(via email)
The inconvenience of cable break-in:
Brand new cables require up to 400 hours to properly settle down sonically. This is a great inconvenience, requiring time and effort, as well as hours spent on your equipment before you can enjoy the full sonic potential of the cables you purchased. If you have tube equipment, this will also waste precious hours of tube life.The biggest problem is how to break-in speaker cables. It is necessary to run your power amplifier while at the same time playing the speakers loud, so that break-in can occur. This can be a great inconvenience to your ears as well as the family.
The solution! Introducing the Morrow Audio cable break-in service:
We provide, at a very reasonable price, a break-in service where we will break-in your cables for you. With this service you can avoid the “difficult to listen to” stage of break-in, providing a way for you to fully enjoy your cables once received.
If people are really stupid enough to pay to have their audio cables broken in, then I’m in the wrong business…
Break-in of cables is a very true fact. It is amazing how the original poster of this thread left out most of the web page, which explained the break-in process. Quality cables change sound over the first 100 or so hours. This is common knowledge among experienced audiophiles. We are sorry that some of the public are ignorant to this and that they feel it to be snake oil.
Audio Cable “Break In” Science or Psychological?
Perhaps “Morrow Audio” can explain the physical process which is supposed to occur during the “break-in process.” Also, can “Morrow Audio” point out any double blind tests demonstrating that anyone can tell the difference between new cables and supposedly broken-in cables?
I do not think one could tell the difference in swiching from a new cable to a broken in one. Only changing one cable brand to another can satisfy this dilemna. I could only hear a change in sound with a cable after a period of time listening to that newly installed cable after it had time to break-in. There is too much BS circulating the cable industry. Listen to an electrical engineer and he will school you on these issues. As an example, read thoughts made by Mr. D of Decware speakers on his website. He makes perfectly sane assessments of the audio industries practices. Also read the website of Transcendant Audio. Very informative.
Was this a double-blinded study?
If so called an audio professional think electrons “line up” in any way in a wire or have any formation at all, then I guess I must ask for my money back from my professor…
While you’re at it, you should get a refund from your English prof too.
Burn.
You and all the rest of these “audiophiles” are for the most part morons using subjective emotional evidence in lieu of actual hard evidence. It amazes me the confidence with which most of you speak about electromagnetic phenomenon when most of you have not taken classes or done your own research on how signals actually propagate in a transmission line. Can you even name the 4 main parameters that govern losses in a transmission line? I doubt it. Until you can actually give me measurements using a DMM, not your ears, that proves that the structure of the conductors (or even more moronically the dielectric) changes with even 2000 hours of typical levels of current running through, keep your mouth shut.
If you believe it sounds better it does sound better and if all audiophiles need is a scientific sounding premise, to listen for things they might otherwise not, then this is what is meant by “value added” The point isn’t whether or not there is some quantifiable improvement in sound, it’s whether the manufacturer can make the consumer believe it. These are products after all, and the point is to sell them, not win a Nobel prize in physics.
How much did you pay for your last pair of running shoes?
Good comment, Darrel. The field of psychoacoustics is fascinating in and of itself. I am one of those who believes there are discernible changes over time that can be attributable to such things as my solid state amp reaching full operating temp during a listening session (I have “observed” this many, many times), or my newest speakers being worked-out and broken in over time such that they are more responsive to the electrical signals being fed them, and even small changes in the “sound” of a fully broken-in cable. I openly admit there are differing levels of my own assuredness in “believing in” various electromechanical reasons for these very different phenomena. For example, I feel more assured about the concept of a speaker surround breaking-in and thus allowing the driver to become more responsive to the electrical signals over time than, say, the idea of a speaker cable “breaking-in” and sounding different over time. So I have my own biases, some I believe based more firmly in clearly understood science than others. But what matters, in the end, is much as you say the net effect realized by the listener, whether it is simply because something induces him/her to “try harder” to listen more closely, or to simply “believe” they are hearing a change. It’s a very interesting topic, made even more complex by the fact that no two people likely “hear and listen” exactly the same.
This is true. not snake oil. And yes, some audiophiles are quite stupid. I’ve met them.
BULL SHIT YOU IDIOT!
you are so stupid.
You are a giant, and I mean GIANT….fag.
No they don’t, you gullible fool!
Ah, I just noticed you’re an audiophool bullshitter, selling snake oil to other gullible phools.
Carry on.
Just look at the testimonial…
TESTIMONIAL
“The Morrow Audio SP3s (out of the box) sounded compressed, muted and lacking in both frequency extremes. The transient attacks on instruments were diminished and the overall tonality was thin.
It’s difficult to write this without making it sound like the SP3 cables sound bad without the break-in service. I wouldn’t say they sounded “bad”, it was just that I didn’t have the patience to wait and see if they would sound better than the much more expensive cables I was using.
After mailing in the cables for the break-in service, and receiving them back, the cables sounded much more full-bodied with good transient peformance, and a very natural midrange and good response at the frequency extremes. The break in service provided a huge sonic improvement.” Marc A.
