Do cables really need "breaking in"?

This is only half on pointbut I am a no count amateur speaker builder. But all of the guys I admire (Lynn Olson, George Short on and on) share at least two common traits.

1) They know all of the numbers and formulas and put great store in them. In this sense I get very tired of folks who talk about "cables" endlessly and NEVER about the design parameters used by cable makers and how it combines with a system. And why these designs cost so much $$$. If you have a speaker that has ridiculas load impedence (the old Quads and some others) that drop to under 2 ohms at high frequencies you have need certain needs in a cable. If you have a SET you have capacitance issues. If you have an ELS you have inductance issues...on and on. I feel a lot of stuff magically attributed to "cables" can be thought through and figured out without dropping ridiculas amounts of cash and chasing the latest gimmick that is thrown at us by the cable industry.

2)Knowing the numbers and respecting them, they know that the formulas just do not work. a) The cross over equations do not work, b)the frequency response curves are taken under artificial conditions, c) the Thiele/Small numbers given by most manufactureers are way off... on and on. That is, measurments, at least as we take them now,just do not tell the whole story. Another example of this phenom is why do SETS sound so good when they have such poor numbers(3 watts and THD .05). Again these examples can go on and on.

These guys spend endless hours tweaking by ear. Read Olson's account of how he developed the crossover for the Ariel.

Its the old joke about the two guys in the life boat arguing over which orr to keep in the water. You need both or you row in circles. You need to respect the numbers and such but in the end you have to listen too. The whole argument about numbers vs ears is, to me, idiotic and unproductive. You need both.

That being said I think There is so much fantastic hype and marketing around cables that it is a turn-off. The industry has not produced anything to justify the COST. (I am not saying all cables sound alike!!!) Well designed cooper suits me fine (I make my own).

By the way I do not feel thinking about how 18 inches of wire (the last .015%) overcomes a typical Audio chain that includes 100 opamps, dozens of connectors,and hundreds of yard of ordinary cable (I'm talking just the recording chain here-not the juice to your to your house) makes me a member of the flat earth society.

Sincerely, I remain

Craig ... the concept of speakers (mechanical, with moving parts) breaking in is absolutely believable.
The post was referring to cables, not speakers.

1953 .. I don't think I scoffed, or at least I didn't mean to. I just pointed out that the ear can easily be fooled, as can the eyes. Please don't resort to capitals ... I can read lower case !

A couple of cautions about Sean's "protocol" for comparisons. The side-by-side mono test does not cut it: If the two speakers are not in exactly the same place (a physical impossibility, of course), you get room effects, which can be very audible. Second, it's amazing how little information you have to give a test subject to bias them. Merely telling them they are listening to two different cables sets up the expectation that they will sound different. That's why researchers don't use AB comparisons, but ABX tests, which require subjects to positively identify the X.

However, we aren't researchers. We're hobbyists.And objective though I may be, I wouldn't expect anyone to go to the trouble of setting up a proper ABX test. I only mean to suggest that we should be a little careful in how we interpret the more relaxed comparisons we actually do.

Bomarc, i agree that there is the potential for differences in perception when the speakers are sitting side by side as close as possible. However, listening directly on axis and in the nearfield ( i forgot to mention that part before ), the differences should be minimal at best. However, nothing is perfect, including ABX.

Since we are not concerned with imaging or soundstage ( we are in mono after all ), the basic things to listen for would be changes in tonal balance, transient response, inter-transient silence and harmonic structure. These are not just attributes of the cables under test, but how the equipment in the system loads into and responds to the specific impedances being presented to them. You are therefore not just testing for differences in cables, but which ones are most cohesive in your specific system. Sean
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