lcw999 wrote:
On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 00:09:40 +0000, chung wrote:

lcw999 wrote:

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 15:56:20 +0000, chung wrote:

lcw999 wrote:

Yes! ever hear a cable that had "spitty" sounding silibance and
have it slowly subside after a week or two. But, I forgot, they
all sound the same..I should have never ask!


It's perfectly OK to ask. The answer is no, you are imagining it.
There is no physical property of the cable that requires burn-in to
acheive a superior (whatever that is) state.

Whoa..."no physical property of the cable....." One,
cannot truthfully make this type of statement at
point in time..see the below section on Particle
Physics!

The whole statement is this:

"The answer is no, you are imagining it. There is no physical property
of the cable that requires burn-in to acheive a superior (whatever that
is) state."

I don't think some "required" burn-in is the issue here. I have
detected silibance change from a slightly "metalllic" quality on
certain recording of some female voices.

Wait a second. Are you talking about sibilance changing over a short
period of time, which you presumed to be cable burn-in, or are you
talking about two cables that have different amounts of sibilance?

It is possible, though barely, that some cables may change the amount of
sibilance in some systems with high output impedance. But that is a
different kind of phenomenon from burn-in, which I said only happens in
your imagination.

Current measuring
processes do not address this issue.

Why not? Sibilance is a fairly gross frequency response symptom that can
be easily measured with today's equipment. You really need to develop a
better understanding of what we can measure, instead of assuming all
those things we cannot measure.

Therefore, it does not
exist. I don't buy this.

Seems like another strawman to me.

Illogic prevails here. Therefore the
tendency to indicate that an individual is "imagining" this!
Sorry we haven't the tools yet to "measure" or numericalize all
this...in time we will. In the meantime, be happy in your work
and pass all this off as some kind of "mass imagination" of
millions! Great ploy if one can get away with it. Why do I feel
that I'm wasting my time here?

Uh, because maybe your position is shaky?


We have been using cables, the type that is used in audio, for over
hundred years, in making measurements or in applications much more
stringent than audio. We have never found an audio cable that needs burn
in. I feel I am safe in making that statement. Other than arguing
philosophically, do you have any evidence to refute what I said?

I can't help it if your array of measuring tools is short..you
have more work to do in this measurement arena..sorry!
Don't hint of imagination...get to work, rectify your tool set
incompleteness.

We have been able to measure frequency response effects that lead to
different amounts of sibilance since at least 1950's. Now we can measure
errors several orders of magnitude lower than we did then.


Granted we have been using cables for many moons...however, many
audio engineers have made appearances on some of these Newsgroups and
indicated that certain cables seemed best in certain
environments..therefore they used them!

You mean like 75-ohm cable should be used for S/PDIF connections? Or
that if you have high output impedance, you should use lower capacitance
cables? Sure, those make sense. But have you heard any audio engineer
acknowledge the existence of cable burn-in? And are you confusing an
electrical engineer with someone who does mastering or recording?

There are aspects of cables
in the audio environment that you cannot measure and one's only
recourse is to listen with the "final arbitrator" the ear!

Those aspects that you cannot measure are way below the threshold of
human hearing.


However, one that has the "answers" tends to "poo-poo" the ear and
the ear-brain construct...one cannot measure this yet, therefore let
us ridicule this process...speak of illogic! An admission that their
toolset is incomplete in this arena.

You know, it seems like you always have the questions to "poo-poo" the
science and engineering .


As to refuting what you say..that has been made clear already, I
hear sibiliance change, you do not, you cannot measure it,
therefore I cannot hear this (I'm merely imagining this).

Of course we can measure it. We make a frequency response measurement
before "burn-in" and after "burn-in". If there is sibilance change, it
will show up as a fairly major difference.

You are
unable to refute my logic in this matter..so be it.

Well, it's more like you refuse our attempts to refute your logic. But
it's up to you to believe whatever you want to.

In the
amplifier-room acoustics-air-etc-receptor(ear-brain)
environment...I hear the change...you cannot..and will not. May I
use your most powerful tool? You are imagining that the change in a
given cable interaction with an amplifier speaker combo does not
exist!

Of course, the difference between you and me is that I can back up my
claim with measurements, with theory, and you can't!


In fact, this is one of the rare forums where you actually get a good
answer for this kind of questions, so bring on more questions!

Hmmm...let me see..you do not hear something...therefore the
individual that does, is imagining it. Very scientific and an
extremely easy out.

No, again, you are cutting out the pertinent parts of my statement. My
statement applies to burn-in effects, when someone said after a certain
time, the sibilance goes away. I was not making a general statement on
other audible/non-auidible qualities of the cable. Please be careful
about what you are arguing against; it seems to me that you are erecting
strawmen.

Ahhh...ye ole "strawman"...seems like a term from over on that audio
newsgroup that represents all that is good about the world. (Humor
here)

Tell us more about this overwhelming method of
determining what the individual next to you is hearing or not
hearing?

See my response above.

Do temper those opinions that wire characteristics are fixed
forever!

Nothing in the cable will change over several days or weeks that will
lend to the sibilance going away. Of course, you can have corrosion in
the terminals that cause the sound to be different.

There is an assumption here that one is, at this point in time is
"measuring" all pertinent parameters...my comments about perhaps we
do not know what other parameters are there that we cannot measure.

The assumption that you have falsely made is that sibilance is something
we could not yet measure.


