Well a true Audiophool does not plug their cables in.
It’s a well known fact that the best results are to be had by removing the plug and soldering the wires directly to the ring mains or dedicated line in my case.
Using silver solder only of course!
Now I like your thinking Bill, I think you are onto something.
Shall we call it “power cut paranoia?”
I’m still not sure about the theory here, of burn-in, that is. Suppose I turn off my equipment? Current is no longer flowing through the power cable. Do I have to start all over again when I turn the amp back on? Another 500 hours before the music is less “horrible”, as Douglas puts it?
Or is the mere fact that it remains connected to the wall socket enough? If power transmission was direct current, there would still be an electrical potential, wouldn’t there? But with alternating current so prevalent, would that continuously varying potential be sufficient to keep the cable from returning to its previous unsettled state? Or, without the flow of current, would it simply unsettle cable even more quickly, like tying one end of a rope to a stanchion, and then flicking the free end up and down over and over?
There are just so many questions in my mind about this. For instance, what if the cable comes pre-settled? Maybe the 500 hours is when the music sounds the way it’s supposed to sound, and the “horrible” sound is just that it’s bad music. Maybe after 500 hours of burn-in, the cable is worn out, grooves cut into it somehow by the continuous flow of electrons through it, and that’s why the sound changes. Maybe burned-in cables need to be scrapped and replaced?
Dear Douglas, I’m not just posting this for my amusement… Oh well, not completely. But if you’ve experienced a sonic change, can you please define what you think changed. I’m not asking for any description of the sound quality, but about what you think changed to or in the cable that makes a sonic difference?
Bill, please, isn’t it obvious that something is clearly putting these iron or silver particles/molecules at ease after 500 or 1000 hours. It also took my wife about that time to get at ease with my Quad ESL’s, so why would it be different for a silver molecule?
Please Bill, continue… This thread is becoming a favourite of me and my colleague scholars…
If your wife is anything like my lass it took her about 1000 hours of commenting to decide that no matter how much she objected the speakers were staying so gave up on the subject.
What?
A female giving up on something?
I have never met such a creature!
Hang onto that one she is special, which I am sure you already know by now though.
I appreciate the applications balanced connections were originally intended for - transmission of microphone signals in professional audio in demanding environments. I was just wondering whether XLR made its way into high-end home hifi initially as a marketing ploy?
Now, stuff isn’t considered real hi-fi unless it has balanced inputs/outputs.
Mine gave up on me… but that’s a whole other wave and a whole other ocean. 
It is entirely possible.
But I used very long balanced ic from preamp out to monoblock poweramps that were located right behind each speaker so my speaker cable run was then only approx 18".
I truly do not know if there would have been any sonic difference doing it the other way around ( long speaker/ short xlr ic) as I did not try it.
But that was the configuration recommended by the manufacturer of the poweramps to aid stability on heavy loads they said??
I was driving Maggie’s which are notoriously difficult to drive…on a regular integrated amp they shut down the power amp section on me more than once…lol.
Take that as you will.
Does it really make sense to fret about power cable quality until you have Fog Lifters installed?
I have heard similar recommendations. Speaker cable inductance and capacitance increases with length which can affect amplifier stability. Unless you’re using
really exotic cables, I suspect the long XLRs is probably less costly too.
That’s pretty special. Years ago I worked in a brewery where new starters were sent to the store to ask for “sky hooks” or “tartan paint”. If I still worked there I know what the next noob would be tasked with…
Snakiest of snake-oil claims made about those! Not surprising coming from Audioquest, though.
A “long stand”, a “bucket of steam” and a “left-handed screwdriver” were some of the favourites in my early days in the pulp and paper industry.
A glass hammer and a long weight were our standby charmers.
Wondering when somebody will come with the idea to reintroduce the DIN connector!
AFAIK, Naim still uses DIN connectors. I had an old B&O Beocenter 3500 years ago that had DIN connectors. Had to use DIN to RCA adapters with my tape deck and CD player 
I think there’s more to the story than the nature of the interconnects. There’s also the topology of the circuits you’re connecting. The Hypex nCore amplifier modules are a fully-balanced design, and balanced interconnects are much preferred [Edit: Whoops! I meant to link to this (see sections 9.4, 9.5) instead]. (That’s assuming, of course, that your input device also has a balanced design.)