Are these words supposed to mean something, or are you just flinging them against the wall, like spaghetti, to see what sticks?
What electrical property changes, and by how much?
Stop stringing together random words, in a vain attempt to sound “scientific,” and give me some numbers.
I am glad this thread has not been locked. Many points of views with opinions, information, etc…
Any other place, many would have been banned. Keep it up Roon!
IMO you sound like you are just making stuff up. What did you / do you do in ‘IT’.
I have an offer for you: I’ll take 8 Ethernet patch cables and I’ll burn in one for 96 hours with some traffic generation tools. I’ll label them a-h.
You can, fully sighted, no test administrator looking over your shoulder, any change interval (long or short as you like), take 30 days to evaluate.
I’ll post a password protected zip with the answer key. You’ll receive the password after you post: Which is the burned in cable.
Since you are maintaining that even digital cables use analog in it’s signalling.
If you put subjectivists in charge of medicine you would end up with homeopathy as the solution and endless arguments as to whether it works or not. 
If a claimed improvement takes a “minimum of 100 hours“ (Nordost) to take (full) effect, it doesn’t make sense to describe this improvement as “easy to notice“. Before-and-after comparisons are extremely unreliable if you have to remember what your audio system sounded like more than four days ago. Unfortunately, auditory memory is quite short-lived, especially when it comes to remembering sound quality. There’s a ton of literature on this subject matter!
Of course, it would make even less sense to (try and) keep listening the whole time (100+ hours!). Auditory habituation (=> the response to an auditory stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged exposure to that stimulus) is another well-researched phenomenon: Even if the “cable sound“ did gradually change during the burn-in period, the individual changes would be far too small for anyone to notice. “Watching grass grow“ (in real time) isn’t just boring, it’s simply impossible…
@HWZ, your post touches on something else that bothers me about some of the things discussed in this thread including the effect of Ethernet cables, routers, etc. It seems to me that while a lot of the suggested explanations for these sound differences might be true in principle, the magnitude of any resulting changes to the analog audio signal would be so small that they’re swamped by the variability and “unreliability” of our (human) hearing. There are so many other things inside our heads that can be affected by external stimuli completely unrelated to what an Ethernet cable or router is actually doing that our own hearing is not a reliable guide to whether it’s making any objective change to the signal.
So when someone asserts that changing an Ethernet switch or cable has made a noticeable difference to the sound of their system, I am naturally sceptical and tend to think the perceived change is more likely due to causes that are known to have more significant effects. Put another way, I think the person who reports this is jumping to an (expected) conclusion. To be confident that the effect is due to the stated cause, or at least distinguishable from placebo, I think one would have to do much more than informal, sighted listening. Which I’m sure is not a lot of fun: I understand why people resent being “asked” to do blind tests, etc. as this is supposed to be a hobby we do for enjoyment, not a research project. The fact remains, though, that those kind of approaches are what’s needed to properly sort the wheat from the chaff.
That’s not to say that I dismiss people’s reports of what they hear; on the contrary, that’s absolutely the important thing, for each of us individually. The problem is when these reports are generalised into assertions about what others will or should hear, and particularly when others are belittled for not believing or hearing something.
I suppose I’m arguing for a live-and-let-live approach which some might find a bit wishy-washy. But I’ve found it quite liberating – and something of a relief – to realise that my ears and brain are nowhere near reliable enough to “test” tweaks to my system. Instead I can just relax and enjoy listening to the music on the (good enough) system I already have.
I don’t think your approach is wish-washy at all. It’s very sensible IMHO.
You hit the nail on the head. Couldn’t have said it any better.
and that’s my plan too…as I said way back up the thread enjoy your system, as long as it pleases you that is all that matters.
@wizardofoz
I agree with you 100%. But I think your statement is beside the point. If somebody is happy with what his system sounds like, that’s perfectly okay, of course. However, if that same person tells others WHY his system sounds so good and does so on a thread like this, it’s also perfectly okay if we tell him why we agree or don’t agree with his explanations…
That.
If I walked into an audiophile’s house and noticed audiophile Ethernet cables and other tweaks, and the audiophile said “I realize the science is an open question but I just like having them” then I’d likely just smile and nod. But if that audiophile instead started recommending various tweaks and asserting differences, we’d have a conversation to have.
The point is, when you state your opinion publicly, you are inherently allowing for differing responses. The same way I understand that tweak believers will respond to this post.
Some tweaks work. Even some tweaks where skepticism was originally justified may work. I didn’t find a noticeable difference with bi-wiring. I did with bi-amping.
But where the believers are just begging for a response (despite what they say) is the use of quasi-science, technical words that sound good but really do not stand up to analysis. Never really address the math or science head-on. I see that above.
The idea of burn-in on a network cable is ridiculous, even when trying to maintain an open mind. While I do not believe a network cable should affect any properly functioning network, the ONE explanation for a difference could be shielding, some sort of electrical leakage, type of issue that ultimately gets to the ANALOG side of the DAC (as above, not in a properly functioning system) – burn-in would be 100% irrelevant to that. Burn-in isn’t going to improve insulation or break some sort of circuit.
I agree, we should keep an open mind. But someone said not so open that your brain falls out. But just in case you still don’t agree, this post needs a burn-in period of about 72 hours. In 3 days it will be really, really convincing.
Sometimes I have the impression, burn in is required, that you do not return the recently purchased product, because you hear no difference.
If burn in is so important, why are the products not sold burnt in?
Best so far…
And similarly… why do some products not get worse after burn in?
::irony on::
You could get the Gryphon Exorcist, to demagnetize your hifi system. That applies also to cables.
Since it only sends an analog signal, you can only use it for the analog part of your system.
But you could add this CD to your library:
The Sheffield/XLO Test & Burn-In CD
Then you have not only burnt in your cables, then you have them also demagnetized. Maybe it also demagnetizes the RAM of your roon core and your hard disk or your SSD.
If you stream this CD, you have also demagnetized your ISP line and your router.
:: irony off ::
I want to know when it is that products will burn out…nobody ever talks about this
Handy thing in yr tool kit but the real challenge in stainless screws. I’ve heard that ferrite cores can rob audio dynamics…can’t say I have tried it on data cables but have used them mains cables
Are you suggesting the burn-in period lasts longer that the return window? You cynic! Purveyors of boutique audio cables are never knowingly undersold. They stand by their products and can back up all their claims.
I was thinking the same thing … maybe we need to replace our cables and equipment every 18 months or so to avoid degradation of sound quality. Hi-Fi as a consumable, no need to scratch the itch.