Are we to presume that “Morrow Audio” can’t explain physical process which is supposed to occur during the “break-in process” or provide references to any double blind experiments demonstrating that anyone can tell the difference between new cables and supposedly broken-in cables?
For one thing, a system needs to be up to the task for one to hear the sonic differences as any wire, capacitor, resistor, tube, resistor, transformer etc…breaks in. A real audiophile with a descent system can hear the sonics change in any new piece of equipment and all wire is part of this equipment. You are not stupid but you may lack the system I describe. Electrons are continuously crashing into one another as they pass through your system and the faster they get through without bumping into each other very hard the better. The molecular structure of equipment will move as the break-in process occurs. This will change the sound as the pattern changes. This also happens when your system is cold and starts to warm up. Electrons flow much easier through a warmed up component which to me is just common sense.
Now when you talk about cable geometry, skin effect, capacitance and inductance you come into a whole different world when it comes to the signature sound of that wire. Also, when breaking a cable in you do not want that cable to move if possible. Even after break in you do not want to move your cables around very often. Just keep it to a minimum if possible. The more they sit in that one position the better.
Cheers!
Electrons flow much easier through a warmed up component which to me is just common sense
For a metal (if we’re talking about speaker wire), resistance increases with temperature.
Bravo Jac. I guess Morrow Audio and Pac forgot to take Chemistry in high school. In case their ignorance make them feel like they are God. Here is the fundamental of thermal resistance.
“The mechanism of metallic resistance : as temperature increases the thermal vibrations in the lattice increase causing more electron scattering therefore more collisions will take place, slowing down the electron flow. This increases the rate of transfer of electrical energy by heating and increases the electrical resistance. ”
At least the above theory has been proved and any one who has some basic chemistry fundamental would know it.
Have you got any real idea the structure and scale of an atom, and how they conduct electricity?
Wow, the level of idiocy here is staggering. Breaking in wires. Who’da thought anyone could fall for that?
Wow..sounds to me that anonymous is one of those musicians that can’t hear anything..or an electrical engineer who has all the answers..put your i-pod back in your mono ears
It’s funny how only the ultra expensive cables need breaking in and not the cheaper ones. Also, if there was a noticeable difference in sound between cables that had been ‘broken in’ and ones that had not, then why does the anecdotal evidence evince only positive feedback? Surely there would be some people who felt that the change in sound was negative, wouldn’t there? Just sayin…..
It seems like there a big problem here that isn’t addressed. That being the inconsistency of medium that transports the audio to your ear drum. Maybe they should offer a service that replaces the air(a mix of gases, water vapor and particulate matter) in your house with a “pure” medium. You could sell cannisters of radon gas for that extra rich bass tone or pure hydrogen for incredible treble tone.
LOL
Ha ha.
Visions of audiophiles sitting there with breathing apparatus!!
I guess Audio Cable Scams wants this whole world to be stupid so he can suck their blood easier. Let me tell you this. We are living in a digital age society, where internet, cell phones, GPS, satellites, etc. are everywhere. We are not living in stone age or under North Korea communist control society.
Reading this entire thread, makes me amused. Whether a break in service is useful, (or not) is irrelevant. I do own a system as one of the responders has mention which has the resolving power for me to notice every change within my system. If I change an interconnect it can be heard immediately, if I switch speaker cables I can hear the sonic differences now; I will attest to this fact and several of my friends who I have put through this listening test process comparing Transparent Audio cables and Morrow Audio cables…hands down for cables which retail for the same amount from both companies, the Morrow cables definitively reveal how quiet my system truly is. The difference is jaw dropping and it makes me want to replace every cable in my system with Morrows’ cabling solutions just to see how much more I might get out of my system, but for now I only have their speaker cables and the difference is huge, you just want to hear all your music just to discover all the nuances that are going to be revealed, it is inevitable everything will be improved. Remember, just like GPS is a science that is well thought out, cable design and materials used is a science that is well thought out and implemented across this industry.
GPS is not a science. As things go, Boy Scouts do the same thing a compass as a GPS do with satellites.
Hey i see that you mentioned Transparent Audio cables, did you have those and change them for the Morrow? iam in the process of buying Transparent audio or Morrow Audio, any comments on this please?
>Best
How can you people possibly believe that such toys would really improve your sound? Just think about recording sessions, mixing studios etc. Why do you think sound engineers choose not to use broken in cables to transport signal from the booth to the mixing desk? Worse : thoses cables are always lying on the floor without any out-of-price little pieces of wood lifting them away from the floor!
Sound engineers never use audiophile crap because they studied the signal flow and the acoustics and trust me, if improvements in sound quality could be done with this, they would use it! But there isn’t anything scientifical that says “broken in cables are better”.
