Audio cable break-in, analog vs. digital nonsense

7/22/2010 5:07 AM EDT

Hi, I was just wondering if there are serious researches out there that quatified the sensitivity of an audiphil. I can't beleve in the 'settle in' thing. How did you find this settling in? by using an audiphil? or maybe some instrumentation that is far more sensitive than the human ear? I beleve that quality is paramount but paying a 'profesional' to 'break-in' my cables is just silly...

7/22/2010 8:50 AM EDT

I remember the days of the "green ink around the edge of a CD to absorb stray laser light..." At the time I worked at Consumer Reports as a test engineer, and we all had a good laugh about that one. Anyone recall the "Tice Clock"?

This audiophile nonsense all stems from the days when it really was possible to tweak your audio system and improve it. Amplifiers had tubes that did, indeed, sound better when "broken in", power amp bias needed to be adjusted, and you could spend a lifetime adjusting the weight and balance of your tonearm. This was real work, and had real outcomes, even if they were slight.

Once the CD and digital audio arrived, all of that was taken away from the tweakers. Since many of them had no understanding of digital audio, the scene was ripe for purveyors of voodoo and black magic to take hold and satisify the tweakers incessant urge for audio nirvana.

I am not surprised to hear about cable-break-in services - heck I recall one audio amp company whose chief "engineer" would test all of the hookup wire he used and mark the polarity on the wire.

7/22/2010 12:05 PM EDT

A friend of mine developed a high-end digital audio board for a company, then used coat hangers for the wire to hook up the digital streams to the board. He placed his coat over the hookup wires, then had the "golden ears" approve the quality of his work. When he removed his coat they refused to believe what they saw!

To be fair, the wire can make a difference, but only if the termination circuit is poorly designed. In his case, with a digital stream, the digital pattern can introduce jitter in the bit stream clock recovery. But any reasonable clock recovery system will experience a negligible effect from this.

7/22/2010 1:10 PM EDT

It's important not to discourage the audio experts who have never had any sort of education except for their "ears". If reason prevailed, we'd never have such great stories to tell of the pitfalls of audio "engineering". Do you remember directional speaker wire? You had to connect one end to the amp, the other to the speakers. From turntable days: microcracks in the turntable mount produced ultrasonic energy that would be picked up by the cartridge, and damage your pre-amp. Or water-cooled speaker cables? Or special line cords and AC filters to block who-knows-what that might get through the amp's power supply... no, let's let these folk generate all the unfounded and outright silly claims they might like...

7/22/2010 1:12 PM EDT

This would be truly funny if it was not so pathetic! What does matter with most wiring is keeping the desired signals in and the undesired signals out. So we do use low capacitance, low tribo-electric input cables, and number 14 or #16 speaker cables. The rest is a whole lot like "the emperor's new clothes", which is all found in the egoes of those needing to demonstrate hw much better than us they are. ON the other side, for a reasonable fee, I too can provide the breaking in service for new cables. All payments in cash, please.

7/22/2010 1:17 PM EDT

"Electron lineup?" Wow, there really IS a sucker born every minute!

7/22/2010 1:23 PM EDT

Would anyone be interested in my DVD- and Blu-Ray rewinder? The bit domains in a disc eventually become skewed by being spun in only one direction during playback, which increases the amount of error correction alarmingly. My rewinder spins the disc backwards, but only after applying a gradual, and acceleration-limited ramp up to approximately 60,000 rpm. After only 12 days, your disc is completely re-aligned and ready to be played once more. The 20 HP rewind motor and associated gearing are no louder than a weed whacker, and more than adequate cooling is afforded by connecting a garden hose to the heat exchanger port. The entire unit is smaller than a Bridgeport milling machine. Plus, there's no special power requirement: the rewinder runs on 480v triple phase, found everywhere. Rewinding after every use is recommended, and for best results, the disc axis of rotation must be kept pointing at Polaris using the optional equatorial rewinder mount, that is shipped in its own 8 foot, road-ready trailer.

7/23/2010 6:42 PM EDT

It amazes me to the ignorance of the original poster. Cable breakin is a proven fact. Perhaps he is listening to a Bose radio of a Fisher stereo where one could never hear the effects of cable breakin. The proof is in the listening, ascribed by thousands of people that bear witness that cable breakin is a proven occurrence.
It is amazing that he left out the testimonials to the fact that are posted on our breakin service page!

7/23/2010 8:58 PM EDT

Doesn't anyone remember the wonderful "flux dumper" that Stereophile Mag endorsed?

I have to run - I just threw a hundred feet of #12 OFC into the microwave to break it in. Something smells.

7/24/2010 12:28 AM EDT

Don't worry about it Morrow. There are thousands of people every day scammed by the Nigerians across the pond to send money and give up their bank accounts so that they can become the rightful heirs to millions of dollars. At least you're offering something tangible for your scam. I remember when my father installed a box called the "Gonkulator" in the broadcast suite of a local radio station with 5 knobs, a couple of magnets (to add weight) and 6 feet of 12 pair cable that went into the back of the broadcast console and went NOWHERE....and yet, the on air talent swore that this was the magic device that made their voices sound fantastic. I guess what I have to ask is will this device improve the power to my toaster oven too? Or are the transient waves good for the heating elements....because frankly it sounds pretty bad nowadays...

7/28/2010 7:19 AM EDT

Here are some testimonials you left out...
"The Morrow Audio SP3s (out of the box) sounded compressed, muted and lacking in both frequency extremes. The transient attacks on instruments were diminished and the overall tonality was thin.

