cable burn-in / system burn-in

I think the only reason is that people lack knowledge as to what burn-in is. Nobody has yet been able to describe what this phenomenon is.

If anyone knows, let's hear it!

I believe that if this phenomenon were understood, it could be used as yet another design element in high end audio gear and this would allow us to achieve even higher levels of quality.

Louis Motek

For what it's worth, I am told by my high-frequency specialist friends and colleagues that it was well known to the scientists working in high-frequency laboratories that new cables "settled in" after a while. I am unaware of any "cable cookers" used in the "serious" radio industry. It seems, though, that the cables had to be used in the very application in which they were settled in. In other words, you don't get a high frequency cable to work well if you let it settle in as a power cable for a while. Has to be the same high frequency application.

I don't know if this stuff was ever published, but it was known and talked about according to people who used to work in the field. I don't know if it was measurable, though. I'd have to ask about this -- highly INTERESTING!

My present theory is that it is but simple degaussing that is going on -- nothing else. You take magnetic domains and keep making them smaller and smaller. That's what degaussing is all about. It is done by taking a signal and making a "fade-out" out of it. Similar to what the procedure used to be with the old CRT monitors, when you pressed the DEGAUSS function.

Now, when you look at a music signal (or any sound signal, for that matter), it is all a bunch of fade-outs. That's what echo and reverberation and all the tails of all the percussive sounds are.

I have taken this theory and practiced with it over the years.

The result was that 100 short fade-outs all the way down to zero of approximately 10 seconds each sounds worse that one very large fade-out going from full power to zero in 100 x 10 seconds.

I have not yet been able to discern any other improvement in quality once the fade-out reached 7 days. In other words, I could not hear a difference between a cable processed with 7 days of non-stop single fade-out compared to another equally new cable processed (faded out on it) for 10 days non-stop.

Who has had any other tangible results and methods?

Louis Motek

Yes, especially power cables!

Today I tested the newest theory. Without a shadow of a doubt, a power cable played in a system for two months every day doesn't sound anywhere near as beautiful as the same cable faded out on over 7 days. So, settling in is different from burn in, if it exists.

It could also be that, as I said earlier, music is a bunch of small fade-outs, and so it could be that some small amount of degaussing does occur with brand new cables, whereby completely degaussed cables (7 days of one continuous fade-out procedure) positively dwarf this minute change of small fade-outs which constitute the music signal.

I think that if this is so, burning in and settling in must not be considered two names for the same concept. They are different things altogether. The burning-in happening once and for all time, and the settling in needing to happen every time you turn off your system for a few days or weeks.

DANGEROUS THOUGHT: There is a logical and perhaps scary conclusion to be drawn from this. This means that you can possibly WORSEN the sound of a cable purposely by applying a very long fade-in with abrupt ending. This is similar to playing music backwards. If this is possible, it becomes even harder to believe in cable comparisons, since the candidates might possibly be tampered with purposely by signals which knowingly alter the sound in BOTH directions. Good or cable "A" and bad for cable "B". Then a blind test in front of the unsuspecting public... all of whom will choose cable "A".

Louis Motek

Foster_9 wrote:

Louis you lost me on this fade out thing. For me bottom line is that when I have a system that is taken down turned off, cables and equipment moved, then once the system is re-assembled it takes time for the system sound to come together and play to its potential.

This is "settling in." This is not burn-in.

For me I look at settling-in in the shorter term of time, break-in depending on the equipment involved can take hundreds of hours. The accompanying change in sound is very real[...]

I agree. Settling-in is something that happens in about three days.

If you compare "settling in" to what people call "burning in," I believe it is best to understand it in terms of numbers.

On a scale of 1 to 100 in terms of sound quality attained, let's say settling in (the thing that happens in about three days) is 1.

On this scale, burning-in with a specially engineered signal to accomplish this is 100.

In other words, "burning in" is something that can revolutionize and alter the sound substantially, whereas "settling in" is just something that adds a little homogeneity to the sound.

Burning in can trick you into thinking it is a different component.