A certain level of Engineering never wants to admit that current
measuring processes to numericalize their world might not be
complete..thus my hint about the picture being incomplete in
understanding all particles and their interplay. If indeed one has
it all together with the current "know facts"..then so be it. This
interplay has reached an end!

It seems you still don't grasp the point of what we are saying. There
are things we do not understand, but there are also things we do
understand well. For example, the fact that we have unanswered questions
in particle physics does not mean that Ohms Law may not work, at the
level of accuracy that is necessary for audio.


Forever is a very long time. My answer was to what you posed, which was
that someone noticed the sibilance going away within a short time.


Also, do be aware that Particle physics study is showing us that we
do not understand or grasp, at this point in time, all the the
variables that any given organic component is subjected to...we are
not there yet.

It's one thing to say that there are things we do not understand. I
absolutely agree that there are a lot of things we do not understand.
It's another to say that since we do not understand everything, then we
must not know whether there is cable burn-in effect or not. The
extrapolation simply does not follow logically.

Missed the point: misconstrued the point: ad infinitum.
No one said we do not understand everything..logical?

Hmmm, you lost me there. Are you saying that I was wrong to say "we do
not understand everything"?


Follow this: we have not acheived perfection in our ability to
measure many aspects in many areas of human endeavor...try to
admit this and extrapolate as necessary.

Again, it does not require perfect measurement ability (whatever that
means to you) to measure response differences that lead to more or less
sibilance. Just like it does not require perfect measurement ability to
develop any and all of the wonderful electronic products that we use
daily and have come to depend on. Like a cellphone, or a PC. These
products are much more complex than audio cables.


For there to be a cable burn-in effect, there has to be (a) measureable
effects (which are more sensitive than human hearing) that indicate so,
or (b) controlled listening tests than indicate so. None of those has
ever come up.

What they are telling us is that we should not mistakenly plow
along thinking we have all the factors together yet. There is
interplay between particles that are understood..the variables of
this particle interplay is not understood. So rather than jumping to
an easy conclusion that "someone is imagining" something..therefore
it does not exist...perhaps, one should wait until more is known
about particle physics and its interplay with all things.

No, you have to show either (a) or (b) in my response above, which no
one has shown in over a hundred years. I would say that the chances are
someone doing that are between very slim and none.

The fact that we don't know everything does not mean that we have to
question everything. For instance, 1+1=2 is still true, whether we still
have gaping holes in our knowledge of particle physics or not.

A rather Scientific thing to
do. Wire being in an organic state

Please be careful with the words you use. How would you define organic?
You mean it's living and growing?

Sorry I used terms that confused you...Einstein and others have used
this term to generalize the categories of the makeup of our
environment ...but, it was a rather pale effort at humor..maybe?
Growing wires? However, as we learn to manipulate things on the most
basic particle level...who knows? Widen your horizons...this touches
on the very crux of my comments on current measuring techniques.

is subject to magnetics, RF,
gravitational issues and a lot of variables not fully inderstood..so
temper this urge to make statements about what another can or can't
detect.

But cable burn-in?

My point dealt with silibance...

Oh, so you were not talking about burn-in? But my statement that you
seem to have such a big issue with was regarding burn-in!

however, I don't deny that at
this point in time, cable characteristics tend to change in a
manner that alters audio somewhat.

"I don't deny" leaves many possibilities. Do you believe that there is
cable burn-in? I thought you were so sure that there was sibilance
change over a short time in your previous posts.

I understand you can't
measure this...yet. Enough of this "..if I can't measure
it...it doesn't exist". All cannot be viewed in a numerical
world at present. Grasp this!

Again, you are missing some of the major qualification. If I can't
measure frequency response changes using equipment that can reveal
frequency response errors several orders of magnitude more sensitive
than the ear, then the postulated sibilance change over a short time
simply was a figment of your imagination.


But, then if one has it all together and can use the ole "...you are
imagining that scenario.."

On cable burn-in, that is an absolutely correct statement. If you have
any evidence, please share with us.

then I must politely step back and
mumble..O.K.!! Awed with the Pseudo-Scientic insights that abound
within some Engineering thought processes!

I have to say I am equally awed with the pseudo-scientific insights that
abound outside of some engineering thought processes!


Leonard...

P.S. Note that over the years the Scientific disciplines tend to
root out the facts of the "real world" and pass this along
to the Engineering domain to utilize in its constructive
processes. However, when Engineering begins to reach back
into the Scientific domain and attempts to become
pseudo-scientist...we get into this easy "...you are
imagining this..." technique. Please, enough..wait intil
the Scientic domain works it way through all the issues in
the Particle theory. We are all involved in this
"Electro-Chemical-Organic" sphere. What we do not
"understand"...is grossly effecting us daily...The
Scientist will eventually unravel this.. Be patient. Do
attempt to gain something from the "Agnostic" thinking
processes and look at yourself in the mirror and honestly
state:

" I just don't know all the answers yet"

Hey, I can't help it if that means you don't know any answer!

Perhaps..you did not get the hint that "all is not known
about any process at this point in time".

Perhaps you didn't get the hint that there is also a lot that is known
about aduio reproduction, especially regarding how cables do not require
burn-in?

Newer and
more comprehensive measuring techniques will come
about...but, there is not much of a desire here to do
much more than to argue with the current array of tools
available. Perhaps this interplay has run its course,
as mentioned above. Sorry.


"Help me to know that "I don't know"
in the many spheres of human intellect".