Do speaker cables need a burn in period?

What is the meaning of this thread again?

Already it's a lot more interesting than talking about cable burn in.

I believe Blue Jeans cables use Belden.  I bought a set of QED for not a lot more money than Blue Jeans cable but easily better considerably.

You will really make me go and buy new speaker cables. You are doing a good job at that.

sooner rather than later.  

There seems to be a trend or commonality in this thread.  The non believers are acting like lawyers, the rationals follow logic and science.

I was speaking figuratively.  When I use the word "lawyer", I don't mean it literally but using the term "lawyer" as a metaphor of a certain mentality.

There are too many people with no electrical engineering background saying things that just makes your head spin.

It's complicated so don't simply things.  

Do this simple experiment.  If you don't understand the reason behind this experiment then maybe you should listen more than post. 
The low pass component in your speakers cross over is usually an inductor.  For example a typical inductor for a two way is about 1.2mH which has many meter of cable in length ... may be even 10 meters long or more.  This inductor is in series with your speaker woofer.  Of course the amp is connected to your speakers through a cable and this cable is then connected to the inductor of the speakers.  So the current travels from the amp to the speaker cable to the inductor and eventually to the speaker woofer.
Now if you use a 10 meter long speaker cables from your amp to drive your speaker you probably won't like the sound very much.  So why would 8ft of speaker cable make any different because the inductor already chews up 10 meter long or more?

How electrical current travel is complicated.  The length itself is just one variable.  It's not the only thing.  This is why power cable makes a difference.

A lot of people use water as an analogy and come up with all sort of wrong conclusion.  The difference between water and electric current is that before you turn on the faucet in your house, your house has no water.  On the other hands, electrons are everywhere even before you turn on the switch.  The electrons are already in your equipment.  This is just a simple example.  It's a lot more complicated than this.

I've learned that nothing and absolutely nothing is free.  The costliest thing is beauty and worth every penny,

geoffkait,
Actually I think knowledge is cheap since it's around us.  Beauty costs a lot more.

geoffkait could use a bit of restraints in his posting and his reasoning.  Saying I believe this or I don't believe this without exploring and thinking it through is just as bad.
Einstein was known for this thought experiments.  Nobody back there was asking for data :-).

Another case for the "directionality" people, is that even if both ends
are not being bias differently and the current is truely AC, on the driving
terminal in this case is the amp, the voltage is always slightly higher
than the other end since there is always some resistive losses in the cable.
Think of the cable as a simple voltage divider driving the speakers as a load. You have input voltage and output voltage. Obviously for a voltage divider, the output voltage is always smaller than the input voltage. So at least in this case, you have "directionality" because the one terminal is subjected to one voltage and another terminal is subjected to another voltage.

What I said above is just theoretical. In practical situation, I have to
admit it would be different to hear the difference unless I guess have
have a really exceptional system with top notch transparency.

I can see the argument for "directionality" if the condition is not symmetric.
Let's say if one end of the cable is subjected to one condition, and the other
end is subjected to different condition, then it's possible that the cable
could be conditioned differently if you reverse the direction. For example,
if one end is constantly biased to one voltage, and another end is biased
to another voltage, then there is a possibility that the argument for "direction" has some merrits. No if the current is DC then of course you have directionality, no question about it. But music signal is AC so that is the tricky part to argue if you are the proponent of "directionality".
But if the current is truely AC, then the current is always symmetric.
But is the currrent always AC? Could there be a small DC offset current?

For example, you have an amp driving a speaker, one terminal of the cable is being biased by the amp output transistors and the other terminal of the cable is connected to the speakers. If the output transistors are DC coupled, then you have a servo on the amp output to adjust for the DC offset, but this servo circuit does have a small (maybe even very small)DC offset so there will be  a small net DC current flowing from the amp to the speaker. So in this case,  it's not symmetric and the "directionality" argument might make sense.

In the case of interconnect, you have a preamp driving the amp input. In
this case, DC offset is not as important because you don't have anything
driving the speakers. I am not a preamp or amp designer so I don't know
how the detail of the preamp output design or the amp input design, but
there is a strong possibility that the interconnect terminals on both ends
are not being subjected to the same condition, so therefore there is an
argument for "directionality" even if the current is always AC (for example
the preamp output is capacitively "coupled" to the cable but the amp
input is biased to some voltage). So in this case, you have a symmetric
AC current, but non-symmetric bias condition on the terminals of the interconnect.

For the proponents of "directionality", the difficult part is that you have to
make a case how a symmetric AC current has anything to do with "directionality".

For the opponent of "directionality", you have to explain how different
bias condition on the terminals of the cable does not affect the cable
if you reverse the cable direction.

I am not a proponent or opponent of "directionality" but I present some
possibilities for the "directionality" argument.

Believing in data regardless is in someway a dogma.  All dogma's are bad.

I got two hands for posting. 