Now think about your system, do you really think that your 1.5, maybe 3 meters long broken in speaker cables will improve the quality of a sound that was recorded & mixed through maybe 20 meters or more (depending on the studio config) of home made cables lying on the floor? (Yes, most of the sound engineers solder their cables themselves to get them at the very right length)
It doesn’t matter what cables, etc. the recording engineers are using – they have mixers, eq’s, etc. to where they can manipulate the sound. That is why they don’t care about acoustics, sound treatment, etc. it is mostly artificial because it is altered. Now the cable break in is real. Why do you think at audio shows the majority of equipment is powered up and ran constantly days before it is opened to the public. For all you non-believers and nay sayers go to http://www.cardas.com There you will find your explanation of wire break-in from another individual who makes high end cables.
If ANY of you nay sayers and non-believers really want to learn what happens when audio cable “bur-in”, then go to http://www.cardas.com and read what George Cardas has learned through many, many hours of listening and designing can only achieve!…..He is the True Guru of Cable Design!
so funny…all of this.
quality parts yield better results- my system is middle of the road by ap standards. 5k speakers ect, but it sounds fantastic to me. BTW, so does my boston acoustics clock radio. If it makes your foot tap then it’s good. I have no problem with companies trying to come up with all kinds of ways to upsell. That’s life. If you want to believe that those little rocks make a difference then go for it. If it makes you happy it’s cool. Their is certainly a science to proper layout when building electronics and this does have an effect of the sound. It does not say that it is better than someone elses version, it’s just different. Wire can only be extruded a certain way. Weaving geometry effects the way the wire reacts, but I bet .75 per foot ofc sounds great on magico q5 speakers because the speakers sound great to begin with. Go spend $500-$5000 on wires if it makes you happy. I bet $100-$200 on speaker cables yields great results regardless of brand. The only difference is that AQ and other companies spend tons on marketing to people who want to be sold. Who do you think pays for thoses ads??? If you went to their factory, you would not find people in white lab coats building your wire. You wouold likely find guys in a warehouse making minimum wage, just like an auto mechanic. The front office with their marketing departments would be nice and clean.How many wires do you think a company can sell to a market the size of a pimple. Most people buy their stereo’s at best buy. Do you think they are spending even $100 on wires. Thats why companies promoting high end have to charge so much. It’s a business that must make a profit to survive. So silly to argue about this stuff. Spend more time discovering great music because that’s what this is all about. Robert Johnson sounds like crap whether it’s played on a 100k system or not, but it’s great to listen to.
Well said man. It’s the music. Would it matter if you’re plugging your MP3 player into a tube amp? Don’t laugh. They make those. Vuum tube ipod dock. I kid you not.
I think that you all are a bunch of idiots, spend more time honing your listening skills and your systems and less running your mouths you all might learn something !
I consider myself as one of the smartest people I have ever met…….. I am so sick of all of those acronym geniuses .
It’s time to start an audiophile product. No need to prove your science. No need to ask why people buy this stuff. Just make up the technology. The fact is that People who have far too much disposable income will buy into this garbage and who are we to deny them product? I produce a liquid hydrogen cooled AC cable made of solid copper that not only deals with the resistance issue as specified above but you will find a noticeable increase in the effectiveness of your tweeters. Also your woofer will suffer less fatigue and you’ll find considerably less distortion in the bass frequencies.
Don’t get excited. Yes, I am joking.
I make less than 40k a year so your “theory” of excess money is shot to hell, hue and the break in is real. I got a set of Morrow MA-1 interconnects and within 25 hours the sound was terrible – sounded like one of those under cabinet radios! Clean out your ears and buy a real system, not something bought over the counter and you will hear a huge difference!
Can wildeman explain the “science” behind break in? Can wildeman reference any studies showing the effects he’s claiming are real and a result of some physical process and not merely psychological?
I haven’t thought I will continue reading up to the last post in this thread…but I did, still I think that 70% of the posts here were made by bored pseudo-science-maniacs wanting to show off with their conservative approach regardless to scientific limitations. Science is all, but do we know all aspects of science now, has everything had been discovered yet? Why do we make it so confusing, lets just say that all vocalist sing the same, as the voice is produced by the same body part and goes out the same way. People are the same, so the rule applies. Lets make it simple. lol I am an 100% atheist, I believe in what I see and hear, and from what I have read, I must hear much f***ing more than YOU assholes, but you won’t believe because my name is not JESUS CHRIST !!!
I think some people just have paranormal abilities and they really can determine cables and also colour of your pants. But it’s not about sound and you will not notice it until go mad.
Age old argument. I’m an engineer, but I also know what I can hear. I don’t know about paying for a cable break-in service, but I do know that I have noted significant changes over time in my personal audio system as I have installed new components, one at a time, and listened to extremely familiar recordings at different periods during “break-in” of the new equipment. The biggest changes I’ve heard have occurred as new speaker systems break-in, which is fairly easily explained from a mechanical standpoint although I also personally believe there are electrical break-in aspects involved as well, depending on the configuration and complexity of the driver crossovers, etc. I have also experienced significant differences in the sounds of my system as a direct result of installing new amplifiers, preamplifiers, and ESPECIALLY “CD players” as advances in digital-to-analog converters and in control of the bit stream (i.e., especially jitter reduction) have taken place. And I assure you, there are audible differences among cables, although in my opinion it takes very above-ordinary equipment, and significant differences in the design and construction of the cabling and connectors, to realize most differences. I do believe the magnitude of audible differences is often quite overblown by manufacturers, but what would you expect? They have products to sell. No different than any other really competitive industry. You non-believers can go about your merry way, and that’s fine. I know what I’ve heard.
