Regardless, the original point I made was that when I change my tweeter treble level, I can’t really assess until after 6-8 hours of playback to know if it is as I want. I was saying the fresh solder joint runs in and the sound gets smoother. Other opinions don’t matter as I trust my ears and know this is a real thing I am hearing.
As for measurements, I still think there are things our ears can tell us that measurements can’t.
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No, this is about cable burn in.
Touché, but the particular side discussion was about soldering specifically
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Indeed - but also there are measurements and measurements, my point having been that you have to have the right measurements to be meaningful.
As for changing over 6 hours, I’m not convinced that my hearing (ears and brain) stays constant over 6 hours, so not sure that I could ever say something has settled/burnt in in that time, other than by doing A/B comparisons with an otherwise identical fresh one, preferably blind to avoid risk of sunconscious bias.
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Well I appreciate your opinion, however, I shall continue to trust my own, which is based on my experience.
I for one, feel my brain and hearing doesn’t change over 6 hours as I feel my system sounds the same every time I turn it on (apart from when physical changes are made).
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I guess I also feel my system sounds the same every time I turn it on. However in practice I don’t actually think about whether my system sounds the same except when I change something…
But I know that in common with most people, maybe everyone, my hearing isn’t always the same, a common change is the effect of anything causing an air pressure difference across the ear drum (as opposed to the alternating sound pressure wave). That effect is obvious in the extreme instance of suffering congestion due to a heavy cold but actually far more frequent than that, as evidenced by the not uncommon change in sound upon yawning. Another extreme example is for a period of time after exposure to high sound levels. I think mood can affect also affect hearing. And of course other subconscious psychological influences can affect what the brain thinks it hears.
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I think that the “burn-in” phenomenon is just anxiety induced by spending a lot of dough on audio equipment. This anxiety subsides over time, and voila! The thing sounds better. 500-level boxes and Super Lumina cables appear to usher in a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride of Sound Quality, but you never hear the same thing said about the DIN cable that comes in the box for free. This would also explain why demo items - as no cash has changed hands - so often seem to have sounded far better than the new item for which one has plunked down the credit card. (Instances of faulty new equipment excepted.)
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I have a cupboard full of unexplainable and it is listed
Not for Public Consumption in fact i may retitle it - Reality is a Flawed Concept and put it under Padded Cell (if i had time) Unfortunately this one has slipped out.
Let me qualify when solder runs in it does NOT sound better it merely sounds Different.
The magnitude of the difference depends on the sound of the brand of solder used.
It will likely acquire a darker Tonal and Harmonic sound you may well prefer the freshly soldered sound.
When solder is made sometimes it is Virgin sometimes Recycled and sometimes Recycled
Many times and containing what? and do you think anybody cares?
The question about the sound of solders Brand to Brand and different Types such as the highly questional practice of including Silver with Lead (which has the absolute opposite effect to the one that comes to mind) Makes the question of do cables sound different
an absolute dead in the water Dodo.
I wasn’t responding to anyone in particular, I was just expressing a view on burn in and why it doesn’t matter.
Has anyone read the article on speaker burn-in testing by Phil Ward? Might be of interest; might highlight how designing an experiment to check a hypothesis is quite different than publishing typical manufacturing specs; might be viewed as credible given the long list of successful speakers he has designed; might just be fun to read about how some audio and sound geeks amuse themselves when they have access to cool gear…
Regards alan
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Enjoyed reading that, thanks for linking it here!
I’d have liked to see the spectral plots subtracted from one another, if that makes sense for those data. Easier to look at a plot of the difference, than look for the differences. But good reading nonetheless.
Joint Quality is really a different subject - Dry joints etc.
The Solder Brands i have here come from. Taiwan ( very shiny possibly Virgin ) Australia, UK.
and Germany. It wont matter if 2 Brands are the same solder as they still differ to a Brand that
is not. I started researching this in the 1980s getting solders from different companies on the
on the pretext of a repair being done and wanting to keep it exactly original, Audio Research, probably Naim etc, To far back now! They used to mail me 1/2 a meter.
I endeavour to manipulate the sound of speakers and sometimes removing all the solder
on cables if i have a Brand or Type that i know may push the Tonality in the direction i am after this where the Burn in makes it difficult as it can start off good and then end up not so good. Well time to get this subject back into its cupboard maybe throw the key away.
From a technical perspective nothing will happen to performance relevant factors. A cable was, is and will remain always a passive component. There´s no active controller in the line that will change parameters over time.
From a psychological view your ears will accept the sound after some time.
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There was a young man who thought God
must find it exceedingly odd,
that the tree
continues to be,
when no-one’s about in the quad.
To which the reply comes back…
Sir I find your puzzlement odd,
I am always about in the quad;
thus the tree
must continue to be
Signed
. . Yours Faithfully
. . . . God.
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Heisenberg would be proud of you!
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A cable is only Passive while it is Unconnected.
Once Powered up a Multitude of Electrical Dynamics take place.
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…and , of course, Naim amplifiers react to the electrical properties of 'speaker cables.
I think for the most it’s mechanical… ie the connectors and cable ‘relaxing’ and forming a better contact connection that is less likely to be impacted to be mechanical vibration.
A summary from Richard Black’s analysis paper on audio cable distortion, published by the AES where he identified certain minutely small distortion characteristics from certain amp speaker cable combinations driving conventional loudspeakers.
‘The audio cable market certainly owes something to the appeal of ‘audio jewellery’ but there is also, with little doubt, a significant element of self-delusion on the part of consumers and probably also reviewers, retailers and manufacturers.’
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All amplifiers and speakers react to the electrical properties of speaker cables… it would be physically impossible not to. Whether that interaction is audibly relevant is another matter… other than in specific circumstances. The electrical attributes of the cable are swamped when lumped with speaker and speaker crossover.
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Ah, the flow of electrons, the protons, neutrons, the orbitals and freely oscillating potentials do not turn a cable into active components that could change the sound.
In addition, the behavior is always the same if in all physically identical materials.
At the same time you should have a look into the sizes and measures. If an atom moves, then we speak of around 0.0001nm. An effect on a magnetic field by this move would be around zero or a millionth of a percent. This millionth of a percent influences a signal sent over the line by how much? correct, zero. 
You´d rather hear in Alabama how Kim Yong Il coughs in Pyongyang city.