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A well repected cable manufacture's instructions suggested their cables need several hours of burn-in to reveal their true sonic qulaities and cables wont reach full potential, and thus avoid critical listening, for 200 hours. Not wanting to put these in my primary system (between pre and amps) and leaving tube equipement running during the day when I am not home or alternatively, it taking a amonth to a month and a half to reach 200 hours, I was thinking about hooking them up between a SS pre and power amp with a dummy load (8 ohm resistor across the speaker terminals, then leaving them on with either a complex classical CD on repeat, or a de-tuned FM station. Comments please!
Follow Ups:
You'll get benefits from doing such, but not nearly as good as if you would use a good cable burner. Sean
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Any experience, Sean, with either the $249 cable cooker tht Audio Advisor has started selling, or the two units from Hagerman Technology? TIA
The unit that AA is selling is a Hagerman Technologies product. I am not directly familiar with any of these units, so all i can do is go by my past experience with cable burning and their description of how the units work. Based on that info, here are my personal thoughts about the subject.According to the spec's i've seen, the Frybaby does not seem to put out enough voltage to work as an effective means of cable conditioning by itself. When used as a system conditioner i.e. fed into cabling connected as a source to a preamp, it may show benefits to the entire system. In that respect, it could be useful. How useful or beneficial it would be would depend on a few variables, which are beyond my ability to determine based on the info that i have on the unit.
As to the FryKleaner and FryKleaner Pro, these units might be of some benefit in conditioning cabling. From what i can tell, the amplitude of the conditioning signal is still too low and the bandwidth of the signal too narrow to achieve optimal results. Having said that, i do think that these units would speed up the break-in process and do so in a more thorough manner as compared to using the cabling normally within the confines of a system. Remember, i'm basing my comments on the spec's as provided by the manufacturer, nothing more.
Obviously, these are just my opinions ( as is anything else i post ), so take them for what they are worth. Their performance may actually be of benefit to many end users, but on a grander scale, i think that there are better methods available that may achieve better results. Sean
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Thanks, Sean. Do you know if the Mobie is still available. I know Music Direct used to carry it. Google is no help, unless I missed something.
Mobie's have gone the way of the wind, but their performance is not hard to duplicate if you are handy and have some space. Their biggest advantage is that they offer quite a bit of savings of space and simplicity of design compared to most DIY methods.If you have some cabling that you want burned, take a look at the post i linked to below. Sean
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Thanks Sean, really appreciate the offer, but I can't be without my cables that long :-)
I have gone through hundreds of cables over the years and I cook all of them for 300-400 hours. For i/c you can use any source like a tuner, CD player in repeat, even the headphone jack of a boom box, etc. The load can be a preamp or a 10k resistor. I caution against cookers since they can over-cook the cables. I would not run cables more than 24 hours on a cooker due to higher current/voltage. Generally I just hook up the cables and listen as they burn in.
Do all "cookers" over-cook the cables? I'm asking because I was thinking of buying the kit to build the FryKleaner, which seems to have been well received on this forum, but if there is a chance that this will over-cook my cables, perhaps I'll reconsider. Any input on this matter would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Chris
Not all "cable burners" operate in the same fashion, nor do they produce the same results. I think that you can find a few books worth of info in the archives here and at Agon on the subject.With that in mind, my experience is that a cable will never sound as good as it can unless it is used with a good quality cable burner. I use a Mobie and a couple of other DIY devices of my own design for such purposes.
The key here is to get the voltage up to a point that is well above what the cabling would ever see during normal use. This helps to form the dielectric in the cabling and "condition" the crystal structure of the metal conductors. You don't want to go too high on voltage, and more importantly, current levels must be kept reasonable too. This means terminating the cable into an impedance that will be equivalent to, or just BARELY less than what it would normally see. Digital cables normally operate into a nominal 75 ohm load with RCA / XLR based interconnects typically see at least a 5K ohm load. Speaker cables can easily see a 2 ohm load ( maybe lower ) and as far as power cords go, you need a somewhat heavy load on them. Several hundred watts of consumption works best.
My experience is that a solid 30 day "burn in" for interconnects on such a device nets very audible sonic gains. This is basically the same conclusion that Bob Crump came to prior to his passing. Having said that, Bob and i both noticed that some cables simply sound like crapola, regardless of how long you cook them for. In my experience, some silver / silver plated cabling will always sound harsh and bright no matter how long it is "burned in" for, what brand it is or what it costs.
