable.....

I was using QEDs silver spiral speaker cable for years

Then my dad upgraded so I bought his van den hul 'teatrack' off him

Now hed been using it for years so any 'burn in' would surely have happened in that time

As soon as I connected it the treble was very 'shrilly', and was like that for 2 or 3 days before selling down. So my personal thoughts are thought equipment 'acclimitises' to every new cable thats connected to it over time (Thats not to say 'burn in' doesnt exist, but that something else sure as hell must happen too)

And no ~ that wasnt my ears adjusting to the new sound (And if it was it would have adjusted over a period of a couple of hours for sure), as if it was my dads system would have sounded like that all the time to me. Thats just what you 'cable sceptics' come up with to try and tell me my ears are shot at

 

[chebby]

Seriously, what does it matter?

All that matters is the long-term sound quality.

Car magazines and testers don't tie themselves up in knots over a car's performance during the running in period.

Music critics don't write essays on the relative merits of different Orchestra's warm-up sessions.

No decent hifi reviewer will judge a product stone cold from the box.

Why are you all so wrapped up in this short period when a cable is 'sub-optimal'? (A tiny, tiny percentage of the product's lifetime.)

Why are there even entrenched 'camps' on this issue? It has to be one of the most laughably insignificant debates in the world of hifi because it does not matter to anyone who is right or who is wrong.

After a suitable period the matter is moot unless someone is daft enough to keep buying new cables especially to enjoy hearing them transform. Certifiable behaviour. Like someone who buys a brand new car every month because he enjoys the running in process rather than the full potential of the car!

 

[JoelSim]

Well I can't try my new silver I/Cs as they are ever so slightly too short! I shall keep them in the HiFi 'box' for future use along with a load of other cables I've never got round to putting in.

 

[aliEnRIK]

chebby:
Seriously, what does it matter?

Ive had 'far' too many people telling me im dillusional to just drop it. Once the truth finally comes out i'll be the very first in line to tell them so............

 

[chebby]

aliEnRIK:
Ive had 'far' too many people telling me im dillusional to just drop it. Once the truth finally comes out i'll be the very first in line to tell them so...........

Here is the news: About 9 out of every 10 members of the adult public think ALL of us hifi enthusiasts are delusional (or far worse)!

 

[Anonymous]

Peter Larsen:
I bought 0,5 meters of Chord Chameleon Silver to connect my DacMagic to my Cambridge 740A.

I had read that the cable neeeded burn in (because the silver sounds harsh just out of the box).

I was sceptic!

I had also read that alot of people who don't believe that cables make a difference, have stated that your ears get used to the harsh sound and therefore you fool yourself into believeing that the cable has been burned in after a while.

So I plugged the cables in. Listened for half an hour. Was shocked at the harsheness the cable produced. Guitars almost hurt my ears, and the soundstage was strangely light and fluffy. Not good!

So, I decided not to listen to the cable anymore for 4 days. To rule out that my ears would get used to the awful sound.

I turned off the amp, and set Metallica's Death Magnetic to loop for 4 days which ought to be sufficient for the burn in.

Needles to say, I was pretty excited when I turned on the amp again to listen if anything had changed.

It did! Away was the harsheness, the soundstage was wide and open, and the increase in details was significant compared to my old Tara Labs cables.

So if you ask me, burn in is not cable voodoo. It worked for my Chameleon, and I would guess, also for other cables.

Tha' tha' thats all folks...

It's your hearing that's adapting to the sound. Sorry if that's a disappointment.

 

[Dan Turner]

JoelSim:Well I can't try my new silver I/Cs as they are ever so slightly too short! I shall keep them in the HiFi 'box' for future use along with a load of other cables I've never got round to putting in.

Joel if you're referring to the silver ones that you mentioned finding on ebay the other day, then I took a punt on some of those as well. They sounded terrible to start with, really vauge imaging, and lacking in bass and impact. Ran them continuously on my tuner for a few days, then put them back on to my CD player, connected in parrallel with my usual Chorus 2, using the CDP's twin outputs, going to 2 different inputs on my pre-amp.