It is said that the one who has an argument cannot hold water to one who has had the experience that the the other is trying to says does not exist. The one who has had the “experience” knows the foolishness of the accuser, yet has sympathy for this ignorant one.
To all those who say cable breakin does not exist…it DOES exist. All your theories do not hold water to those of us who have experienced it! Get your head out of the science books. Go get some cables and try it out. Then you will throw away your books and un-founded knowledge and become a believer…
If cable “breakin” does exist, it should be relatively simple to demonstrate it with a double blind study.
+1 @ Jac and others.
This thread has multiple calls for evidence, obtained from properly conducted double blind tests. Yet all we hear from “Mike Morrow” and the other Morrow fanbois is pseudo-scientific bluster, punctuated with insults.
Read this… Should stop all this foolishness!
This “review” or commentary is a little premature, but I no longer wanted to wait to post something. The reason this is a bit premature is that I’m waiting on a new DAC, an Eastern Electric MiniMax Plus, and I’m without a DAC at the moment. Actually I’ve been without a DAC now for over a month. I’ve been using the analog outs of a Squeezebox Touch with the Soundcheck software mods and a cheap $20.00 Jerome linear power supply. The reason I’m posting this a bit prematurely is that the sound I have is unbelievably great, and I’m crediting the Morrow Audio interconnects as a large part what’s making the sound so great.
I’ve been working my way through various interconnects and landed on some that I think are really great. They have bested anything I’ve tried to date, and I’ve installed them in some of my friend’s setups only to have them realize what they’ve been missing. I don’t want to say what those are until I can make a final assessment and pick a clear winner, but I think I already know the winner.
A friend and I have been sharing our cable journeys for well over a year now. This has mostly included interconnects (IC’s), but speaker cables have been in there as well. Some months back, he landed on Morrow Audio cables and stayed there. Over these months, he’s been describing the sound he has and I realized that he was describing what I wanted. So I called Mike Morrow, and after a 15 minute conversation, I ordered 2 pairs of MA2 IC’s. The MA2’s are on the lower end of Morrow’s IC offerings, but with the 60 day trial period, I figured I’d give them a try.
I received the IC’s about 3-1/2 weeks ago. As soon as I installed them, I could tell they had some great qualities as well as some qualities I was looking for and didn’t have. But I could also hear that they didn’t really sound very balanced. Basically the overall sound wasn’t right. I knew going in that Morrow cables had to be broken in. So I set out to finally hear a cable break in for the first time.
It was about day 3 of running the cables 24/7 that I realized I couldn’t listen to them any longer. The treble was peaky sounding, and the overall sound really lacked weight. It was almost awful to listen to, so I took my friend’s advise and connected them to my DVR box that runs 24/7 anyway to break the cables in. There was no doubt in my mind that the cables were changing a lot, and certainly not for the better.
As the hours past, I pulled them off the DVR and put them into my setup for a listen. I was using one pair between the Touch and preamp, and the other pair from my preamp to my monoblock amps. Listening at between 100-300 hours showed the cables were changing, but still not listenable to remain in my setup. What I mostly heard was the treble changing it’s peaky sound, the midrange seemingly sounding muffled, and the overall weight just sounding anemic.
I pulled the Morrow’s off my DVR box at about 312 hours for the last time (a Saturday morning). My intention was to get the to about 400 hours in my setup and make my final judgments on them. I listened to them at about 312 hours and found that the treble had really settled down, but I could still hear a sort of muffled midrange and the weight was still too light. I was almost certain they were going back to Mike Morrow.
I listened the rest of that weekend and while liking some things, I was growing more and more certain they were going to get returned. My friend wanted me to get them to at least 400 hours before giving up, so that was the plan. I wanted them fully broken in for my new DAC’s arrival, at which time I was going to make my final decision as to whether they’d beat my favorite IC’s or not.
I flipped my system on that Monday after work, and the sound seemed to have changed tremendously. I don’t know if I’m nuts or not, but the change in sound was far from subtle. The treble now had no peaky sound at all, the midrange was super clear, and the overall weight seemed just about perfect. It was like I changed out the cables to something else.
I’m going to state that I don’t think the cables have changed at all since that Mondy night. It’s now a week and half later, and I’d still state they haven’t changed since that night. So I am now a firm believer that cables can break in, because I clearly just lived through it.
So how do they sound? Easily the best IC’s I’ve ever heard, period. I am shocked every day at what I hear with these Morrow IC’s installed. I may actually have the best sound I’ve ever had and my source is a the analog outs of a Touch! I purchased a Touch when they first came out because I thought it sounded bad, and that was when it was feeding my favorite DAC to date, a modified Music Hall 25.2.
