Cable burn in

[NSNO2021]

I am 100% sure I can tell differences in the tonal qualities of cables, so much so that I have taken to experimenting and making my own (at great expense). I believe I can tell the difference between, brass and tellerium copper RCA connectors, ditto soldered and crimped connections but not UP-OCC/OCC/Non OCC copper wire. What seems to make a difference with the wire is its gauge, whether its a single solid core or multistrand and to my ears if its shielded, I definately prefer good shielding as I have a lot of "stuff" in close proximity (wi,fi, tele, wi fi alarm console and all my music kit). My next experiment is with my LS6 cables, I am going to see if shielding them provides any change to the sound of these. As for burn in, my arse is firmly on the fence. Onward and upwards eh

[Geoff.R.G]

I am intrigued by people who say they can hear the difference between cables, mainly because I can't but also because I have never considered paying the price for the super cables people say are brilliant. I have used a lot of Van Damm cable with Neutric connectors and I honestly can't say I can tell the difference from Maplin cable with Neutric connectors. In each case I made up the cable and the connectors came from the same batch.

I would really love to know what happens to a cable over a period with picro amps flowing through it, think a moving coil cartridge into 47KΩ. I say this because cable burn-in devices use more than that, so what do they actually do?

[CN211276]

I have always been able to detect differences between cables, the most significant when upgrading from LS6 to TSCS. Have not given USB cables much thought but have decidehd to take a punt on Audioquest Carbon. If not impressed Amazon have a good returns policy. I will report.

[TheMadMick]

No denying that people believe they hear cables burn in. But given that no science supports this, we really should look to equipment warm up and acclimatisaion as more likely causes.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy Horatio (or something like that).

I had a chemistry lecturer who put it like this. If the theory doesn't explain what's going on at the bench - guess which is wrong?

The other thing is that cables seem to be system specific. What works in one will not necessarily work in another. That's why a home trial is essential and the higher up the ladder you go, the more critical it becomes. Think of an F1 car looking for the optimum performance. Tiny changes in the aero and the tyre pressures can make huge differences in performance. It's like that as HiFi gets more esoteric (and expensive). In my case, it's the mains that is the Achilles heel here. BMU helped a lot but I still get "bad mains days". But I've still invested in some serious cables.

[CN211276]

Agree about cables being system specific.

[keepitsimplestupid]

Cables are system specific because not all kit has infinite psrr and noise rejection, and input and output impedance vary as does load in variance.


Use stuff that's load invariant and has 100db of psrr and noise rejection and cable sound disappears, ime.


@madmick, I'd look at experimental first.

[CN211276]

I have always been able to detect differences between cables, the most significant when upgrading from LS6 to TSCS. Have not given USB cables much thought but have decidehd to take a punt on Audioquest Carbon. If not impressed Amazon have a good returns policy. I will report.

The AQ Carbon arrived yesterday. Connected it to the streamer and Mscaler and straight from the off there was a distinct improvement over the Wireworld USB cable, which was not cheap, I had been using. The improvement can best be described as a greater sense of space and ease. USB cables do not sound the same and make a difference. The AQ is a keeper and the wireworld is destined for Ebay.

[NSNO2021]

That's good to hear

[slinger]

I have always been able to detect differences between cables, the most significant when upgrading from LS6 to TSCS. Have not given USB cables much thought but have decidehd to take a punt on Audioquest Carbon. If not impressed Amazon have a good returns policy. I will report.

The AQ Carbon arrived yesterday. Connected it to the streamer and Mscaler and straight from the off there was a distinct improvement over the Wireworld USB cable, which was not cheap, I had been using. The improvement can best be described as a greater sense of space and ease. USB cables do not sound the same and make a difference. The AQ is a keeper and the wireworld is destined for Ebay.

I've developed a bit of an AudioQuest habit. I've completely refitted my AV setup using AQ, and I've got an AQ Carbon USB cable in my digital setup too. I'm also using AQ Red River interconnects between DAC and amp.

I can't afford hugely expensive cables, and I'm not sure I'd buy them even if I could. AQ seems to be the best bang-per-buck solution I've found, so far, especially as they turn up quite often on eBay.

[CN211276]

I am quite a fan of Audio Quest. Have a Dragonfly Red attached to my phone, a Dragonfly Black, Jitterbug and now the Carbon USB cable.