I've burned in cables that people have had in their systems for many, many years and hours of use. In every single case, i've always been told that the results were not only very noticeable, but also quite superior. In one instance, i had a dealer do comparisons using identical cabling i.e. some that was brand new, some cabling that had been used for a long time and some cabling that i had "burned in" for them. In every instance, they always prefered the "burned in" cabling and were easily able to identify it from the other two. After hearing these differences for themselves and demonstrating the differences for customers, the dealer ended up purchasing a "burner" for their own use. In the long run, it was a cheap investment that helped to better serve their customers. Sean
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Especially since the cables in question are actually based on your recommendation in reply to my inquiry of a couple weeks ago. I have now had them between an FM tuner and a dummy 20k load for about 48 hrs. They will reach 84 hours Saturaday morning, then I will simply insatll them between my Emotive Prima and Welborne Laurels and start playing music. Thanx again.
Here is how I burn in interconnects. I bought a pair of cheap RCA jacks. I soldered a resistor (any value between 20k and 50k Ohms is fine) between the hot and ground on each jack. Now I have a dummy load.I use a tuner, plug one end of the IC into the tuner and the other end into the RCA jack with resistor. I let it cook for a week or more. I have the tuner tuned to an FM music station, although I have no idea if breaking in a cable with music is any more or less effective than using inter-station noise to do the job.
Happy listening.
Regards,
JerryS
the cable sees nothing below 50Hz nor above 15kHz with an FM source...
Good point. Does that make a difference in the final result?Here's the reason I ask. One way I break-in speaker cables is to connect them to a little device I made. It inserts the speaker cables into the AC power line that I use for my computer. Basically, the speaker cables are the middle section of an extension cord. I run about 2 amps through the cable for a couple of weeks. This is all 60Hz. Then the speaker cables are moved to the stereo system. There does not seem to be any sonic change after that.
Happy listening.
Regards,
JerryS
The first thing you should do is make sure the contacts are clean and tight.
Most of the 'burn-in' process involves the connections. A number of rough plugging-unpluggings can help break-in a bunch.
HowdyThere's no denying that good contacts matter, but your claim that they have a lot to do with burn-in makes no sense and is quite contrary to my experience, that of my associates and informal burn-in experiments reported here.
-Ted
By your mention of "hooking them up between a SS pre and power amp" I take it you mean a pair of line-level audio interconnect cables. There is no need to use a 8 Ohm resistor as a dummy load across the amp's speaker terminals, since you can turn off the power amp while the preamp is sending signal to the power amp's line-level inputs (be sure to turn up the preamp's volume control to enable a high-level output signal). You can also choose to connect the line-level audio interconnect cables between a CD player (which typically has a high-output signal) or a tuner and a preamp's inputs which can also be powered-off during the burn-in process (make sure the preamp's input selector is set to the inputs used for the connections, though).
And after making these home made devices can you really say it did something or could they (the cables)have come out just the same with playing music thru them during the same time? How can you tell ?One poster said they have used many cables. Then why be such a cheap skate ? Just buy a proven Cable Cooker!
I own a Audiodharma Cable Cooker and use it alot. A couple of days on it and the cables sound better than a couple of weeks of break in without it.
I also disagree with the poster who said you can over cook cables.
After being on the Cooker for days it may take a few hours for the cables to settle down , but there is nothing wrong with the cables.
Someones wild imagination...
I also own a Audiodharma Cable Cooker.
I have used cable cookers for the past 15 years with excellent sonic results.
In my experience there is absolutely no permanent damage to cables
or wires that have been over-cooked.Before I installed my 100 feet of Cryoed 10 gauge dedicated AC power
line,I cooked it on the Audiodharma for eight days.
Upon installation they sounded extra warm and had a fat bass. Within 24 hours the the sound was neutral and the bass was very tight and well defined.A good cable cooker will benefit any system.
Highly recommended...
I had them cook a pair of burned in speaker cables, a pair of power cords and a wall outlet, with great success. They sounded great. Even the burned in cables sounded better than before. Wider soundstaging, more clarity, lower noise floor, better transients, more and balanced highs and lows. Good folks to deal with and I paid about $25-30 per item including postage.
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