The Morrow MA2’s are so unbelievably clear sounding, I can’t believe it. This is the reason I liked my current favorite IC, and I didn’t know it could get any better. I believe it’s this clarity that allows for a wide and deep sound stage with great separation. Every instrument or vocalist is precisely placed in the sound stage and the micro detail that comes through truly makes the music come alive. But the Morrow’s take this to a whole new level. With the Morrow’s I get a great sense of space. It’s as if I can paint a very accurate mental image of the room or space the recording was made in. I can’t begin to explain what this does for the music. I feel like I can hear every little detail, and that detail sounds very accurate and coherent. The sound is very balanced with great extension in the treble and bass. I’ve never heard better.
From my cable journey, it seems like the magic comes from cables that provide exceptional clarity, have great micro detail, sound very balanced (meaning the treble is not bright and the midrange and bass aren’t bloated), and carry the proper weight and timbre. The Morrow MA2’s seem to have all of these qualities. And all of this is coming from a source that I’d call very questionable. It doesn’t matter what I play either, these cables seem to be as forgiving as they are revealing and accurate. I haven’t come up with a single complaint for the last week and half.
I cannot believe there is so little discussion about Morrow cables on AC. I see some have them, but they never would have hit my radar screen if it wasn’t for my friend. I will be trying more cable from Morrow Audio and I intend to upgrade the IC’s to the next levels to find out if there is even more I may be missing. These IC’s have really changed the sound of my setup to a level that I didn’t realize I could have. I’m very hopeful the addition of my new DAC only makes things better, but I don’t honestly know what could be better at this point. I can’t wait to find out!
A single anecdotal story is far from convincing.
bender is great
It’s more about the journey than the destination! Lol
I am guessing from this thread that the majority of non-believers have zero ability to differentiate good sound from crap. Suspect they just buy the disposable rubbish from Best Buy or a similar crap market. I recently purchased some Morrow MA 1.1 IC’s for a new NAD 565BEE CD player that I added to my 30 year old (original owner) NAD 7150 Receiver, playing through newer Pardigm speakers. I immediately heard the change with the new cables. I also was somewhat skeptical of the break in period, but I’m here to tell ya’ there IS a noticeable difference. I’m probably only at the 100+ hour mark, but as a wise Beatle once said, “It’s getting better everyday”. NAD is not the epitome of high end, but they do make some nice equipment, and the Morrow IC’s really made my old system sing once again. Use your ears people, they don’t lie.
Oh my god. You are SUCH a fag. You are a perfect example of why I hate audiophiles. Every single time someone even remotely comes close to talking bad about your precious audio quality you go into a spill about how that person can’t discern quality audio over garbage, and then proceed to mention your SL345060S with HD-53000 cables and BLA BLA BLA. The guy below is even worse, talking about how the brand that he knows the average consumer thinks is good is so bad (bose). Every single audiophile is white and types in perfect grammar, which makes them even worse and even more bitchy on top of how ridiculously snobby they are. They are basically the worst people ever. I have been through tons of speaker systems ranging in price, and there’s a difference, but I don’t analyze every aspect of it and spend thousands on something that’s supposedly the best, because I’m not a douche.
Really? Wow… Nice vocab, your mother must be proud. If you buy quality products to start with, you won’t be going through ‘tons of speaker systems’… Take your time and buy wisely. I’m still using a 30 year old pair of B&W’s for my home theater fronts, still beat most of what’s available out there today. I recently changed my music systems speaker to some new KEF’s with Morrow Audio SP3 speaker cables, the sound is incredible. So Chris, keep buying your ‘tons of speaker systems’ and maybe one day you might get it right, douche (oh that’s your word, sorry).
Keep calling people derogatory names…that’s brilliant. Go fire up your Onkyo receiver and relax to some music.
Let’s face it.
Most of your “audio” experience comes from the Tannoy System that you hear from the bus-station toilets – where you earn a living.
Its amazing how worked up the skeptics can get. I bet most of them have Bose systems or worse (if possible). Cable break in is real, and has been subjectively verified by many people,cable manufacturers and customers alike. If you dont believe it , fine,but dont throw your ignorance around with snotty insults. Have you ever seen the wind? The basic truth is ,subtle changes require a system that is capable of resolving them, as well as an experienced listener that can discern them. Chateau Mouton and Yellow Tail are both made from the same type of grape, so according to the logic of some engineers, they should be the same. Life is short,play nice…
Ah, the perfect example of an Ad hominem. The only worse type of argument is name-calling, and you wouldn’t stoop to that, I’m sure.
I think you’ll find that the sceptics are people who know what they talking about and not halfwits who havent got a clue about how any of the claims that they make about cable break in or any other highly unlikely effect can possibly occur.
No reputable cable manufacturer is going to touch any of the bullshit about cable break in with a bargepole.
Strangely enough the people who are sceptics are the people who understand how audio recording and playback actually works.
Audofools and their assorted hangers on are just dimwits who want to be able to claim that they have golden ears
Chris, you sure sound like a douche.
