I am really curious. What kind of measurements do you carry in your cables to check for burn-in? Please do not tell us you believe in your hears!
How are you confident that the product has had time to settle?
What Do You Do To Break In Your Cables?
- Thread starter jap
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I am really curious. What kind of measurements do you carry in your cables to check for burn-in? Please do not tell us you believe in your hears!
How are you confident that the product has had time to settle?
I have and have had many different systems over the years, so some of the MIT products I don't use because i don't need them. I've had both analog systems, digital systems (Meridian Home Theater) which removes the need for speaker cables and I only use digital cables and some interconnects between source components, but that system removed my need for speaker cables. I also have a small system with active speakers so I don't need speaker cables. But when I did, i used MIT 750+'s I think, it's been over 15 years, so my memory has faded a little. But I don't go hog wild with cables. I have found over the years, that the room acoustics is FAR more important than cables, etc. It gets to the point of diminishing returns. I have found that room treatment can yield a much better improvement in system performance than spending the same amount of money on cables and equipment.
I am spending most of my time in my office, which is basically a bedroom and I have MIT USB cable from Computer to DAC and then Transparent interconnects to some small powered speakers. It does just fine for now, but I plan on getting a different system sometime later this year, but in the end it really doesn't matter on what cables you have. Room acoustics is FAR more important and I just refuse to spend money on a box that might damage my system.
The reason why I didn't ask Transparent on the cable boxes is for two reasons. 1. MIT says NO!!!!!!. 2. Both companies are similar in that they both use passive components in parallel filters. 3. I don't have the cable burn in box, i just simply asked about burn in and all they told me was just plug the cables in and don't worry about it. They never mentioned to use them on their website nor did they offer to tell me to run out and buy them. So that's my line of reasoning. I just find it kind of silly to spend $800 on a box where one company tells you NO. Even if they did work, they are only going to speed up the process and cost $800 to do that. I have also read on other articles over the years from engineers discussing cable burn in boxes and they suggested not to use them because they may not "burn in" the capacitors. Capacitors are very much like rechargeable batteries in they store and release energy and get "Programmed" if you will. At least this is how one engineer explained it. And they suggested that a cable burn in box may not be "Programming" the capacitor in the same way just playing music will. This was just one engineer's thoughts on the subject that I read. This was something I read many years ago. The concept of cable burn in boxes has been around for well over a decade and my local dealer told me. NO. Don't bother, you just plug the cable in and give it a couple of weeks and don't waste your money. The owner of the store locally to me is owned by a Electronics Engineer from Stanford. So, will all my research, I have been given more valid reasons by people i respect that say NO, that have given me valid reasons by respected people to use them.
Is that good enough for you?
Word to the wise, get many opinions and get their reasoning behind it, and then get a second opinion from others that have engineering backgrounds, especially from those that have used, tested, made the products you are using, etc. I don't just buy tweaks without investigating them. To me, a burn in box is a tweak product and I have read and been told by countless people I respect that they either might damage your product or not really work that well.
My question is this. Will Myles or the person that is recommending the product going to replace your equipment should it damage it? If they will, then go ahead, but if they aren't, then don't do it. In the case of MIT, they say on their website NO. EMPHATICALLY. That's all i need since they are the people that made their cables and the are the ones that warrant the product.
I am really curious. What kind of measurements do you carry in your cables to check for burn-in? Please do not tell us you believe in your hears!
How are you confident that the product has had time to settle?
It's just what the mfg recommends. It's just I've been told over the years by various engineers, that a good two week burn in will basically do a good job. That's all.
I used to work for an electronics mfg that made test measurement equipment for military and industrial purposes and I worked in assembly, test, break fix and worked with engineers. This was back in the early 80's when I was going to college at night taking electronics classes. We had burn in racks where we elevated the temperature to the maximum level for our equipment and ran the products 24/7 for about a week at elevated temperatures and then we could test the products afterwards to see if there is any component failure. In that time period, we would find a lot of LEDs that would burn segments out, so it was to minimize failure out in the field. But this was for test measurement equipment, so that's part of where I draw my experiences from. Now, some mfg will burn in their product before they ship it, but it's not as common these days. I wish more of them would since it would minimize failure in the field.
