Aloha,
I have a pair of Straightwire Maestro interconnects that I got in 1994. I like the way they sound and have been keeping track of how they have changed over time.
Definitely something where you can also hear the phenomenon of break in over time.
In my listening notes, about this time last year they stopped breaking in.
They had slowly evolved toward more and more detail, less grain, kind of sweeter - and improving imaging over time...becoming especially good at allowing whichever part of the music one cared to focus on become the central sound of a piece of music, at the listener's discretion.
They had demonstrated the typical initial break in changes we are all well aware of, but the final break in was something of a non-event event. They just 'arrived.'
I kept listening and sure enough, over the last year, they've hardly changed at all.
So, regarding cable break in, I can document out to 15 years.
I also have some Audioquest speaker cable purchased at the same time, and they are still breaking in, so we're looking at 15+ years for them.
So, when you see some reviewer talk about 100, 200 or however many hours of break in required for a system to settle in, think again - those are 'amateur hours.'
_________________________
On a related note, I have been tracking CD break in time, as well.
There are discs that keep sounding better and better the more I play them. At first, I thought it must be me appreciating them more and more, but even the ones I don't really like do the same thing.
I had checked out those "hot lamp" tweaks, and this is different - this is break in via the wavelength of light used by the laser to read the disc as it spins - almost a micro-break-in.
Obviously, over time, the laser light is doing something to the disc itself to make it sound better and better.
In fact, I don't have any discs that haven't continued to evolve in order for me to say how many plays it takes to adequately break in a CD.
Time for a "sham player" that 'reads' a disc with the proper wavelength that we can put discs in and leave running and check break in time more accurately. How much do you think someone could charge for a CD platyer that doesn
Aloha,
I have a pair of Straightwire Maestro interconnects that I got in 1994. I like the way they sound and have been keeping track of how they have changed over time.
Definitely something where you can also hear the phenomenon of break in over time.
In my listening notes, about this time last year they stopped breaking in.
They had slowly evolved toward more and more detail, less grain, kind of sweeter - and improving imaging over time...becoming especially good at allowing whichever part of the music one cared to focus on become the central sound of a piece of music, at the listener's discretion.
They had demonstrated the typical initial break in changes we are all well aware of, but the final break in was something of a non-event event. They just 'arrived.'
I kept listening and sure enough, over the last year, they've hardly changed at all.
So, regarding cable break in, I can document out to 15 years.
I also have some Audioquest speaker cable purchased at the same time, and they are still breaking in, so we're looking at 15+ years for them.
So, when you see some reviewer talk about 100, 200 or however many hours of break in required for a system to settle in, think again - those are 'amateur hours.'
_________________________
On a related note, I have been tracking CD break in time, as well.
There are discs that keep sounding better and better the more I play them. At first, I thought it must be me appreciating them more and more, but even the ones I don't really like do the same thing.
I had checked out those "hot lamp" tweaks, and this is different - this is break in via the wavelength of light used by the laser to read the disc as it spins - almost a micro-break-in.
Obviously, over time, the laser light is doing something to the disc itself to make it sound better and better.
In fact, I don't have any discs that haven't continued to evolve in order for me to say how many plays it takes to adequately break in a CD.
Time for a "sham player" that 'reads' a disc with the proper wavelength that we can put discs in and leave running and check break in time more accurately. How much do you think someone could charge for a CD platyer that doesn