“.. every single audiophile is white and types in perfect grammar… ” Are you jealous or just a douche bag racist? Time for some fresh panties,I think you’re getting cranky from a rash….
Good job, winoguy. You have managed to sink to the bottom of the argument hierarchy. The only think lower is cursing and swearing, and you wouldn’t stoop to that, I’m sure.
I wasn’t the one that started with the name calling,but Im sure you couldn’t be bothered to read the whole exchange. Just cherry-pick and pontificate. Why don’t you add something to the subject at hand? You smell like a troll…
Tp prove that audiofools are really not this stupid, all they have to do is to measure and document the changes that they claim to hear using an oscilloscope, but of course they wont because its against their religion to measure anything, measuring stuff is going to show them to be talking out of their arses.
Jizz,
you really are starting to sound like the fool. Everything can be determined by the measurement of a ‘scope? Really? Hearing ( listening) is very subjective, just because YOU cant hear something doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Perception and aural interpretation are not always measureable. Why does it bother you so much how other people spend their money? Be happy that you find your Bose radio as the holy grail.
Oh noes the cry of the lesser heard audio nut, “if you believe it then you’ll hear it” audio of course being completely different to any other form of engineering. complete which magical effects which cannot be explained or measured.
Anyway you are clearly a halfwit obsessed with whether or not I have a bose radio.
Dealing with people as stupid as yourself isnt good.
Well, I used some old 2.5 sq mm T&E mains cable for my speakers. Prior to being used as audio cable, It had 240 VAC mains across it for many years, with currents up to 32A.
The sound was great!
Mind you, this could have had something to do with the Quad 405 current dumping amplifier and the Tannoy 15″ Monitor Gold speakers though?
😉
This is simple and has been stated many times before cable break in can occur weather you can hear the difference is not so.
Now with audio you will find that it is a system not a component this means you have to think about it as a whole. So think you have a new amp new speakers with new crossovers which all have NEW capacitors WHICH AGE WITH USE…… Now you add a wire into the equation it acts as a capacitor it does have resistance yes but so does the whole circuit remember the system as a whole statement. Now were thinking so now we understand that electronics wear with use witch is why most amps over 20 years old have been refurbished.
But to be specific to the topic degradation of copper is real if you had a sine wave running through a cable for thousands of years it would slowly eat the copper away. This is a scientific fact as electrons flow they degrade the substrate they make up. Just like the sun shining on your skin bombarding you with ultra violet a sine wave of 10 khz is radiation. Now think about the thickness of the wire what would be the wave ratio to diameter of the wire the lower the ratio the faster the degradation. Imagine if you were to make a ultra high frequency of say 10 million hz which is in the gamma spectrum you would melt the wire because the energy needed to flow a gamma freq is immense.
Ok so we now understand that our amps have some grunt and do affect the matter the in contact with which should be obvious to any educated person. Would it have a effect on what you hear it would but by a margin that is not worth paying for your amp is going to change sound over time and effect the sound more then the wire. I have just been upgrading my system and researching audio gear I came here due to me about to buy a morrow ma-1 which I find is a better prospect than paying $300 for other interconnects. Yes morrow make $1200 interconnects which I believe is not worth the cost so do many other companies some go upto $9000 but I believe a $50 investment is worth the potential sound gain I still do not believe paying for a cable break in is worth the extra cost for a bees dick of improvement.
To finish it is you’re money do with it what you please but get educated on audio you may infact find you will put that extra money towards better gear like pre amps and good DACs.
“…degradation of copper is real if you had a sine wave running through a cable for thousands of years it would slowly eat the copper away.”
What on earth have you been smoking? Explain this “eating away“? The electrons are replaced by other electrons. That’s how current flows. And in alternating current, first they flow in one direction and then in the other! That is how AC works!
Granted, cables will degrade due to oxidisation or due to mechanical stresses. But a static speaker cable, running at far below its rated current capacity, at room temperature (circa 20 celsius) – so it does not overheat, and covered in PVC insulation – so that it cannot oxidise, is not going to degrade just by passing a sinusoidal current through it!
Mind you, you might have struck upon a great new scam for the folks in Morrow-Morrow-Land to add to their repertoire. I can see it now…
“Replace your worn-out speaker cables now! You might not realise it but all those naughty wiggly-amps from your favourite music causes all the copper electrons to fall out of the ends of your speaker cables, causing them to sound limp and lifeless. But for only $1499.00 a pair (I kid you not!) you can treat your beloved Hi-Fi to a brand new pair of Morrow SP7 Grand Reference speaker cables. Of course, for best performance, speaker cables should be broken-in for 280 hours. Between 50 and 100 hours you will experience the “difficult stage” of the break-in process. The sonic potential of the cable drops to 50% (again folks, I kid you not – this is actually what Morrow claims on his site). But take up this fabulous offer and Mike will break them in for you fully for only another $25!”
