Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

JD, you been busy. Most excellant post, my friend. I must say that you're getting much better at your stand up since your last attempt! Very enjoyable!

Thanks Angela, I have a bit more now to add. I just spent about a half hour looking through the M.I.T., Cal Poly and Stanford research programs. I recommend any of you who have a true interest in the science of the art to please spend some time at the very well written M.I.T. site. If a certain area of research is of interest to you, I know from personal experience that a quick note to the proper professor will give you direct information.
In my short research I've been able to find out that there are some scientists (I'd call M.I.T. fairly informed) who are taking some of the issues of dielectrics, wave technology along with measurements of such quite seriously. I think the people who have knowledge and interest of engineering may find this a great read.
The following are some direct pastes of web pages followed by the address to further reading:
"The proposed program is to develop and apply dielectrometry technology to non-destructive testing of materials and systems. Interdigital frequency-wavelength dielectrometry can be used to measure stratified distributions of dielectric permittivity and conductivity of insulating materials. The complex dielectric permittivity is directly related to other material properties, such as moisture content, temperature, concentration of impurities and additives, density, aging status, etc. The analysis of spatial and temporal variations of these properties lends valuable insights into physical phenomena that take place in materials, electric power apparatus, and civil infrastructures; provides instrumentation for system monitoring and diagnostics; and can be used for optimization of design and performance characteristics." http://web.mit.edu/lees-lab/www/full/frames/index1024.html

"The proposed research is for the continued analytical, computational, and experimental study using optical tomography measurements of high voltage insulation, conduction, prebreakdown and breakdown characteristics in dielectrics. The methodology uses electric field induced birefringence (Kerr effect) with an improved sensitive optical measurement system and a new advanced mathematical formulation that allows calculation of electric field magnitude and direction in any electrode geometry from optical intensity measurements. Because the physics of high voltage charge injection and transport, prebreakdown and electrical breakdown are not known for most metal/dielectric systems, the electric field distribution cannot be calculated from knowledge of system geometries alone. Optical measurements provide a direct approach to determining electrical constitutive laws and learning the physics of the electrical breakdown process and so offers a research methodology for major advances in increasing the breakdown strength of dielectric systems."
http://web.mit.edu/lees-lab/www/full/frames/index1024.html
for general knowledge:
http://www.mit.edu
Finally I went to the Kimber Kable web site and looked at there library. The following is the opening paragraph of there library listing.
Over one thousand volumes exist in the private library at Kimber Kable. A comprehensive library resource is critical in developing and manufacturing the finest products. Cable manufacture requires significant expertise in many disciplines; plastics, metals, plating, extruding, machining, soldering and magnetics, to name a few. In addition the cable must be tested and evaluated which requires knowledgeable expertise in acoustics, electronics and test instrumentation. The final link is the correlation between tested results and subjective impressions, access to previous research in this area is very important. Products that are developed with a great library resource are much more likely
to be technically advanced, more cost effective and consistently manufactured.

What I found here was just how little the "experts" here at AudiogoN understand. Listen to there statements, then look here to see all they chose to ignore. It's amazing, and I'd like to say most of use are one hell of a lot closer to understanding audio than the quite vocal few who have been asked to change there approach. Enough said, I hope some of us take the time to learn from this knowledge available and continue to update each other. Maybe a "research" section of the site would be helpful. Have fun reading! J.D.

Jadem6, Just to throw a little more oil on the fire, you state "To do this I went through some of the recordings I personally find to be well recorded with above average sonic achievements." I believe a more accurate statement would read "To do this I went through some of the recordings I personally find to sound good on my system."

I think this is THE huge variable in how systems are evaluated. We tend to use the same recordings to evaluate various components. For instance, I may have a recording that has been deemed to have excellent bass. Perhaps it is a little bass heavy, but on some systems this is just the ticket to sonic excellence. Using this recording, I would judge more neutral systems to be bass deficient.

For this and other reasons, I advocate spending most of your budget on components, and saving the big "cable question" to the end when you are putting on the finishing touches and have a system of sufficient resolution to make these megabuck decisions.

Happy listening

Sound jugement Bruce, in my opinion.

Bruce,

Just so! That's exactly how I've approached it. Am currently looking for a sufficiently resolving IC for CD to pre/pro, having found good ICs between amps and pre. Of course, I should get help because 702 has told me the rules of physics and Ohm's law no longer apply. (Hadn't you heard, 702, that Ohm's law had been repealed after an aroused citizenry was mobilized?) Yep, we're all in wonderland now so you'll have to guide us. Bring on those charts and graphs.