Do speaker cables need a burn in period?

Every so often, I'll pop in here to gauge the proceedings and there's always one theme that remains steadfast. That of Leviathan: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)

Just as in politics and religion, there are those who simply can't trust the masses. They need constant supervision and guidance. They can't be trusted and the premise of their arguments are that they are delusional and/or mistaken, and not much else is allowed or entertained.

Some will say that's too strong a statement but if one were to be truly objective, the overlap is obviously and painfully apparent. Hobbes' call for an absolute sovereign seems to be an underlying cause de celebre around these parts. We need go no further than what is and has been written. There is nothing left for the masses to learn on their own.

Thank goodness I've been in this hobby long before I came to this site as I've always heard and experienced break in with components and cables and took it as a natural event, not even up for debate. The final sound determined whether I kept something or moved on.

Long before the camps and bubbles of the internet, every maker of gear all said the same thing: expect some break in. No biggie or controversy: it was a given. Conventional wisdom for sure, but based on empirical observation. Then the price gouging and charlatans started to flourish resulting in a backlash that went overboard. Everything was to be doubted; back to the manuals! Polarization intensified driving the camps further apart. 

If I had started this hobby along with this site, I might have ended up deferring to the experts on the subject of "break in" and go against reason and experience, doubting my own senses and perceptions, and upon being confronted with the actual evidence (hearing it), been driven into yet another episode of cognitive dissonance, getting angrier and ever more steadfast in my mistaken beliefs, and because of that, my level of enjoyment, diminished.

The horrors. 😉

All the best,
Nonoise

@andy2,

Again, I believe you are missing a third alternative:

I (or "we") don't know who is right.

Say we want to know if it's raining outside, and we can not tell from the windowless room in which we sit.  One method is to get up, open the front door of the house and check if it's raining. Another method is to flip a coin and say "if it lands 'heads' we know it's raining."

If you use the coin method and flip heads it may in fact be TRUE that it's raining outside.

But that doesn't get around the problem that method used isn't one that, on examination, actually deserves our confidence.

It's the same when we are talking about audible differences that are either very small, or exist in areas that are controversial.   It may BE that the manufacturers who claim their cables need burn in are right, and that it's a real, physical, AUDIBLE phenomena.   But, if like flipping a coin, they are simply using the same anecdotal methods as any other audiophile....and more to the point....essentially the same subjective, anecdotal method as used by any other pseudo-science or fringe belief system (e.g. alternative medicine, psychics, etc) THEN it makes sense to point out these conclusions are not being supported by a reliable method.

Surely you accept that an unreliable method, or 'explanations' that haven't been vetted in a careful manner, used by many people, can lead to many people being wrong?  

200 million people use homeopathy on a regular basis.  Can they all be wrong?  Of course.  Same goes for any number of beliefs born of little objective, repeatable data and supported by subjective impressions.
It's why vast numbers of contradictory beliefs about the world arise in the first place.  And it's why science arose as a method to help us separate the wheat from the chaff. 

BTW, not all cable manufacturers seem to make claims that cables change with burn in.

And those include some of the most experienced and respected manufacturers.  You don't see for instance Belden or Canare cable claiming cables need "burn in."  And yet they cater to a massive, critical, often professional customer base.   For professional industries, a cable - or for that matter capacitor etc - has to perform as one expects from the physical specifications.  

It seems telling that the claims regarding long burn in times - "the cable is only going to sound better over time!  Keep it in your system!" - come from high end cable makers who are selling at boutique prices....to audiophiles who are relying on subjective impressions. 

In other words, nonoise, you like to drop in occasionally with a strawman.  ;-)

Yes, they are much more friendly to your own view, than actually dealing with the details of someone else's actual position. 

I think it's a myth that buyers purchase and keep electronics, speakers and cables that they don't like because the salesperson says they will like it more in a few months...burn in, changing directions are free to try, so no real issues...

Hey prof, my straw men have not feet of clay. 😄 It's just that they can't be successfully dismissed, out of hand, on the fly, despite attempts.

As to your second accusation, it sounds more like projection on your part, as it presupposes only you can be right. Now that's a straw man we can all agree upon. 👍

All the best, (and time to check out to watch from afar......)
Nonoise