Of course this is only for the 2-metre length cables. For those not familiar with the metric system, that’s just 6 feet 6 inches. The 10-metre ones will cost you a staggering $7,920.80 a pair, and that’s before shipping and taxes! So don’t even think about going quadraphonic! 😉
http://www.morrowaudio.com/speakercables.htm
http://www.morrowaudio.com/cablebreakin.htm
Sorry to disillusion the Morrow faithful, but this is complete and utter bollocks!
These audiophiles do talk some utter crap,I work on the design of broadcast and recording mixing desks, and guess what? The audio in studios is transmitted down cat5 cable in a 100 bits per second serial bit stream that looks a lot like Ethernet, you hang around recording studios talking audiophile crap you would get laughed out the door.cat5 cable costs £5 per meter not £13000 per meter.
Learn to love the music boys,not what your equipment sounds like
If you are stupid enough to think that paying 100 grand for an audio system is going to make the recording sound better than when it left the studio then you really do have some problems
Stop wanking overyour speaker cables and play some hendrix
Jimi recorded at mainly Olympic and the Record Plant , before building Electric lady studios.
All 3 were state of the art installations.
Between himself and Eddie Kramer , I don’t believe there were another two people in the whole music industry , that were more obsessed with sound-quality and presence.
What they did with two four-tracks was unbelievable.
The Wally Heider recordings (Red House SAN Diego sports arena) were another example of fine recording , for their day.
Plenty of bootlegs around , recorded on crap equipment – but the real deals were sonic masterpieces.
Oh by the way, normal people don’t have ‘listening sessions’ normal people put on some sounds they like and listen to the music
And yes audiophiles are this stupid, they have little or no understanding of the systems they obsess about, which in turn allows charlatans to rip them off
Wow Jizzmess,you sound like an angry little boy with tiny penis complex. It took you 5 posts to spew all that ignorance? You work at a place that builds mixers? Wow,so I guess that makes you an expert. What do you do, make the coffee? Empty the trash? So youve been in every studio in the world and they all use cat 5 cable? Really? I can assure you that there are some very expensive cables being used in many/most of the better recording studios. And who said audiophiles are trying to ” make the sound better than when it left the studio” ? The goal is to replicate the sound as faithfully as possible,not change it. Have you ever heard a very good high end system? Im sure you havent,so why dont you go back on the video game websites and play with the rest of the angry blood and guts juveniles.
Noo I just design the mixing desks-; we use AES3 as do most studios
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AES3
you are a very silly little boy micky.
Im sure you are aware that many recordings are still done all analog?
You’ve never heard an analog Neve console then?
One that has been a stable installation for a few months.
The difference between day 1 and day 100 is marked.
Start moving cables around , and it generally takes a few days to settle down again.
I too work on design , but my chosen field is inter-stellar space-probes , and Terra-orbit space-station tech. The office I work in always needs the photo-copier filling up with paper , or a fresh pot of coffee – and this is where I come in. My company’s wiki-page didn’t mention me personally – but this fits in well with my overly modest , and giving outlook. But I know full well , that without me – the latest Mars mission wouldn’t have got off the ground.
“And yes audiophiles are this stupid, they have little or no understanding of the systems they obsess about, which in turn allows charlatans to rip them off”
As somebody who knows fact from lack of understanding that said it all. Most “Audiophiles” are stupid at best..
Certainly seems to be a lot of unnecessary name-calling in this thread, and a fair amount of hyperbole as well. In my experience, these sorts of degenerative discussions accomplish nothing, and if you really had anything at all to contribute….anything at all….you would not find it necessary to descend into the abyss of pointless insults. Meanwhile, I look forward to my next invigorating listening session, and my next two-wheeled rip on asphalt. Both are great ways to clear the air of verbal detritus.
All these audiophiles with their golden ears do is blather about ‘listening sessions’ which is short hand for masturbating over how much they spent on the latest snake oil.
They will not ever under any circumstances allow their precious 50 grand cables be tested against a bog standard cable because they know that they are deeply ignorant of the mechanisms which they claim exist, they have no rational explanation for any of the effects that they claim to be able to hear and the rely entirely on listener expectation and blind stupidity.
Well, I suppose I should be offended by being lumped in with some amorphous group of people who you seem to believe are equivalent to self-diddling versions of the Borg, but I actually understand your viewpoint. I have a total of around $700 invested in ALL of my cables and interconnects, I can afford to spend a LOT more, and I have used various over-the-counter cable varieties through the years. There is no way in hell I would ever spend the equivalent of a new motorcycle (or car!) to pursue the connection of one audio component to another. Nonetheless, so what? There IS an art to listening that many people will never understand, and that’s fine. To each his own. I simply don’t understand why people such as yourself can allow yourselves to get so worked up over how other people want to spend their money. Who cares? And why should you?
I care because its people like yourself who allow the charlatans to keep trading on peoples ignorance, It would be perfectly possible for me to sell a painted house brick to these fools and tell them that if they cannot tell the difference that it makes to their system then they are simply not listening hard enough, but I don’t do that because I am not in the business of trading on other peoples stupidity.