I was really quite surprised at how good they were, virtually identical sounding to the Chorus 2 - I was switching between them whilst the music was playing and the differences were barely perceptible, even in areas such as bass where I was expecting the Chorus to be far superior. In the end I don't know which was better/worse, they were too similar. But I've now got the silver one on my CDP, and Chorus 2s between amps and the sound is better than it's ever been.

Pretty good result for a £36 home-made cable vs a £200 one from one of the major names. I shall definitely think twice before spending big on cables again, I only wish I'd discovered this sooner....

 

[Anonymous]

chebby:
Why are there even entrenched 'camps' on this issue? It has to be one of the most laughably insignificant debates in the world of hifi because it does not matter to anyone who is right or who is wrong.

I suppose some people are just trying to stop others, Hi-Fi newbe's maybe, paying ridiculous amounts for cables; under the belief that after "burn in" everything will come right and justify the (high profit) cost.

 

[Anonymous]

aliEnRIK:
Hi peter ~ thats EXACTLY what ive found with every silver cable ive ever used

One day the results will be 'measured' and upon that day the 'cable voodoo posse' shall weep

It is very easy to check for yourself, as I did, buy 3 identical connects - use one straight away. After 6 months compare the first and second cables, after 12 months compare the 3 cables. I did and got a friend to swap them around so I didn't know which one I was listening to. NO difference, all 3 sounded the same. Now unless they all burnt in, even without use, "burn in" is pure fiction.

 

[chebby]

Stumpy21:
I suppose some people are just trying to stop others, Hi-Fi newbe's maybe, paying ridiculous amounts for cables; under the belief that after "burn in" everything will come right and justify the (high profit) cost.

Well if a dealer tried that stunt just establish whether they will return cash, if it still sounds rubbish after the time they specify, or courteously request that you buy a 'burnt in' pair or have a burnt in pair compared to a new pair in a demo to prove the difference. (You don't have to 'believe' it to ask.)

 

[Dan Turner]

Red Dwarf:Peter Larsen:

I bought 0,5 meters of Chord Chameleon Silver to connect my DacMagic to my Cambridge 740A.

I had read that the cable neeeded burn in (because the silver sounds harsh just out of the box).

I was sceptic!

I had also read that alot of people who don't believe that cables make a difference, have stated that your ears get used to the harsh sound and therefore you fool yourself into believeing that the cable has been burned in after a while.

So I plugged the cables in. Listened for half an hour. Was shocked at the harsheness the cable produced. Guitars almost hurt my ears, and the soundstage was strangely light and fluffy. Not good!

So, I decided not to listen to the cable anymore for 4 days. To rule out that my ears would get used to the awful sound.

I turned off the amp, and set Metallica's Death Magnetic to loop for 4 days which ought to be sufficient for the burn in.

Needles to say, I was pretty excited when I turned on the amp again to listen if anything had changed.

It did! Away was the harsheness, the soundstage was wide and open, and the increase in details was significant compared to my old Tara Labs cables.

So if you ask me, burn in is not cable voodoo. It worked for my Chameleon, and I would guess, also for other cables.

Tha' tha' thats all folks...

It's your hearing that's adapting to the sound. Sorry if that's a disappointment.

I don't think that it can be dismissed so easily - one of the main reasons people don't believe in the concept of cable burn in is that it can't be proven scientifically, but then neither can the assertion that it's someone's ears adapting to the sound. There are an awful lot of people who feel that they have had cable burn-in proven to them and a lot of the cable manufaturers cite it as well. Just because we can't or don't know how to measure it, that doesn't mean that there isn't something tangible going on.

The simple fact is no one can prove to anyone else what is or isn't going on. We only have people's individual experiences, and I think that we should give people enough credit to assume that they aren't idiots and that they know their own minds.

