Is burn-in real?

They didn’t get them all right and they differed from each other unless I’m reading it wrong.
I passed an exam once on multiple choice that I had no clue about.

Wow! you read very fast!

I admit this paper is too technical for me, but I am copy/pasting the conclusion from page 10:

4 CONCLUSIONS
High-end audio is a subject that is shrouded in controversy.
Aside from loudspeakers, consumers exhibit varying
degrees of skepticism as to what affects sonic performance.
The most contentious ingredient in the chain is the
interconnection between components, which concerns both
the topology (balanced versus single-ended) and the
characteristics of the cable itself. This work shows that two
system configurations differing only by the interconnect
pathway are audibly discernable, even by average listeners
with no special experience in music or audio.

This is another reason to buy a DSP Active system that is tuned to a sound you enjoy and get on with your life. Ditch al the lossy interconnects and stages.

The downside would be you don’t get the opportunity to component tweak if that is a part of the hobby you enjoy, the upside is (for me) you don’t need to.

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Reminds me of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal which assumes that if you can’t see it then it can’t see you.

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Well, it’s easy to agree that “it may exist” logically means the same as “it probably doesn’t”, but a scientific approach would be to examine the evidence and propose what’s probable. If the evidence “suggests that it may exist”, the scientific conclusion would in most fields be “there isn’t much reason to believe that”.

The only scientific fields I can think of that could accept “it may exist” as evidence that it does are some of the hard linguistic and constructivist/relativist fringe fields. However, they don’t think about engineering and audiophilia at all.

I read the paper because I’m interested in differences in cables.(thanks for the link)
But you need to read further to understand what’s going on here …

However, the electrical measurements conducted here indicate that noise levels may be one
determining factor of sonic performance. The measurements also show that characteristics such as resistance and frequency response, that naïve consumers may focus on, are irrelevant for distinguishing HEA interconnect cables.

In other words : the test subjects could only distinguish between the two interconnect cables because one of them had bad shielding and picked up RFI. They even measured it :

image

You know why only one cable picked up RFI and not the other one? He compared a $500 balanced XLR cable to a $50 unbalanced RCA cable :man_facepalming:

(A) Virtuoso higher-end (retail price ~$500 for 0.5 m) 0.5 m long balanced XLR-to-XLR cable with
polytetrafluoroethylene insulation
(B) a MonsterCable11 Interlink 400 entry-level (retail price ~$50 for 2 m)
2 m long RCA-to-RCA cable with polyethylene insulation

The noise could actually even come from the amp outputs, not the cable itself.

I mean, I’m no scientist but this “study” really seems flawed to me. He did not prove that cables make a sonic difference (assuming they’re both correctly shielded), he just proved that balanced XLR cables are better at removing noise and that noise levels indeed make a difference … which needed no proving since everybody knows this already.

Sorry long post :-p

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If you believe that we actually hear things differently, then this topic like so many others, will be endless without a resolution.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/0621/Enjoying_The_Music_Do_We_All_Hear_The_Same_Thing.htm

From the article: “People do hear what’s important to them, and audiophiles and music lovers are no exception. Whether it’s because our tastes and preferences affect what we hear or because what we hear affects our tastes and preferences, what we hear when we listen to music is – largely and assuming that it’s there in the music or the recording to begin with – what we listen for.”

And obviously for some people, endless pointless argumentation is important to them.

The only issue is that the scale of that graph extends into the area of MHz, which is where radio is broadcast. Humans can only hear up to c20kHz. Therefore, it’s inaudible and also irrelevant in the context of cables used in stereo equipment.

Look closer …

image

Although it is present in much smaller proportions than RFI, the audible-band (20
Hz – 22 kHz) noise levels for the two cables are somewhat closer but cable A is still better: with rms noise-power ratios of 1:1.42 (for unweighted band-pass) and 1:2.67 (for ITUR 468 weighting [47]–[48]).

I did. That first spike is at 100Khz.

Its called listening fatigue.

15-20 minutes is about the time many mix/mastering engineers may be looking to give their ears a rest for a couple of minutes so they don’t get used to the sound and start to miss issues.

Normally for us we are not listening to the same track on repeat of course so we don’t notice - change good as a rest in some ways etc…

Yep. Those humans in their twenties and below. Not many audiophiles among those. The common ‘I got a high resolving system and trick myself into bat-level hearing’ colleagues can be happy to hear as much as some 15kHz. Most even way less. :bat:

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My wife (bless her) hears strange interference in the 5333Hz range off axis and at maybe 5-6’ from the speakers…I’m a tad farther away may 6-7’ on axis and I hear nothing. Her ears are 5 years younger, and mine had a hard like working in DJ gigs in my 20’s. I’m now 61 and a hearing check a year or so pack put me in the 8.5-9k rolling off upwards of that. My engineering background puts me in the nice measurements apply bracket but cost, real life use and flexibility are probably higher up the requirements list when it comes to audio and video gear.

Regarding hearing abilities and age + your choice of hifi components

Ah yes, you’re correct. I read that as 10 kHz… my mistake. Well, anyways, that makes this study all the weirder.

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In my mid 20s, I could hear a 24kHz tone loud and clear. But, I sensed higher tones much higher, although I didn’t actually hear them. But, as to as resolving system, it has nothing to do about the highest frequencies as much as the midrange. Ahhh, the midrange, that is where the magic lives!

I remember being able to hear 19kHz super easily. About the frequency a classic CRT TV would emit during operation (drove my teacher crazy who wanted to prove me wrong).
And of course it’s the midrange where the music lives mostly. About IMHO it’s close to an educated guess that if the hearing degrades at the top frequency, it’s unlikely the overall hearing ability doesn’t (resolution) or even improve in another range.

My curve to combat 30 years of music biz wear and tear.

For portable listening I use my iPhone with a THX Onyx DAC dongle to send hi res signal to a pair Empire Ear Nemesis IEMs (that have a similar sound signature as the curve above - so they don’t need any eq) I heartily recommend these to the ‘older crowd’.