Is a cable cooker worth it?


I have heard many good things that a cable cooker can do to improve a system, but I am wondering at what point the expense of a cooker is worth it? Alltogether, how long must I burn in my cables, via system play, before they are good and hot as opposed to the expense of buying an Audio Dharma cooker and having near instant results? I don't know where I fall in terms of mid to high end audiophile, but I calculate that by the time I get all the components that I want for my system, minus cables and extras, I am approaching $8500 bucks(only components). So, is a cable cooker worth it for someone like me?
matchstikman
As cable resolution increases the problem of break-in becomes more severe. Our most recent power cord uses a technology so advanced it can not be broken-in by conventional means. I think this is the tip of a very large iceberg.
Jim Hagerman has an inexpensive cooker out. FOr those on a budget it might be worth it.

http://www.hagtech.com/frykleaner.html
Abex: After looking at the design for the Hagerman, i would not waste my money on such a device. For that matter, i would not waste my money on most of the other burners on the market either.

A person would be better off looking on Ebay for an old Heathkit, Leader, Eico, etc... Sine / Square wave generator. You can typically pick one of these up for appr $15 - $50 dollars for a complete unit. Using something like this and building some simple terminating loads ( female RCA's that you solder 10,000 ohm resistors across ) that you can plug your interconnects into will get you most everything that you need for an "interconnect burner". To top it off, you can vary the center frequency of the signal using one of these devices, allowing it to work even better than some of the fancy "audiophile approved" burners that cost quite a bit of money.

As far as the type of signal to use, a sine wave or limited bandwidth noise will not work anywhere near as well as a square wave at high amplitude. The reason for this is that a square wave is basically a massively distorted sine wave that is going into "hard clipping". Due to the clipping, harmonics are generated 10 - 15 times above the center frequency. As such, a square wave not only exposes the cable to a higher intensity signal at the center frequency, but a signal that has multiple frequencies rather than just the one that you would get with a sine wave.

This is the reason that "clipping" an amplifier, which is common on high impact or long duration bass notes, tends to blow out mids and tweeters. The added power and longer duration harmonic overtones that are a by-product of the clipped low frequency signals result in a greater amount of signal being fed to the mids and tweeters than what they would normally see or have to cope with. In many cases, this is enough to over-heat the voice coils in the small and fragile drivers and burn them out.

By using a square wave to "cook" the cable, you expose the cable to both a more intense, longer duration signal and a signal that is wider in bandwidth. You also have to get the voltage up to something that is well above what the interconnect would normally see at line level, which is .75 - 2 volts for home audio. As such, look for a cheap but usable sine / square wave generator that can do at least 8 - 12 volts peak to peak and you'll be good. My Mil-spec Wavetek generator will do 36 volts p-p on square waves but also costs quite a bit more than the aforementioned Heath, Leader and Eico models. Sean
>
"Heathkit, Leader, Eico, etc... Sine / Square wave generator."
Was thinking about such a device!

I had another poster write with a suggestion of using somehting else also.I will try to what was said in my notes.

The Hageman unit does seem to help get through the Grain Stage when trying to get the wires cooked. I do not have the time for regular music burn in and I do not think silver can be done that way.Takes forever to open up.

Using the HAG I can take wires off after 50 and get an idea after 10hrs of music where the design is at or if it is plausible to use.

I will look into the Heath Kit!Have not used anything from them since the 70's.

WIll post a follow-up!Thx!
Sean/Abex:
How would you configure a square wave generator with a variable load, say 3-110 ohms; the idea is to mimic the load of a speaker. As you know this usually occurs between 10-200hz.