Engineers would usually tell that burn-in in cables is a fantasy, you were very lucky to find various who even agreed on the burn-in time. And you are mixing industrial burn-in, and well know process to screen for defective parts and infant mortality, and in some cases to increase endurance of components, with audiophile cable burn-in, that only has the name in common with the burn-in you described.
Anyway, we still do not have your subjective or objective opinion on cable burn-in. Just to that since the manufacturers and various engineers say so you accept it without measuring.
Please don't tell us you're not trolling... My ears are my measuring device - the only one that counts! - and I've found them to be pretty darn good over the decades (granted, others have better - and worse). More specifically, I listen to the new component after an hour playing something like the Isotek enhancer and rejuvenation tracks, which gives me a sense of where a component is to start with. Then I let the burnin process unfold and check in every so often, while keeping tab of hours on a sheet. There comes a point where the changes across a few listens become minimal, if detectable at all, or a point when the music starts sounding relaxed across a variety of recordings, as one might expect from a component in question (I probably wouldn't be listening to it otherwise). It's probably not be fully burned in at that point - it normally takes hundreds of hours or more - but it is usually far enough along to be quite listenable and thus ready for evaluation (I've found many developers give burnin time estimates that are vastly shorter than what's actually needed). Maybe I've been lucky, but I can't recall the process ever having to go beyond about 300-350 hours, although I do sometimes buy used gear, so it can be fairly short. Thinking about it, this process is not all that much different than burning in a new car engine over the course of a few to several thousand miles; i.e. do you trust the odometer and your ears, or do you insist upon electronic measurements?I am really curious. What kind of measurements do you carry in your cables to check for burn-in? Please do not tell us you believe in your hears!
How are you confident that the product has had time to settle?
I would suggest talking to Bruce Brisson on the subject. What he does is he tests cables, even some cables that are quite old and i think he's doing it to see the long term effects on cables and if they degrade over time.
In all of my travels, MIT has done more in the area of testing cables than anyone I know of, they've done more tests and with more precise equipment. At least that's what their technical papers say and any discussions I've heard or read with the subject of testing audio cables.
Either way, do what you want to do, but i would not suggest someone "burning in a cable" with a box. I just don't buy into it. I've been told by too many people NOT to do it and that comes from a mfg of cables, to audio store owners with engineering degrees, etc. etc. I'm sure Bruce Brisson has probably tested cables during a burn in period to see how the measurements have slightly altered over short and long periods of time, he seems pretty good about that, so I trust his judgement. I think that's where he's coming from. Bruce, from my experience, is pretty anal about that. He doesn't design his products without testing them objectively first. At least he discusses the merits of objective measurement tests and then validation through listening tests and getting a variety of other people to assist in that effort. Thank God.
It's true, there are lots of engineers who don't believe in burnin on theoretical grounds, just as there are lots that believe their blueprints are the way it is and must be, and that those non-engineers in the field saying the blueprint doesn't have much to do with reality don't know what they're talking about. Typically, that lasts until the engineer buys serious audio equipment or gets out of the office. Simple truth: everything everywhere on earth, and presumably in the cosmos, animate and inanimate, adjusts to its surroundings - or ceases to exist or function "properly." Terminology for this process varies by object, field and culture.
What I found is that burning in will do two things. It will ring out the defective components, and there is a certain amount of settling. Some companies design and test their products before and after periodic intervals to see if there are any changes. Once the product settles and the measurements are consistent, then they feel the product has been "burned in". I have experience with test equipment where we calibrated the product, burned in at elevated temperatures, and then retested the product for both product failure and calibration, if it feel out of calibration, then we had to recalibrate it. The engineers felt that about a week at elevated temperatures would be enough to throw anything out of calibration or have component failure at a REASONABLE level. If we had a high failure rate after that, then there are other issues that have to be addressed, but that seemed to solve most of the equipment reliability and performance aspects of the equipment we were making. I don't know how many high end audio mfg are doing this. I would think the more expensive products have gone through a series of stress testing/burning in the product. At least I would hope so. I can understand why they might not do it for cables since it's a very expensive proposition, but for amps, pre amps, etc. I would hope that they do. For speakers, most speaker companies do some amount, some don't, but they usually tell people that speakers tend to need some break in period due to the materials they use.