It's difficult to write this without making it sound like the SP3 cables sound bad without the break-in service. I wouldn't say they sounded "bad", it was just that I didn't have the patience to wait and see if they would sound better than the much more expensive cables I was using.

After mailing in the cables for the break-in service, and receiving them back, the cables sounded much more full-bodied with good transient performance, and a very natural midrange and good response at the frequency extremes. The break in service provided a huge sonic improvement." Marc A.

"I also recommend the break-in service. New interconnects go through a period of sounding worse before they break in and then they come into their own. Mike suggested the service and it was worth the expense!" Joey Caleyo

Now, to all out there... Lets prove the foolishness of the original poster. You can try my cables for $39.95 by clicking the link below. I challenge you to order two pairs. One with the breakin service and one without. I will then leave it up to your ears...you will see! Warning...once you hear what my cables can do for your system, no matter how humble, you will want more.

Here is the link: http://www.morrowaudio.com/signup_goldclub.html

Mike Morrow,
Morrow Audio

7/28/2010 10:09 AM EDT

Hi Morrow,

Try that one on Bob Pease. I think he would understand what you're talking about because the rest of us just are not properly enlightened.

8/4/2010 12:18 PM EDT

I have no problem believing that a cable needs to be broken-in. This is no different than equipment being broken-in. What is not being understood correctly is the electron itself. Electrons can be sorted by color; the color tells you how hard the shell is. The harder the shell, the harsher the sound (this can be proved by dropping glass marbles and paint balls on a glass table). Harder shells require longer break-in periods. You want to get all the electron shells to the same "softness" level. Red electrons take the longest to soften, followed by orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and lastly violet. The astute reader will recognize that this does in fact follow the colors that make up white light; light in fact being comprised of electrons in disguise. Once all of the electrons take on the same softness level you can expect "creamy lows, mellifluous mids and sparkling highs". It should be noted that there is a direct correlation between how long it takes to break-in cables and how much the sound reproduction components cost. If you spent $20,000.00 for an amplifier expect a very long break-in time; the longer you listen to it the better it will sound. This is because the electrons are softening. The process of break-in should not be "sped-up"; doing so may fracture the shell of the electron and all the creamy goodness may leak out (of course causing artifacts to be heard in the sound). A "gentle push" can be done however; the exact device to do this is beyond this writing, just know it requires a 1.5V carbon battery (not alkaline), a Tesla light-bulb, shards of blue-glass and some previously broken-in wires. I've designed a microscope that can see the electrons in question but am still waiting on some parts that haven't been invented yet. I would like to continue my explanation of electrons but the attendant is here with my meds...

8/12/2010 1:09 AM EDT

Wow - there must be so many 'tongues-in-cheeks' - it's hard to keep a straight face!

8/12/2010 1:46 AM EDT

Funny thing is, the green market actually reduced the bit error rate... I know, I ran tests with and without. Given how bad the original error correction was, that could make a difference in sound quality.

I once bought a pair of speakers and they sounded "wrong". The owner of the speaker company told me it was the high end speaker wire that needed to be broken in. Even the maker of the wire thought he was crazy. A laptop, microphone, and some downloaded software told me quickly that the zobel filter was missing on the woofer.... which was an easy fix.

I can say I have heard differences, yes double blind between two different analog interconnects. However, given how poorly matched I/O between the CD player and the amp was, it was not surprising.

8/12/2010 2:37 AM EDT

All of this is interesting to read. But take it from an "audio expert". All you need to do to get your sound system to sound really good is to just ask it to do so. Tell it what you want! Be forceful, but gentle. You will be amazed at the results and it only costs a little concentration on your part. Throwing a few appreciative remarks at the thing now and then also helps align electrons and lowers resistance to the cause. Not having golden ears, nor putting measurement equipment near it, also helps.

I have a few other odd ideas but this is probably not the forum for 'em.

8/12/2010 10:21 AM EDT

Obviously, Mr. Boyce and I are in serious professional disagreement. Has he never heard of "spare the rod and spoil the hardware"? When your system is acting cranky, that's not the time to appease the monster. Instead, get a few hand tools, an old Simpson 260, and if the equipment is being particularly recalcitrant, turn on a soldering iron. Stare at the offending hardware, frown, and slowly shake your head "no". This tends to quell any harmonic distortion or psuedo-audiophile deviation right away.

10/25/2010 2:24 PM EDT

Rich, Mtriploi, Kdboyce, and Bob, I have enjoyed your postings, these are great source material for stand up comedy!. I could not help my self to a great hearty, loud laugh at the office! I had to reassure my peer engineers that I have not lost it! some one made some comments about calling security out of concern for my health!.

Mr. Mike Marrow my hats to you, for generating a compelling sales pitch and having found a knack to capture naïve and poorly informed costumers.
You are proof that there is money to be made from rich folks, and we should quit whining from envy and let you continue make profit from poor innocent misinformed souls.

1/18/2011 11:19 PM EST

I seem to have come across this rather late. It never ceases to amaze me that my boss, a degreed EE, falls hook, line, sinker, net, filleting knife and frying pan for the pablum peddled by the purveyors of high end audiofoolery.

The subject of cables in particular drives me up the wall and out across the ceiling - 1 meter of speaker cable is NOT a transmission line! Skin effect doesn't apply at audio frequencies! Gaaaaah! One of my favorite memories is seeing that brilliant, sawed-off little pug of a man Gordon Gow lecturing on the foolishness of high end speaker cables, with charts and graphs and plenty of math and theory, while standing on a large spool of Monster Cable.

I sometimes think I'm glad The Old Man passed on when he did; it would kill him to see what the industry he and Gow helped pioneer has become.

2/28/2011 1:00 PM EST

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