I was extremely sceptical about cable burn-in, the whole concept seemed ludicrous to me, but it was comprehensively proven to me after I borrowed a (well used) set of Atlas speaker cables from my dealer to demo at home. I listened to them over a week and they were great, so I took them back to the shop and picked up a brand new set. When I installed these at home and fired things up the sound was completely different, worse in a number of ways. Only a couple of hours had passed and the only thing that had changed was the cables. Yet after 50+ hours of continuous use (only a small amount of which was with me listening) the sound was restored to it's best. It really was the last thing in the world that I was expecting, but the difference was stark.

 

[SteveR750]

aliEnRIK:chebby:
Seriously, what does it matter?

Ive had 'far' too many people telling me im dillusional to just drop it. Once the truth finally comes out i'll be the very first in line to tell them so............

But like you already said the truth is in YOUR ears! So like Chebbs says the whole debate is perhaps at most mildly intriguing. Its no more or less important than a typcial response to a forum question of "what amp/CD/speakers/etc should I get?" which usually illicits the "get the one I got cos its ace" replies.

 

[JoelSim]

Dan Turner:
JoelSim:Well I can't try my new silver I/Cs as they are ever so slightly too short! I shall keep them in the HiFi 'box' for future use along with a load of other cables I've never got round to putting in.

Joel if you're referring to the silver ones that you mentioned finding on ebay the other day, then I took a punt on some of those as well.ÿ They sounded terrible to start with, really vauge imaging, and lacking in bass andÿimpact.ÿ Ran them continuously on my tuner for a few days, then put them back on to my CD player, connected in parrallel with my usual Chorus 2, using the CDP's twin outputs, going to 2 different inputs on my pre-amp.

I was really quite surprised at how good they were, virtually identical sounding to the Chorus 2 - I was switching between them whilst the music was playing and the differences were barely perceptible, even in areas such as bass where I was expecting the Chorus to be far superior.ÿ In the end I don't know which was better/worse, they were too similar.ÿ But I've now got the silver one on my CDP, and Chorus 2s between amps and the sound is better than it's ever been.

Pretty good result for a £36 home-made cable vs a £200 one from one of the major names.ÿ I shall definitely think twice before spending big on cables again, I only wish I'd discovered this sooner....

Very interesting. I've just tried to connect them as the crow flies, about 2cm too short! Oh well, live and learn, I'm sure they will come in useful somwhere along the line.

ÿ

 

[aliEnRIK]

SteveR750:aliEnRIK:chebby:
Seriously, what does it matter?

Ive had 'far' too many people telling me im dillusional to just drop it. Once the truth finally comes out i'll be the very first in line to tell them so............

But like you already said the truth is in YOUR ears! So like Chebbs says the whole debate is perhaps at most mildly intriguing. Its no more or less important than a typcial response to a forum question of "what amp/CD/speakers/etc should I get?" which usually illicits the "get the one I got cos its ace" replies.

By truth I mean ~

Measurable differences, blind tests, measured differences coming out of the speakers, irrefutable proof that people CAN 'hear' the difference

The fact I can tell is obviously irrelevant, so all im waiting for is the proof to all the 'flat earth' clan

Amps, cd players, speakers etc have already been 'measured' to have differences (Even though blind tests say otherwise). Im talking just about cables, nothing else..........

 

[Anonymous]

It's because you used Metallica's Death Magnetic to burn in the cables, if you'd used something like Bent's "You are the Oscillator" you'd have ended up with a much less analogue and harsh sound...

 

[SteveR750]

aliEnRIK:SteveR750:aliEnRIK:chebby:
Seriously, what does it matter?

Ive had 'far' too many people telling me im dillusional to just drop it. Once the truth finally comes out i'll be the very first in line to tell them so............

But like you already said the truth is in YOUR ears! So like Chebbs says the whole debate is perhaps at most mildly intriguing. Its no more or less important than a typcial response to a forum question of "what amp/CD/speakers/etc should I get?" which usually illicits the "get the one I got cos its ace" replies.

