Cable Break In for the Naysayers

If you really want to test it, get two pairs of the same speaker cables. Test them at the beginning, make sure they sound the same. Then break in one pair and don't break in the other. After the broke in pair are really starting to shine, plug in the ones that aren't broke in. 

I've done this with amplifiers. To my astonishment, the amp that wasn't used had also broke in somehow. So in that case, it was me that broke in. I'm not saying that's always the case, but I also can't overstate how astonished I was. 

One issue is that some claim that every time you disconnect the cables you have to start the break in process all over. Some claim that even moving the cables will ruin the break in process, so you have to start over. This claim pretty much makes it impossible to do direct comparisons. You just have to trust your long term memory, or have two identical systems in two identical rooms.

I'd say just enjoy. Whether it was your ears that broke in, or the cables, or some combination of each, what's important is that you are enjoying the sound.

"You just have to trust your long term memory, or have two identical systems in two identical rooms."

@asctim - Not unlike a situation I just had comparing two DACs, which I originally thought sounded quite a bit different from each other, until I set them both up identically, out of the same digital front end, using the same types of cables, and into the same analog system, so that I could switch back-and-forth between them on the fly (even while music was playing) by pushing one button to change the input on my preamp.  That instantaneous direct comparison consistently and reliably yielded a different conclusion from the conclusion I previously had based on my aural memory.

Unless you can directly A/B compare, over a short period of time, with all other variables consistent, listening comparisons become somewhat of a crapshoot and, the more inconsistent the variables, or the longer the time that passes between comparisons, the less reliable the conclusion is likely to be, IMO.

@knownothing 

Classical Newtonian Mechanics and Classical Electromagnetism are completely known. There will be no more new discoveries. Countless refinements, new products with wonderful properties will continue to be created. These are not discoveries, but applications.

Quantum Mechanics (QM) and General Relativity (GR) are open fields for discovery. QM is especially incomplete, as any physicist will acknowledge. QM began as a search for observations that could not be explained by classical Mechanics and EM. Maxwell and then Planck provided the first glimpses of solutions. Einstein, Heisenberg, Dirac, Schrodinger, eretc...carried on the search.

It is in QM and GR that new discoveries in Physics will be made. This includes the super small and super big; subatomic particles, suns, black holes, on and on.

Its hard to believe that I'll have an original contribution to such a long-raging controversy, but here goes. A factor that the 'burn-in makes a difference' (bimad) supporters seem to overlook is that the same music from the same source presented by exactly the same equipment can be different each time you hear it. Let me offer 2 hypotheses to explain the difference that is heard: 

1. This delta is due to subtle realignment of impurity atoms (or similar physical change) in a wire somewhere in your hifi system.  

2. The listeners state of mind was different during the 2 listening experiences. This difference could be the result of expectation, attention level, increase or decrease in enthusiasm, etc. that subtly alters perception of very subjective sound details.

I favor the second explanation. A simple test you can try is to play the same piece of music 3 times in a row, and compare what is heard each time. I can almost guarantee that the 3rd cycle will not 'sound' identical to the first.