I guess it boils down to what makes sense. I think it's just common sense to just plug the product in, leave it running for a couple of weeks and over time, that should get things settled and don't obsess over something that might damage the product. I don't think these cable burn in mfg have tested every single cable and measured them afterwards to validate their product, so for that. I just don't need to bother myself with something that has been recommended by mfg and other engineers to not bother with it. I can spend $800 on something else that I know will yield better sound.
Who are all these so called manufacturers and experts? How many times do you need to be asked?
Why don't you ask Bruce? Why don't you do your own work-just like withthe SR Rx products-rather than challenging someone else? You know, an opinion only counts when you've listened. Otherwise you know what they say about opinions.
And as far as MIT having issues, didn't Christian just send his back for repair and he didn't use any burn-in device. So maybe there's something else amiss with the cables?
Have you taken a reading comprehension test lately? If not, it's long overdue. I'd also suggest a course on understanding the difference between hypothesis and reality. So on one hand you demand proof and measurements but on the other hand some engineer tells you something about something he knows zip about and you accept it as fact. Can't have it both ways Bro. What did I say about TA?
And you talked to who? Here's a short list of all the companies who approved burning in or burn-in beforehand:
AudioQuest
TA
Kubala-Sosna
Nordost
Audience
VPI/Discovery
Dueland
Mundorf
Kaplan
HiFidelity
Cello
Graditech
Skogrand
Silver Circle
Furutech
ESP
So once again who are all these companies you are referring to? Inquiring minds want to know. Oh, and I reviewed the original Duotech so don't go lecturing me. And as long as you're being technical, the Duotech was released at least 20 years ago and bears no resemblance at all to today's units.
Duh, and where are all those people who have damaged their cables? You can bet your ass you'd see posts all over the net including but not limited to here, audioasylum, Audiogon. Yet NOT one. Nada. Zero. Not one report of Rx hurting the sound of their cables. Not one reviewer. So where are those damaged cables?
Yet plenty of reports of improved sonics. Two dozen cables, capacitors and tone arms burned in. So where are all those damaged cables?
Oh and you might do a search on here what Caelin Gabriel of Shunyata said about cable burn-in. BTW look up Caelin's credentials while you're at it. So it's perfectly ok if want to bury your head in the sand. And in fact, CC do more than just shorten the burn in time but you know it all.
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SR doesn't show any test measurements of anything. I looked at MIT's products years ago and read their technical white papers and talked to people at MIT a while back, their tests seems plausible to do to prove that there is something about their products/technology that validates it. So after reviewing their objectivity testing, I then listened to various cables ranging from middle range and reference level at the time to see if I could then hear the differences. Yes, after carefully reading about their testing to actually prove their technology, I then listened. I could hear subtle differences between different levels of cables, but I couldn't justify the cost difference past a certain level. To me, the product I bought sounded great, it works and it was reasonable for me to buy it. Would I spend more on their top end products? Well, if I had unlimited funds, equally expensive equipment and a perfected listening environment I might, but I can't in my mind justify spending past a certain level to get a small amount of improvement. I see the laws of demising returns come into play and I reach a limit and that's when I have to draw the line of saying to myself, is it really worth that extra small improvement?
As far as Synergistic? I just don't see enough evidence of them proving their technology. I've read some reviews by individuals that have their products and some couldn't hear any difference, i also read one site where they had different measurements on their power cables and there was NO difference using their products vs that standard power cord on a piece of equipment. NONE. NOT ONE SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE that their power cable improved the performance of a product it was connected to over the standard power cable. The person in question took a LOT of tests and showed them side by side. I thought there might be a couple of other tests he might want to investigate because he might have missed a couple, but I'm waiting for his test results. But he measured a LOT of aspects a product with these super high end power cables and there wasn't a single test that was different. NO difference at all. I also suggested that the person do performance measurements of power cables in a variety of other products instead of just one product, looking at every conceivable test he could dream up, so I'm waiting for more test results, but what he had done already proved there wasn't a difference. But so far, no concrete evidence from measurement tests to prove their technology. But I'm waiting for this person to perform a lot more tests, which I hope he does.
I've heard their products a couple of times, but I thought it was a very bright system. I don't normally like bright systems as it gives me ear fatigue. To me, it doesn't sound natural. I'm VERY sensitive to that, have been for a long time. So I want detail without being too bright, so there are certain speakers/systems that I just can't listen to for long periods of time. That's just my ears.
