Do speaker cables need a burn in period?


I have heard some say that speaker cables do need a 'burn in', and some say that its totally BS.
What say you?


128x128gawdbless
I might have misunderstood that article, but so would
anyone reading it who was not deeply familiar with
what you mentioned. To us, it simply says
"no matter how hard you try, you are not going
to get there".

I guess one has to create a story in order to advertise
a product. I don't think you can criticize that.
But you could criticize the validity of their claim
with respect to their DBS system. Personally I don't
see why they have to go out of their way creating something
just to sell cables if it does not improve the sound.

In my previous job working in signal integrity,
a circuit board sometimes needs to be baked in heat
to improve jitter performance. It has to do with
dielectric absorbing moisture and when it is baked,
it allows the moisture to escape. So the state
dielectric is pretty important to the electrical
current.

Here is an interesting interview with AudioQuest
founder. The last paragraph is on wire directivity.
(He's a close cousin to GeoffKait).

First, we show that better stranded conductor
design, even with “both hands
behind our back”, as I call the constraints of
a stranded parallel cable, is still an arena in
which considerable improvement is possible,
and with less than half as much metal for less
than half the price.
Then, we use a cable of identical design,
except with solid conductors—a fun process
that usually provokes at least one mumbled
comment to the effect that, “if it’s that
obvious, how come everyone doesn’t do it?”
Good question.
Next, using the exact same solid conductors,
we share the audible performance difference
between parallel and twisted-geometry
cables, where geometry changes alone
can yield a surprisingly more open and
subjectively more dynamic presentation.
Going further, we move to a cable of
identical design, but with higher quality
copper conductors, and once again, the
clear sonic difference has a clear causeand-
effect.
Last in this progression is another pair of the
same better-metal cables, except with our
Dielectric-Bias System (DBS) attached. We
use identical cables except for the DBS—a
controlled experiment with a single variable
in-play: namely, the amount of interference
caused by the insulation, the dielectric.
Directionality is our honorary fifth element
or ingredient, although because it is a factor
always in play with any cable, and not part
of any particular design hierarchy, it doesn’t
quite fit in the same category as the others.
All drawn metal has a directional impedance
variation at higher RF/EMI noise frequencies.
By ‘law’, energy must follow the path of least
resistance, so we employ this impedance
variation as a mechanism for consciously
directing noise either to Earth or to
whichever attached circuit is less vulnerable
to noise. The key is to direct noise to where it
will do the least damage.

This has degenerated into one big pie fight that has nothing to do with audio and everything to do with ego.

How many times must we read the same links and arguments that have already been tossed in the dung heap of history? Nothing new or revelatory is being discussed. 

Go and enjoy your systems.

All the best,
Nonoise
Hey ganainm, thanks for the response!
No, I don't suggest these sites are chalked full of industry insiders but it is far more prevalent than just a few years ago and seems likely to get worse. The very nature of forums like this makes it easy to disguise the true nature of a party so predisposed. I feel it's a fair point to raise in this day and age. I also don't intend to insult any participants. Being so new here, perhaps I should use my eyes and ears a great deal more before tapping the keys.
Your point about AG is well taken though. I hadn't realized that AG was as much about selling stuff. Admittedly, I'm very new here and still looking around, getting my bearings.
I'm glad to have met you and look forward to your opinion on various matters in future. Any other advice you wish to provide on site conduct is certainly welcome.

ganainm,


It was not a threat at all. Far from that. It is that on some of these threads people interact with others in a way they would never do in real life. There have been calls for death, suggestions of suicides, etc. Morons, trolls, you name it. I thought that keeping conversation in the way you would at the bar would be somehow acceptable. That is where 6'5" comes from. You do not start insulting a person just because he has a different opinion. At least you keep mind open. "You" not being you personally, but any of us.

no2headphones,

My curiosity about DACs was actually limited to chips. I first tried just DAC and it brought me to much more but most were regarding DACs as a stand-alone machines or other, basically finished, products.


I have no idea how chips work and consider those who can design them very bright and admire their work. I found out that most threads that somehow talk about DAC chips have 10-20-30 posts. Maybe more, I really did not dig too deep, but far less than threads about cables. Not much discussion about comparison and other details and properties of DAC chips.


So I thought, on one side we have an item that is advanced in execution and that cannot be replaced by just about anything. Not many talk about it on Audiogon (some other websites are more active in that regard, though). On the other side we have an item that can, relatively functionally, be replaced by pretty much anything that conducts electricity and there are a few threads regarding it right now and they have hundreds of posts each. We get all technical and scientific about much simpler item barely mentioning the sophisticated one that does heavy work. I have a feeling that nobody who can figure out the way to improve DAC chips ever visits these threads. Who knows, they may be too busy improving a little piece which will enable us to differentiate between burned-in and not-burned-in cable in the future.


This would be kind of thread I was looking for to compare with cable threads. See how many and when. Yet, you will see threads about tweaks consisting of howling at the moon or bringing African plants into the room going much stronger.


https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/grounding-dac-chip-tweak?highlight=dac%2Bchip