yes well obviously but most people report a positive result over time rather then it getting progressively worse
I think it perfectly possible (in fact, I’m pretty sure) that some cables make a difference (though I am not convinced of differences between ethernet cables - so long as they are fully ethernet cojmpliant).
I have recently changed a set of good quality but cheap ethernet cables for a set of BJC cables, just out of interest (and also an Audioquest Cinnamon for BJC - though FB doesn’t consider the Cinnamon to be anything special). I can hear absolutely no difference at all. I have also, in the past, changed my Netgear switch for Cisco 2960 (initially a 24-port version, more recently to an 8-port one). I could hear no difference.
I should say that my electricity supply comes from a small transformer at the top of a pole in one of our fields, and my house is the only one using this power supply, so I suspect that the electricity here is pretty clean - apart from any ‘dirt’ that we introduce; fridge, freezer and ethernet over mains courtesy of TP-Link. The network setup for the audio is somewhat separated - there is the PC which holds the music, the NDX, a Squeezbox Touch, a Hue Bridge and a connection to the TP-LINK as the only connections to this switch.
I have also changed, just recently, the cable between the NDX and the NAC52. I’m still evaluating this. I can persuade myself that there are differences in the sound - I’ve not yet decided whether this is real or not. I will at some point swat the original cable back to try to see whether it goes back to how I think that I remember it. I think it might be slightly brighter - more presence - than before, but I’m not yet sure.
yup so that could be a combination of:
- people’s brain/expectations adjusting and tuning into the new sound (if there is a new sound signature)
- the cable changing in its new environment after a long, cold/hot and sometimes battering/stressing journey to your house
How does the cable change? While temperature affects the resistance of a wire, I don’t think that it changes significantly over the normal temperature range that it will experience during transit - and presumably once it has reached the temperature of your room (which will not take long, presumably) then it should be stable. What is changing over a period of many hours? Why is it affected only if electricity is running through it? How long after having been burned-in does this effect last?
I would add to your point 1) - adjusting to the sound in the light of their (our) expectations.
Well, at least you tried.
So now you know.
Itch scratched.
kick back, float downstream, and let the music flow on…
one more route you could try if you still fancy experimenting further would be to somehow get the pc onto a different mains ring, or just isolate it from the NDX a bit more perhaps by adding one more switch???
that might reduce stray noise from the pc - but then it might make no audible difference at all
Good Qs.
In my opinion, every change to any element of the system will make a change, however slight, to the total flow of electricity in the system.
most such changes are way too small to make any audible (or measurable) difference
but some changes do make an audible or measurable difference
What is the phenomenon of burning cable for Nordost?
When cables are first put into use, their directionality is not securely established. However, once the Vidar begins running current through the cables, the trapped gases are dissipated and small impurities in the conductor’s metal begin to act like a diode, favoring current flow in a particular direction. By using extremely wide bandwidth signal as well as a range of both ultra-low and high frequency sweeps, the Vidar stresses the conductors, neutralizes charges, improves the way that signals pass through metal and ultrasonically conditions the surface of the conductors. It is these changes in both the conductor and insulation material that refines performance in audio cables.
It is on a ring that currently has nothing except a tv aerial amplifier power supply plugged in - the aerial amplifier is in the roof - and some lights (which are currently Philips Hue lights or compatibles). Otherwise, there is the Hue Bridge, the Squeezebox Touch, the PC (a Gigabyte Brix - no HDD just SSD), the PC Monitor, the Cisco 2960 - I think (from memory) that’s it.
What is the directionality - what causes it, what changes to establish it? How do you describe or define the directionality in what is, basically, AC current (as in Mains cables, for instance)? What physical changes take place?
You mentioned ‘trapped gases’ - what gases are these, and where are they - and how do they escape? How do impurities act like a diode which changes its direction with time? Which impurites act like diodes, and how is it that all these diodes (presumably one for each bit or cluster of impurities) happen to align in one direction? What charges get neutralized - how do these charges occur? What, exactly, does “ultrasonically conditions the surface” mean? What physical changes occur?
Beachcomber, it was a paste of Nordost view as for burn in cables process. It would be difficult for a non scientist as me to comment.
However I am curious if someone knows what these gas trapped are.
Fair enough
But your questions seem to be accurate…
I don’t recall reading a single case where anyone has reported “burn in” as negative in the end. All I have read have said it improves, although sometimes with an even more inexplicable ‘yoyo’ type effect before settling better.
Interestingly, quite aside from memory of sound over the medium or longer term, and quite unrelated to psychological effects as the brain adapts, I know I certainly don’t hear things exactly the same every day. And I am not thinking hifi, but general sounds like birds or people talking etc, sometimes sound different. A prime, if extreme, example is when you have a cold and are a bit “bunged up”, or are anywhere experiencing pressure changes (plane, tunnel etc), and yawn causing an equalisation through the eustation tubes - suddenly everything sounds clearer. Physiological effects like that can very easily explain yoyo-ing from day to day (eventually ignored by the brain because it is no longer thinking about whether the item sounds better).
Changes to wires not even running enough current to make them heat up above the warmest temperature of normal room variability is a far less likely explanation than the result of known physiological and psychological effects that can affect hearing or the peception of sound.
@OldSai lives in Siberian Taiga. +45 in summer, - 45 in winter. I guess the cables are burning quicker in such extremes reverses of temperature…?
In other words marketing-speak for “if you start wondering if you’ve wasted your money, don’t worry because your brain will adjust and justify itself”…
Beachcomer omitted to ask about the direction of current with an AC signal, and the effect on that AC signal if the cable becomes a diode…
Maybe marketing, maybe scientific. Can’t say.
Here’s the result of burning in a mains cable
Almost sufficient temperature extremes for alternating cryogenic treatment and burn-in - if the cables run outside the house.
No, thst’s the process of burning in, not the result!
Many cable companies make a lot of effort to reduce the oxygen levels in copper cables.