By truth I mean ~

Measurable differences, blind tests, measured differences coming out of the speakers, irrefutable proof that people CAN 'hear' the difference

The fact I can tell is obviously irrelevant, so all im waiting for is the proof to all the 'flat earth' clan

Amps, cd players, speakers etc have already been 'measured' to have differences (Even though blind tests say otherwise). Im talking just about cables, nothing else..........

Well that discounts two of them from the category of "universal truth" as they are subjective surely?

And to kill the whole theory, like you said listening tests often bear no resembance to lab tests (or at least conventional lab tests) something which I recall hi fi mags of the early 80's were preaching. The key issue from a scientists' point of view is what test are valid to measure what we hear, as clearly most of the traditional tests appear not to be sufficiently sensitive.

EDIT Oops just noticed your comment aplies to cables only....then again as far as I know / have read cables are not "tested" or at least the results are not published as product specs.

 

[chebby]

aliEnRIK:
By truth I mean ~

Measurable differences, blind tests, measured differences coming out of the speakers, irrefutable proof that people CAN 'hear' the difference

You are talking about some transient thing that - by your own admission - passes into history after a period of burning in. Just like a new car running in or a new pair of boots becoming more comfy after being worn a bit.

It is not a subject worthy of comment, measurement, debate, or blind testing because it is not typical of a component's designed performance.

All that matters is the long term, day-to-day performance of any component, cables included (or boots) not it's performance in the first few hours/days of use.

Who really wants to bother with the rigmarole of testing for the presence (or absence) of different traits during burning-in? People are far more interested in hearing differences between equipment running at it's best not it's worst.

And if anyone told me to wait 6 months before some precious cable's performance peaks then I would tell them where to get off. Life is too short to wait for that long just for a bit of glorified wire to 'mature'. (Cheese maybe.)

 

[Anonymous]

Dan Turner:

I don't think that it can be dismissed so easily - one of the main reasons people don't believe in the concept of cable burn in is that it can't be proven scientifically

It's very well known that ears adapt to sound. If they didn't anything loud would be sheer torture.

Why do you dismiss that so easily?

It's easy to test. Listen to some music with bass and treble turned to the max. for around 15 minutes. You'll find it sounds horrible at first but then eventually sounds more or less OK, but if you return the tone to normal a strange thing happens. At first music sounds thin, awful and midrange prominent but then with time gradually settles down to sounding normal again.

Cables don't change characteristics just because you put a signal though them, it's ridiculous, but humans do tend to believe in the ridiculous.

 

[Anonymous]

Off we go again!

The better your systems potential, the greater the improvements that can be gained.

A pigs ear of a system will never sound good, and the improvements to it (no matter what you do) will be limited.

But on a well matched system mods can make a great difference to the musicality and enjoyment of.

I think synergy is the key word.

 

[SteveR750]

chebby:aliEnRIK:
By truth I mean ~

Measurable differences, blind tests, measured differences coming out of the speakers, irrefutable proof that people CAN 'hear' the difference

You are talking about some transient thing that - by your own admission - passes into history after a period of burning in. Just like a new car running in or a new pair of boots becoming more comfy after being worn a bit.

It is not a subject worthy of comment, measurement, debate, or blind testing because it is not typical of a component's designed performance.

All that matters is the long term, day-to-day performance of any component, cables included (or boots) not it's performance in the first few hours/days of use.

Who really wants to bother with the rigmarole of testing for the presence (or absence) of different traits during burning-in? People are far more interested in hearing differences between equipment running at it's best not it's worst.

And if anyone told me to wait 6 months before some precious cable's performance peaks then I would tell them where to get off. Life is too short to wait for that long just for a bit of glorified wire to 'mature'. (Cheese maybe.)

What about wine...whisky and whiskey?? Waiting is everything!

 

[chebby]

SteveR750:
What about wine...whisky and whiskey?? Waiting is everything!

In this case listening to music takes precedence over waiting or ponceing messing around with the sort of needy, precious, boutique cables that require 'laying down' and cosseting like some old wine.

It's wire.