Do cables take time to settle or do we just get used to the sound?
David Matz -- Thu, 09/30/2010 - 22:19
I am wondering if "cable settling" reported by audio show attendees is just a psycho acoustic phenomena or whether there is something to it.
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My bad, that's the other outfit, I do get you and them confused, since you both sell nonsense. Furutech makes magical devices too. They demagnetized PLASTIC!!! And of course it's extremely audible, according to goofball reviewers. Is the Hydra conditioner UL or ETL or anything built to industry standards of protection and safety standards? NEMA doesn't have any device category that includes Audio grade wall devices, for AC power. I do get all you confused PS Audio, Furutech, Shunyatatatatata, all selling hocus pocus, un varified BS. Claims made that are unsubstantiated by any industry specs/standards or code applications.
Of course that wire sounds better!
My bad, that's the other outfit, I do get you and them confused, since you both sell nonsense. Furutech makes magical devices too. They demagnetized PLASTIC!!! And of course it's extremely audible, according to goofball reviewers. Is the Hydra conditioner UL or ETL or anything built to industry standards of protection and safety standards? NEMA doesn't have any device category that includes Audio grade wall devices, for AC power. I do get all you confused PS Audio, Furutech, Shunyatatatatata, all selling hocus pocus, un varified BS. Claims made that are unsubstantiated by any industry specs/standards or code applications.
Of course that wire sounds better!
Pure BS. What is changing in a wire, that you measured, heard, and documented. Other than some ad copy, play with words. What amplifier needs to "settle in"? All the equipment I use from a high quality mfg, tells me his stuff is so stable, there is no burn in, etc etc. If your electronics drifts, it's DEFECTIVE. Similar to your thinking. Where are your specs, that prove a piece of wire changed, as it settled in. you are full of crap and you know it. Why doesn't my refrigerator line cord need to not settle in, or the tv or anything else, just in the realm of high end audio BS, and scam products. Prove your unsubstantiated claims, you can't. It's all BS. I don't have to prove they don't, ya can't prove a negative, you are the guys making the claims, not me.
Of course that wire sounds better!
Uneducated...that's my impression of you. Just because you don't understand something (and clearly you don't), it does not make it "snake oil."
I am in full agreement
Yup, that's me, uneducated, and can't understand the minds of clueless "audiophiles". hmmm, I wonder why I work on teh equipment I do, with being so uneducated, and can't understand electrical or electronics. but some audio phlakes sure do sound so educated, that they can HEAR teh sound of a wire, that has "settled in"..... no one has yet given any facts, WHAT is changing in teh wire, that YOU hear! And those must be some speakers, and ears, that you can hear a wire change! think about it, and re think who is uneducated! guess all my years in the line of work I do, is uneducated stuff.
Of course that wire sounds better!
Then explain what i am missing, what parameter in a wire has changed, and that you can hear it. tell me, I'm a big dope, you are educated, tell me. What changes in a wire, and why, and is it any wire, or only the audiophile ones, that you are told by hucksters, to allow time.....to hear how great they are. Are you simple?
Of course that wire sounds better!
If you have electronics especially SS, that settle in, you have some very poorly designed, using crap components in their. There is no settle in ss electronics. One would use high quality parts that are STABLE, unless of course you need to sell $500 products at $10,000 price. And call it "audiophile" stuff. What changes in YOUR wires that it needs time to settle. Nothing, you have ZERO substantiated FACTS, you have ad copy. How on this planet can anything function, like a car or washing machine if all this electronics is "settleing in". Did my washing machine settle in, it has a lot of ckt boards, wires, etc, even some heavy mechanical parts. You are a ad man, not a materials scientist. You are selling pure BS.
Of course that wire sounds better!
Right-on Grant!
Great rebuttal Grant.
I will claim without a shadow of a doubt that I have not the slightest idea WHY a cable or power cord will have an effect, but just as loudly note that to me, they do. I have a new digital cable that I planned to replace a very inexpensive Monster cable...when replaced the apparent voulme of the music dropped, a lot....I have no idea why. I pulled the new cable and used the old and the volume was back...
I am not claiming perception changes...like 'more air' of 'blacker black' or wider soundstages...just sheer volume...loudness...God knows why.
When I replaced an old set of Kimber speaker cables with an identical length of Transparent cable, on my system, the highs seemed more clear and more interesting, a CD of a female singer whose individual words were always mush lost in the instruments before became English with actual words...
