Cable burn in

When optimising the last amp I built, for the majority of the capacitors I used relatively inexpensive ‘block’ form capacitors (plus a few polystyrenes in specific positions); as, for capacitors within the parts of the amp controlled by the negative feedback, I’ve found that imperfections are much less significant (just as theory predicts). For the DC blocking at the input and the virtual earth capacitors however, I ended up using very expensive polypropylene capacitors, as in these two positions the negative feedback does nothing to correct non-ideal behaviours (such as DA), and here they fully justified their price.

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Yup, Merlin Blencowe ( and D Self, I think) have a bit to say about selecting components for the task.

The unboxing experience of a cable being of critical importance to the burn in of same cable later on.

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No doubt, it seems that the unboxing thing reaches as far as the rack mount guitar processor I recently bought which seemed to come in a giant iphone like box!

I use a Denon DL103 cartridge. When it wears out I’ll be replacing it with DL103R, it has a couple of modification to the original, one being the use of 6N copper. Apparently, it does sound a lot better.

With regards to dismissing the significance of impunities, it’s not quite as simple as counting electron. The impurities tend to gather at grain boundaries, if you half the amount of impurities you half the thickness of the layer of impurities surrounding the grains. And so on.

Everybody has there own ideas about this, that and the other. Everybody loves to solve a problem. But no matter how knowledgeable a person is (including scientist); if the answer lies outside their field of knowledge, they will never come up with the answer.

Tell that to Richard Feynman

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Don’t know what all this stuff about electrons moving through the wire is.

They electrons also shake hands when they meet for the first time, and less so when they get acquainted, after burn in.

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…and after they have all fallen out of the end of the wire, we’re left with a positively charged lump of something!

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I recon electrons have been practicing social distancing for a lot longer than humans!

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Electrons actually move through a wire, somewhat similar to how water flows through a pipe.

Do you think so?
I think that it’s electrical energy that travels through the wire.

An electric current is literally a current, the electrons physically move through the wire when a voltage is applied.

How water flows through a pipe varies, it’s dependant on reynolds number.

Are you suggesting electrons exhibit laminar flow, turbulent flow or in some circumstances a combination of both.

Electrons are force carriers - for the electromotive force and as such are more than a simple localised phenomenon acting only at the ‘exact location’ of the electron (in fact no ‘exact location’ actually exists for an electron).

What happens in a wire is more like a pressure wave in the electric field. This is in effect a compressible medium, so much more like a gas than a liquid (actually even more like a supercritical fluid).

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Sorry, I do not agree with the notion of electrons moving through a wire, do agree that it is energy moving through the wire. Rather like photons are a quanta of electromagnetic energy, but it is actually energy that is moving as light, whether you think of it being either collapsed or otherwise.

Sorry to disagree. An electron is an electrical charge, and its presence creates an electrical field.

If the electrone moves, that is an electrical current, and it will create a magnetic field.

Simple and elegant, the little electron.

The opposite is also true. A magnetic field will create a current (look at your right hand), which is electrons in motion.

This is fascinating.

Very fascinating indeed.

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Force and energy are several lessons ahead of the charge, and it is much easier to understand those in mechanics than in electronics IMHO.

Force and energy in electronics where never intuitive to me, unfortunately.

Well it’s both true. :wink:

Electrons do physically move when a voltage is applied, although quite slowly.

The energy moves through the circuit almost instantaneously, separate from the electrons themselves. The electrons make a convenient ‘highway’ to allow the energy to flow quickly.

As @Rafael mentions, without that slow movement of electrons, there is no current, and without current we can’t have an energy flow.