We have gone from burn-in to directionality.  I think the next pseudoscience ... err ... I mean cable topic to get a bunch of people worked up is does it make any difference if you let your speaker cables lying on the ground vs. having it lift off the ground?
The reason behind this is that speaker cables are basically a transmission line.  And all transmission lines are affected by the surrounding dielectric materials.  By running the cables on the ground or your living room carpet, the ground in this case act as a dielectric material but in a non-symmetric way because the bottom half of your cables are in contact to the ground, while the upper half while the upper half is in contact with the air. So
the signal may get distorted.

By lifting the cable off the ground, the dielectric is now symmetric
as intended so the signal will not be distorted.

I can't promise this won't get people worked up.

I am just presenting the cases.  As I mention, I am not either a proponent or opponent of "directionality".  People believe however they believe.  But I feel responsible for at least exploring the topic.

some people have a talent for wasting words.

I think data is only part of the equation. If anything, data
probably comes last. If you want to build anything, first you
need a vision, some intuition, and some sound underlying reasons.
Then you build a prototype. Then you measure and collect data.
If it were data, Einstein would not have come up with his general
relativity. In fact, people were not able to prove his theory
back then because nobody was able to measure time and space.

To demand data or all else is like abdicating your mind. The
world is too complicated for data sometimes. You have to rely
on your tuitions a lot of time.

As going to the moon, I think data probably comes way after
a bunch of people getting together brainstorming throught the night.
Can you imagine one guy stood up and said "I ain't going in that rocket
cause there is no data telling me it won't blow up."
I am sure another guy would say, "But George, we ain't got a
rocket yet so somebody has to go first".

Some people here can travel backward in time.  He claims he can measure and obtain data of an equipment before it was built.  Now I need proof and data how he can travel back in time.

mitch21,The wind direction and temperature are different.  The wind direction has nothing to do with temperature.  Science doesn't really care about how you got by cold wind in Michigan where ever you are.

After a near death experience, I've thought about "directionality" and I think I may have to agree with geoffkait.  Yes, the cable is directional.  For example if you send a pulse from the source to the load, the pulse
travels from the sender to the load, not the other way around, which means it's asymmetric.  The AC current may be symmetric (that is it travel forward and backward just the same) but the current in this case is just one variable.  There are other variables that confirm there exists directionality. 
geoffkait will get the credit for coming up with the concept but I don't think he did a good job of explaining.  

As for those who insist on data, it's like asking to show the data for 2+2=4.  You need some background in electrical engineering.  Human concepts cannot be described in data.

Just want to add one more variable to "directionality".  It's the propagation of energy.  The energy always goes from the source to the load, or in this case from the amp to the speakers, not the other way around.  Just like the energy goes from the electrical power station into your home, not your home to the electrical power station.

Did they manage to perform Mr. Young experiment on lab
rats ... errr ... I mean lab engineers? I wonder which
door they engineers would have chosen? If the door
painted with Ms. Kate Upton, I'd probably run through
that door every time.
What happened to the rat at the end? Probably got
run over they some lab equipment.

I need data on atom.  No data no atom.

I won't believe in atom until I can squeeze them in my hands.

How do we define the flow of energy? Well energy
is the product of V*I (voltage * current). So you
see that current is only one variable. Votlage is
the other variable. Now if you say energy flows from
point A to point B then, the voltage at A is always
higher than B, no exception.

When the amp drives the speaker, since the energy flows
from the amp end to the speakers, the voltage at the amp
output is always higher than at the speakers inputs.
Therefore the electrons at the amp end of the cable always
subjected to a higher potential vs. at the speakers end
of the cable.

Diretinality is define as having a non-symmetric condition.
You have two variables here : current and voltage.
Current is symmetric but voltage is not symmetric.
Because of the non-symmetric nature of voltage, you have
directionality.

This is a fairly basic concept. It's first semester of
electrical engineering class. If you don't understand
that then you shouldn't let your incompetency waste other
people time. Nobody is going to bother collecting "data"
on something this basic. They probably got better things
to do.

At least geoffkait won't send someone attacking me on the highway.

I would agree with you.  Like I said, what I said is just theoretical.  Whether you can here the difference is well ... it depends on your system.

Yeah, it's semantic.  I probably should have used the word "power".

mitch2 brought up a good point.  I always thought for the last 20 years that my system was good enough until I added in a new component.  My system now is much better than it was 10years ago, but I still got a long way to go.  When does progress stops?  For example, if someone has a $100K system, can it be better?  How many $100K speakers are there to purchase?  Or $100K amp?  

I still think there are a lot of things that can be done at the recording end such as better audio format, better mixing.  How about coming up with  stereo recordings with surround sound format?  

I knew better not trying to respond to geoffkait directly because you never know when he will turn on you :-)

It's the latter.  It's only directional once you apply voltage and current.  

Now if you have a lot of time and you decide to swap ends on the cable every, say 5 minutes, while listening to music then it's no longer directional.

Geoffkait, are you drunk right now?

Temperature and resistance are scalar, so I don't know what you guys are talking about.