All that changed was the cable..I have no idea why things change but I am sure they do. Perhaps your ears are simply not up to hearing small changes?
So your magic cable does mush to English translations? that really is a magic wire!!! Your contentions are absurd. and of course these magic wires had nice messages on the packages telling you just how great an improvement there would be. You are the winner of the absurd claims, the wire made mush to English!!! If teh wire was made in China, how did it know Eng rish?
Of course that wire sounds better!
Absurd or not, they are real in my system and to me...If you do not hear any difference between cables, save a few grand and buy cheap. Not everyone can hear everything...I did not want to say a wire made mush of English, I was trying to say that a wire change made a mushy sound clearer...I had used Kimber, Cardis and mass market speaker cables and once had a Targus cable in the system and none let me understand the actual words of this particular CD. The Transparent cable did...no idea why, simply fact. believe it or not. What you believe has zero effect in my system.
I read in another thread on this site: Don't feed the troll!...It made a lot of sense.
Within the existing experimental parameters of electronic science there are possible explanations for so called 'burn in' of wires. My first suspicion is that we should be examining the effect upon insulating dielectrics of electron flow. Could it be possible that some form of chemical change is induced at the interface of substances such as various plastics by passing currents? One thing I have noticed is that I can't here anything I might call burn in when cable dialectrics are made of cotton. Lets not dismiss any of this as occultism but put the question in the hands of scientists where it belongs.
The phenomena of those of us who do, or don't, experience 'burn in' as real ( the brain learning new hearing algorithms?) needs investigation too by psycho-acousticians. Until both branches of science come up with repeatable experimental evidence we should all stop accusing each other of being delusional and permit those with money to burn on ultra expensive toys to enjoy their ill-gotten gains.
All I know is my system sounds best late night to wee hours of pre-dawn, and no cable change I've ever heard gives me my night sounds in the daytime.
That one's easier to explain. Lower ambient noise in your neighborhood, less R.F.I. & mains born noise being generated by badly shielded digital equipment etc being used in your house/neighborhood, lower mains supply peak demand in your area and probable changes in our mood and the end of the day.
Yes, yes. I've read all this before. All well and good and I buy into some of the rationale. My post was really just getting in a playful poke at how much more profound is the difference of when you listen vs expensive cable tweaks. The ah ha! revelation is to do both - cables with good synergy with your gear and listen only late when there's less background noise and electrical interference.
The biggest 'ah ha!' reaction I've had to any interconnect was to my DIY, plaited with 'drain wire'/thin solid core/ silver/Eichman plug terminated/ numbers. (Vampire plugs on XLR's) Until then I'd been more or less a cable skeptic. I had the same reaction to my own silver/ solid core/ plaited/ speaker cables. Now I'm more of a skeptic about the silly prices charged for so called state of the art cables & interconnects. So many of them are the equivalent of pretentious, diamond encrusted outrageously overpriced watches that the rich and stupid flaunt. Still, we shouldn't complain: the huge retail mark-up on obscenely priced interconnects & cables is sometimes the only thing keeping audio bricks and mortar audio outlets in business.
There's a separate issue though that I don't think has been discussed on this thread. Some electrostatic speakers are very fussy about the cables that feed them. The electronic theory escapes me but experience tells big mistakes can be made with running Soundlab and QAUD stats with cables having the wrong specs' I can't recall what the specific requirements are - somebody here may be able to fill us in on the theory.
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Hope you all had a good Christ Mass. - - -oops ! Sorry, you're not allowed to say that in the US. Happy Holiday......erk --- what a crappy expression.
Let us get back to the original question: Do cables take time to settle as reported at Audio Shows... I believe they do. Even burned in cables (and components). If I take my interconnects or speaker cables over to a friends place and hook them up they sound good but they dont seem to sound their best for about 24-48 hours. Its the same when I return them to my system. Some people dont believe this but who cares?
No music reproduction system is yet perfect - - - If we can agree on that we might also be able to agree that a range of components offer different distortions that our ear/brain mechanism can possibly learn to 'decode' over time. I'd like to see the results of ABX tests for a range of identical amplifiers/wires etc comparing 'burnt-in' and brand new but otherwise identical components . As far as I'm aware no such tests have been conducted. None of that means I reject out of hand the possibility that burn in of some kind may be real. Dogmatic assertions made by those who oppose the idea of burn-in are peculiar as they imply all electronic components function perfectly to original specification without any audible change until they eventually fail, an absurd claim.