Do speaker cables need a burn in period?

@andy2,

Cables are definitely worth the asking coins.

Really? Is that an across the board statement? Are ethernet cables costing $10,000 (Audioquest) "worth the asking coins?" If so, why?

Is the Siltech Emperor Crown cables at $40,000 "worth the coin?"
Or any of the others in a similar stratosphere?

I’m just wondering what metric you are using when deciding "cables are definitely worth the asking coins" and if you use any discretion in judging this, and what that would be?

BTW, some people like to respond to such questions by saying things like "a piece of audio gear is ’worth’ whatever someone will pay for it."

But the market value of something is a different question from the one being asked, which is more along the lines of "How much do you have to pay to reach a certain level of PERFORMANCE and why?’

Cables are like car tires. A car needs a good set of tires for optimal performance.

Sure. But at a certain point, the practical limits of tire design are reached, not to mention diminishing returns before that.

You can buy cables from very knowledgeable, experienced manufacturers that are vastly less expensive than the prices often charged by high end cable manufacturers. So the question is: on what grounds do you NEED to spend that extra money for the expensive high end cables?

Even if you’ve spent many thousands on expensive speakers and amplifiers, why wouldn’t cables (selected with suitable specs for the system) from a very experienced cable company like Belden, far cheaper than the audiophile brands,  be good enough?

Whoa there people. I, for one, believe in burn in but not the outrageous pricing of cables. There is a lot of gray area here so generalizations should be greeted with about a pound of salt, when they occur. 

There's lots of overlap in these discussions that seems to be glossed over or neglected for the sake of a point. 

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. My current speaker cables are designed by a former Belden engineer, required break in, and were very reasonable in cost.

There. I've covered three areas of contention with an acceptable solution. 

All the best,
Nonoise

I believe Blue Jeans cables use Belden.  I bought a set of QED for not a lot more money than Blue Jeans cable but easily better considerably.

I have no problem with Belden. As long as it has Teflon or air dielectric, is cryod and is controlled for directionality. 

I believe Blue Jeans cables use Belden.

Correct.

I bought a set of QED for not a lot more money than Blue Jeans cable but easily better considerably.

So you had Belden cables and thought QED sounded better?

It sure would be interesting to see if those impressions held up if you didn’t know which cables you were listening to.  I'd also wonder about your explanation for why one would sound "better" than the other.

I was subjectively "sure" my new music server sounded distinctly brighter and different from my old one. But in a blind test I could not tell one from another.

Same as when I blind tested some expensive AC cables against a cheap one. The expensive cable at one point seemed to alter the sound of my system. As soon as I didn’t actually know which cable was being used, the "obvious differences" between it and a $15 ac cable disappeared.

Blind testing can be sobering, and educational, that way ;-)

You didn’t really answer my other questions, though.