First of all, resistance is a scalar quantity, not a vector, therefore it has no intrinsic direction.  Just like temperature is a scalar value.  It's does not make sense to say this direction temperature is higher vs. the other direction.
Resistance is calculated from electron mobility - that is how mobile the electrons given a certain material such as silver, copper ...  Now since it's hard to measure mobility of a single electron, usually mobility is measured by average using a bunch of electrons regardless of direction, at least in concept.  So the mobility of electrons should be the same left to right, up to down to sideway.  Therefore resistance should be the same left to right, up to down to side way and so on.
But what if you want to know the mobility of a single electron?  Supposedly on the left side of the electron, there is some impurity such as an oxygen molecule or some gap in the lattice structure, now if you want this electron to move to the left, it would have less mobility vs. if you want this electron to move to the right.  In practicality, these impurities in the metal lattice are more or less randomly distributed so on average they cancel out therefore regardless of direction, the mobility of the average should be the same in all direction.

Anyway, I have to get back to work.  Will continue later.

mitch2,yes, unfortunately, when your life is on the line.

you mean bend over.

Geoffkait,If I were to ask you to make a directional wire for me how would you do it?  For example, I want a wire that measure higher resistance from A - B, and lower from B - A, what manufacturing technique would you use?  (Alien technology is not allowed).

mitch21, I think you're mistaken temperature for wind chill factor.

BenD over

geoffkait,your posts don't offense me.  your spool of wire does though.

Anyone has a link to geoffkait website?

Machina Dynamica sounds like a website for bondage.

geoffkait only ties up his subjects with wire in one direction - clockwise.

i see the reason for a car’s brakes - to heat treat the rotors evenly and burnish an set the pads, but I have never seen any explanation for speaker cables. 

I think one of the reason is with real world objects such as car brakes, you can see it with your own eyes.  With electrons and molecular structure, it's hard for people to see or understand how things work at that scale therefore one has to have some back ground in electrical engineering.  
Imagine a molecule and a billiard ball.  The difference is the billiard ball is composed of many molecule, but the molecule moves and disturbed in just about the same way as a billiard ball.  But most people probably can't visualize a molecule because visually you cannot see a molecule therefore it seems somewhat mysterious.   The billiard ball and molecule are both governed by the same principle: F = ma. 
Once you could see how molecule, electrons and their behaviors are not that different from a billiard ball, then maybe you could understand the effect of break-in.

I think in order to make a valid discussion, ones have to agree on some basic level which is our ears can identify differences in what we here.  If you say that all differences are psychological then there is no point to further the discussion.

Next, the argument that break-in is mostly psychological only works for the average buyer since he can only purchase a set of cable so he has to rely on his memory to tell the difference.  This argument does not work for manufacturers since they have a lot of identical cables some old some brand new so they can listen to them side by side, therefore there is no need to rely on memory.  So if they hear the difference then it's not psychological.  

Now if you say the manufacturers are flat out wrong or they just lie then I guess it's something all together difference.  I can't find any reason why they have to lie.  Break-in or not I don't see how that will benefit them.

Cable manufacturers are just as human and prone to bias as anyone else. Bias influences, or just mistakes in perception, can happen whether you are switching quickly between A and B, or slowly over time.

In order for this to be true, every single manufacturers is wrong.  All the professional reviewers are either wrong or liars. 

So we have two possibilities:
1.  All manufacturers are wrong.  All professional reviewers are either wrong or liars.

2. You are correct and everybody else is wrong.

prof,

I guess you're saying our hearing is not a valid way of measuring.  If you cannot trust your hearing, then what else can you trust?  Once in awhile a person hearing can be fooled, but what you're saying is everybody hearing on earth has been fooled.

Again in order for you to be right, everyone else must be wrong.  Every single manufacturers have been hearing the wrong thing.  Every single professional reviewers must be wrong.  

I am not sure you have a way out in your argument.  

To say you're right and everyone else is wrong is in itself an invalid argument.

prof, (or should I call you professor Hume :-)

First I appreciate that you're being very polite in your response considering some of the other posters around here.

I think I have to make an assumption that in order for the human race to work, one has to at least establish that most people are honest and tell the truth.  Yes there are people who are dishonest but I don't think human has evolved this far if most people are dishonest and all we do is just lying to other people.

Second, we have to assume that our ears are reliable after all they are transducers just like any other sensors.

Now let's say somebody gave me some data that prove cable burn in does exist, I could very say "I don't trust your equipment.  It's possible that the equipment is not accurate."  The person would say it's not possible because the equipment has been calibrated.  I then would say how do I know the calibration was accurate because the equipment you used to calibrate is not correct.  That person then told me it's not possible because that piece of equipment that he used to calibrate was already calibrated by another even more accurate equipment.  I then would say I don't trust that either.  It's possible that equipment is not even accurate.  I want you to prove to me beyond any doubt that the data is absolutely accurate.

There you see, I am using your argument against you, professor Hume.

I think it’s settled. Profs explanations and points are very rational and make a ton of sense while GK and the rest are completely the opposite.

It's not that easy.