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In general, how long does a cable/interconnect have to stay out of use before a lengthy burn-in is required? This is related not to new cables, but rather cables that have at one time been in use.

Assuming that new cables need around 150 hours, at what point would a previously used cable become completely idle and need this kind of cooking or do they ever need a complete burn-in again?

I will be interested to hear if anyone can name a physical mechanism for intermediate lifetime cable burn-in effects. Using the cable for audio results in electron flows that end in milliseconds after the music ends. High current may cause heating that will usually dissipate in minutes (if you don't start a fire!). Electron effects on the crystalline structure, such as the electromigration of defects, are permanent changes that will usually only disappear with high temperature annealing, rather than with elapsed time. The question seems concerned with changes due to "Burn-In" that would disappear on the time scale of months or years, but I can't think of any off-hand. But then, I am not qualified, beacuse I have never heard cables "break-in" in any case ;-}.

The notion of cable burn-in criterion fascinates me. Aside from the importance of the quality of physical construction of a cable I can't begin to imagine why anyone would even entertain such a notion.

In the RF and high current power transfer applications fields there are some very real physical concerns but these have to do more with dialectric aging and breakdown than anything else.

As stated earlier it's very difficult for me to understand why anyone would ever consider cable break-in, especially at audio frequencies, a real concern.