A Hi-Fi dealer the other day told me that in order to burn in and smoothen out a new power cord, I should get my wife to use it on the kettle to boil water (Rather sexist remark, I know). The theory is that kettles draw a lot more current than hi-fi equipment. He further advised not to do it more than 3 times.
Just a bit worried that the wife might not want to return the power cord after she discovers that her coffee tastes a lot better by using it.
I'd also suggest adding some salt, pepper, squash, potato quarters with or without shell, tomatoes squeezed or ready tomato sause, bruscelle cabage, beans, and when it's done add some optional parsley or dill, soy sause to brew nice audiophile-vegetable soup with powercord flavour.
Same could be easily done with speaker and interconnect wires.
I tried it, it works excellent. I hooked the cable up to the gas line that goes to the stove and after putting out the fire, that PC works wonders. After rebuilding the house because of fire, I put in a dedicated 20 amp line in the new listening room. So I'm not so sure if it was the boiling water technique or the fire that really improved things.
There is another method that is seldom used by by us audio maniacs. If you choose to try this please use extreme caution and don't hold me responsible for any possible bizarre consequence. So as a last resort do the following.
Take the stock power cord supplied by the equipment manufacture, plug one end into the equipment and the other end into the AC outlet. Stand way back and see what happens.
Oh ya.....the boiling water. Make tea, put in a generous amount of good bourbon and have a listen to that power cord.
I burn mine in on the fridge using a cheater cord from Ernie. The ice cubes are much better formed, the light does not flicker, and the hum of the motor is much more musical. Oh, and the white wine I'm chilling is much rounder and has more air. There is much greater separation among the flavors...
Cp.., Nice idea but not for burn-in... Actually if we freeze cables they will greatly improve conductance i.e. kind-a get close to super-conductance! So if we take ordinary wires and build freezers arround them we actually can get away cheaper than mega-priced Nirvanas or Nordost indeed!
we were discussing this issue with Bob Crump, & decided that drawing more breakin current than will be used in the atucal application probably isn't going to have much of an advantageous effect. I use one of Ernie's reverse cheater cords w\ the refrigerator as load & have found that works fine.
Boiling water with your wife's kettle wouldn't do your pc much good (or harm). You'll just have to drink lots of tea or coffee ! Bob Bundus's suggestion re: using a fridge probably works better. A side effect, the ice cream will taste better.
Seriously, I have tried all kinds of crazy accelerated burn-in process. IMO, nothing beats playing pure and natural music in your system.
Gilas, you're SPOT ON. I had several extended conversations with the owner of the company my cables were manufactured by (LAT). He stressed that the absolute best way to break in cables, no matter what type, was by plugging them in and letting time take it's course. He personally felt that the BEST signal to put through a cable was music. Considering that his cables were designed to pass music, it kinda makes sense
Boiling its ok with me just make sure there is also egg in it, and make sure the egg will stick to the cable permanently for noise reduction esp RFI noises, plus throw in anchovy and kimchi, the sound will even sound better if you have a filipino friend like me ask him for prematured egg (balut) and pancit.WAY TO GO BRO.
For all who hears differences and wishes to pass music through PC I dedicate a simple DIY invention:
-----POWER CORD BOILER OR SIMPLY PC-BOILER----------
1. Take IEC recepticle and wire it with 1.5...2' wires hot newtral and ground 26...12AWG. I suggest using stiff wires so you can have a stable shapes of a "PC-boiler" when desired.
2. Connect newtral and ground together(either crimp or solder).
3. Take two razors and place between them 3...4 toothpicks. Use knitting threads to tie-up the structure that should look like two razors with toothpicks in between.
4. Solder one razor to a hot(polarity of razors does not matter) and another razor to a newtral/ground wires(not neccessary to use audiophile solder).
5. Place your "PC-boiler" onto the glass or cup(must be ordinary without any metal stripes inside) full of water and connect "PC-boiler IEC recepticle with IEC plug of your new "unboiled" powercord. Plug your powercord with "PC-boiler" onto the AC outlet and wait untill the water in the glass boils(1...3min). DO NOT PUT YOUR FINGERS OR SUGAR OR TEASPOON OR ANYTHING INSIDE THE GLASS OF WATER WHILE "PC-BOILER" IS IN ACTION!!!
6. In result you will get boiled powercord ready to be used for audio components. Unfortunately you will have to periodically change razors of PC-boiler since they get rotten and repeat steps in paragraphs 3 through 5, but with practice you will do it no less than you will boil the glass of water or even faster; it also will improve your soldering skills if you're DIY beginner.
7. A-bit more patience and thought would give you a possibility to re-arrange "PC-boiler" to the "SW-boiler" for speaker wire and use steps described in previous paragraphs. I would not recommend to implement the same with interconnect or phono wires due to the large loads you're facing. For IC and phono wires I also have a recipie that I might or mightnot reveal feel free to find out...
I'm not a specialist of reviewing audio goods, but I'm sure that my recipie can be reviewed and subjectively tested for sound improvements by many professionals and it only takes 1...3min to hear a revolutionary improvement of ANY component where boiled powercord had been used! It's all for those who hears differences!
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