Cable "burning": Real or VooDoo ???

No money, basically you make a good point here, but don't many audiophiles react in the sense of : Since all "good", meaning very expensive, cables neeed to be burnt in and this is always expressively mentioned in the glossy literature, then something must be "wrong" with a cable, which is said to work right out of the box. So if you like, but I am not implying that this is so in most cases, you could just as well infer, that all that burning in stuff is merely a necessary marketing hype (next to clever pricing)for the manufacturer to sell his wire as something special and top notch.

They could just claim that they burn it in for us, or make up some theory saying their design is so advanced and outstanding that it is just fine out of the box. But you don't see it happen? Seems like that would be a good marketing ploy to set yourself apart from the other guys. "Our cable is so advanced you don't need to burn it in" ! They could even double the price of the cables that don't need it.

Richard I think your going in a good direction. I too believe we should ask "possible" questions, and rather than simply dismissing them as so often is the case, we need to explore the theory. 70242.241 has asked the question, I believe meant to state the fact that metal has no memory, when bent or pounded or what ever the structure is indeed altered. We know that heating the metal will re-disperse the elements evenly though the material. I think the question of wave flow, and a new question of electro magnetic fields produced when current is passed should be looked at. Maybe there is something there as current rides through the metal moving via electrons it might indeed alter something.

Then again, it could all be immaterial, akin to debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It seems to me that it would be very easy to see if cables improve with "burn-in." Directly compare "burnt-in" cables with identical "non-burnt-in" cables. Double-blind test, either ABX or same-different. See if a statistically significant number of trials indicate that there is probably an audible difference between them. If not, I don't insist on accepting the null argument; we can do more testing.

And/or do electrical analyses on cables before "burn-in" and after, measuring the conductance and reactance over maybe 5 Hz up to 100 kHz.

I would love to comment, but I am restricted by my own commitment to myself and others here to just say RHUBARB. But perhaps I am allowed to comment on the wine tasting analogy. I have participated in blind tasting tests of wine and they served to prove nothing I didn't already know from many years of tasting wines - they taste different from each other. The thing is, I have learnt a lot from experience of the world without the benefit of blind tests, such as stopping at red traffic lights to avoid collisions (would be interesting to do a blind test on that wouldn't it)? Next time a sexual conquest insists I wear a condom, perhaps I will insist on a blind test first. I will shut up now in quavering fear of the negative votes I will get for the use of sarcasm. But honestly, what a load of RHUBARB that still pervades these debates.