Of course a cable might have a termination problem, that happens since cables get tossed around and ends get stressed and it might damage a termination. But they fix it. So I'm not worried about one single isolated issue. That can happen on ANY cable. I've seen far less durable cables than theirs.
And learn to look at things more objectively than just subjectively. I have no allegiance to a mfg unless they prove their technology with objective measurements and I can then validate it by listening to the product. If they can show proof from measurements on something I know little about, that goes a LONG way with me. I've bought what others have told me to buy before and learned that it wasn't that great, even though the industry was praising it. I take all subjective reviews with a grain of salt. I've learned over the years to really challenge these mfg to show valid proof of a technology that's new and different. It's a credibility issue. But if you want to sucker people into using things that might damage their equipment, or give them a false impression that it's improving their system, that's your issue. I won't do that. It's just not in my nature.
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None of those companies use passive components in a filter arrangement like MIT that I'm aware of. Burning a product with a cable burn in box, or just plugging it into the system and letting it do its thing for a couple of weeks. Yeah, burning in, but by what means? I haven't seen anyone suggest to use a burn in box on their website that I can recall. But burning in by using it in a system for a period of time? Sure, I can believe that.
Steve williams
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Rich
I am cautioning you against personal attacks on members. Challenge the post not the poster
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I am cautioning you against personal attacks on members. Challenge the post not the poster
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Thanks, Steve. Some self-editing for length would also help.
Cable cooker or not, I've never had a new cable that didn't still need at least another 200 hours here just running with the equipment. I think Morrow's burnin guide indicates the same thing. A more practical question for most of us is whether or not using something like Isotek's tone-based tracks are always a good idea. I usually mix it in, but do recall one interconnect pair, brand name forgotten, that sounded worse afterward. When I was searching for user comments about the Isotek disc, I recall occasionally coming across similar reports on other forums.
Cable cooker or not, I've never had a new cable that didn't still need at least another 200 hours here just running with the equipment. I think Morrow's burnin guide indicates the same thing. A more practical question for most of us is whether or not using something like Isotek's tone-based tracks are always a good idea. I usually mix it in, but do recall one interconnect pair, brand name forgotten, that sounded worse afterward. When I was searching for user comments about the Isotek disc, I recall occasionally coming across similar reports on other forums.
Here's Transparent's answer. "You don't need to spend time getting used to Transparent Cables because your system will instantly have more of the foundation and rich tonal balance of live music. After a day or 2, your cables will "relax" in their new setting and start to sound their best. You'll start to forget you're only listening to a hifi system as dynamics bloom more naturally with all the subtlety of live music and your system achieves a whole new level of musical ease and resolution." Transparent Cable Link http://www.transparentcable.com/support/FAQ.php?modCAT=3&#audio click on the section regarding cable burn in.
I would highly suggest that if you list a company that recommends any form of cable "cooker" or "burn-in" box, that you site the precise link to where they approve or suggest it. I checked Audioquest's site and they list nothing regarding cable burn-in.
Nordost has their own proprietary burn in box that dealers have and they have a recommended "burn-in" procedure and have to be re-burned in yearly or if the cable hasn't been used for over an extended period of time. But they have their own VIDAR box. Here's their link to this discussion. http://www.nordost.com/faqs.php
kubala-sosna recommends just plugging them in and not requiring more than 2 to 3 days. Here's their link:http://www.kubala-sosna.com/resources/breakin.htm
Some of the other mfg you listed don't have anything on their website, but I haven't checked every single mfg you listed because i don't have enough time to check, but so far you aren't batting a very high batting average on those that I did check. If you are getting people from the company to suggest a specific cable burn-in box, get it in writing and some form of validation that their products will still be covered under warranty. The old saying "Buyer Beware" applies to anything that is done with a product that isn't specifically mentioned in their warranty verbiage.
I personally would go through the various mfg of products you have, make sure you get some form of verification that the company not only recommends a specific burn-in methodology and if they suggest a "burn-in" box, make sure you have that in writing so that you have some form of recourse to ensure that they will cover the product under warranty should the product get damaged in any way. That's the best advice to anyone.
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