Settling in can't.

I'm currently running new exciting experiments with this phenomenon. Will publish results when they're ripe.

Highly interesting! I would say revolutionary.

Louis Motek

Sorry for any misunderstanding. I just wanted to differentiate and arrive at some definitions.

It would be nice if people could voice anything else yet unsaid about the phenomenon of cable burn-in.

Louis Motek

Rodman,

Thanks for your thoughts about capacitance. When you say that the dielectric material "charges" (so to speak) over time, it seems to me as though the cable should sound worse over time. And the more charged, the worse it should sound.

The reason I say this is because air dielectric sounds best. And air is less chargeable than the worst sounding of the dielectrics, namely PVC. Electrostatic build-up is a very bad thing for audio, which is alternating current. Hence the many products on the market to avoid this.

So I don't agree with the "charging up" theory for dielectrics as the reason for cable burn-in resulting in a more natural sound.

I presently believe that the burn-in process could be due to something we can learn from what we know about magnetic domains.

When magnetic domains are large, or else there are several of them charged magnetically in a similar direction, the result is magnetism on a larger scale. Magnetism is a flux, a movement and direction of force.

Indeed, scale is all there is to magnetism. The stronger the magnet, the more uniform the domain orientation.

It could be that an amount of a different type of magnetic domains are present in wire such as copper or silver, which do not display ferromagnetism, as iron does. Perhaps "magnetic domains" is not the proper term, since there is no memory to speak of. Hence, no lasting magnetism. The domains might be present but not lasting, as they are in magnetized iron.

I postulate that during instantaneous applications, such as that of an electromagnetic alternating current running in real-time, perhaps these types of "magnetic domains" I am imagining are indeed active and influence instantaneously the electromagnetic signal in some small way.

So, getting rid of these gets rid of the memory of the cable's metal. Even if it is copper or silver.

A speculative analogy, crossing the fields of magnetism and psychology:

Magnetic memory in iron would be like the recollection of something fixed in your own mind. You can draw this thought up at any time (= detect the magnetism at any time). It "stays put".

Memory in copper or silver would be like associative thought in your mind, brought forth by the similarity of one thought to another. Thoughts in this state of flux are intertwined and depend on the preceding thought. It must "move" to be awakened.

So, if my theory is correct, if we can get rid of the "associative" type of memory in copper or silver, we've achieved the ultimate burn-in we can possibly achieve. The signals should pass without awaking associatively operating domains in the non-ferrous metal of the wire.

The reason I think this is true is that even cables with 99,999999 (add as many nines as you please...) pure silver with air dielectric still burns in.

Louis Motek

Rodman wrote:

A dielectric will only charge to a degree, then it stops. That can be predicted, and therefore a cable or capacitor can be "voiced".

Yes, but let us differentiate whether we are here discussing cable "burn-in" or cable "settling-in"? In this thread it has already been differentiated between the two phenomena. Now, I would ask that you describe whether the voltage retention you are alluding to should result in the recurring cable "settling-in" phenomenon (occurs every time a cable is unused for a time and is reintroduced to the system), or else to the "burn-in" phenomenon, which seems to need to take place only once. It has also been said here that the "burn-in" procedure, done with a device made solely for this purpose, results in a much more profound and obvious betterment of the sound, than does simple "settling-in" in the system playing audio over time.

Or, might it be that voltage retention is altered slightly by "settling-in" and more profoundly by special "burn-in" signals, and that's all there is to it?

But the reason I feel it is important to differentiate between "burn-in" and "settling-in" is because settling-in seldom fools someone into believing that a cable or component swap has been made, whereas specially burning-in the cables makes a world of difference to the point where, really, the sound because so much more liquid, organic, smooth, etc, that it is difficult to believe it is the same cable in use.

That is the reason I believe "settling-in" is likely due to altered voltage retention, but cable "burn-in" is another beast altogether.

Don't get me wrong, I did understand your comment. I simply wanted to see how far we can go with the logic of the known science, speculate and discuss it further, if possible.

Louis Motek