If i told them that it was a cyrogenically treated house brick which worked through quantum entanglement then I would be squished in the rush to buy them.
£75500 to you sir. its a bargain.
So please expalin to me how it is that I “allow” anyone to keep trading on anything? If they are indeed as stupid as you say, then all else is moot, is it not? Or is it your mission in life to protect everyone from their own unfortunate genetic make-up? How very noble of you.
You allow it by saying that people who cannot hear any difference are not listening hard enough, its the old emperors new clothes syndrome, ‘are you good enough to hear what i tell you to hear?’
And I object to the audiophiles criticism of anyone who knows anything about electronics or engineering in general who tries to explain to them that that is simply no known mechanism by which any of the claimed effects can occur, and I object to the way that anyone who works in electronics engineering and says that nobody has ever seen any of the claimed effects in any other branch of electronics gets dismissed as being just another electronics engineer.
Well I think perhaps you have attributed more to me in the assertions I have made than what may really have been the case. And you have certainly assigned more power to influence behavior than can possibly exist due to my own little beliefs system. I have clearly stated I have varying levels of self-assuredness in what it is I believe I am able to perceive. I am an engineer myself, and tend to be the type who wants to look someone in the eye and say “prove it.” I believe very deeply in the value of knowledge and experience, and I live a very secular life. Yet, I am not so convinced that everything that exists can be proven, as perhaps we do not yet have all the necessary knowledge and experience to do so. You yourself used the term “no known mechanism.” You seem compelled to lump an entire and highly variable group of people into a single category of beliefs, but why this is so, I can only guess. But I seriously doubt there’s really much there in the way of any sort of real altruism, and I doubt it makes you very happy.
Since you are “hanging yourself” on this forum.
Would you use a cheap rope?
Or would you prefer an expensive high-tech climbing rope , that has been pre-tensioned at the factory , and undergone a proper breaking-in period?
After all , you wouldn’t want it stretching at that vital moment , would you?
This Morrow gimp is clearly a charlatan and a fraudster.
Oh, cmon
The Endorser Claim: “I tried them and they work, I know what I’m hearing!”
The Truth: The first thing you learn in an acoustical engineering course is that you don’t know what you’re hearing. If you did you’d be able to listen to a speaker, take pencil and graph paper in hand, and draw a frequency response chart, THD chart and waterfall plot, all with 1/24 octave resolution and 1/10dB accuracy. Our ears just aren’t that good, not by a very wide margin. But, as Morrowfag, Mick Dick, and others have displayed, our imagination works very well, and that clouds our audio judgment, leading to placebo effect. In short, if you think something will make a difference in the sound, it will.
High priced cables are the biggest scams in audio. Of course, these delusional voodoo worshipping fanboys will flame and insult me as soon as they read this, but they won’t be able to offer a shred of proof to back up their BS claims, as there is none.
I had a Morrow MA-4 IC wich i found very nice to fit in my system at this time.
I had the Break-in option for free, wich was the ”special” of the time. Found out 3 years after that what i’ve paid with a 50% rebate comes today with a special coupon to $125 less than what i’ve paid, but that’s an other story. Over the years i’ve been involved in all this ”quest” that i think drive us all here.
I bought a LOTS of cables, amps, speakers and you name it. It came to a kind of obssesion not that far that what could be the OCD syndrome, where you don’t listen to the music anymore, but just analyse it.
I kept some cables, sold some other, and i’m the happy owner of Harbeth speakers today. This whole trip is all about what makes you happy over the time, and realizing sometime, that it’s time to take a pause and just trying to enjoy the emotion…(who every humans lives for)
Alan Shaw does not believe in Break-in process. Is opinion is that the brain just get used to a certain type of sound after a while. I don’t think the same and unfortunatly my only tool is my ears. That’s for sure totally subjective. Human being is very complex, and this kind of forum i think shouldn’t lead anybody to leave some insults or any kind of disrespect. That pretty much the base of any discussion, and the reason we’re all here to exchange and learn…
Just saying!
I have read the posted comments and feel the anger on both sides of the audio debate. Myth or real? I have been listening to music for a few years. I believe it is an individual choice as to the cables, amps, cd players, turntables, ect, music is a personal preference. So enjoy your system be it uber dollars or good equipment that sounds good to you.
One of the funniest threads Ive read in years…If you hear a difference in cables then there is a difference..if you dont then there isnt..who cares,no one is holding a gun to your head to purchase or not
That forgets people are not in control as they like to think they are. Your brain will resolve something differently because you were listening for it, listening to your equipment, rather than the music. You have no choice in this influence, people are not in full control, your ears mean nothing, golden ears is really golden-brain, and if the brain is so bent on hunting for resolve and gradient, it will find it. You have poor control over the accuracy of the interpreter layer that alters what you believe you ‘hear’. This is the reason for double-blind studies.
The ego would reject any proof regardless, a low-level sense such as hearing and sight are something very critical to us to trust, we hate to find our selves mistaken. Never the less, equipment should measure both the differences in the source, and measure (when we know how) changes in the brain when we are told ‘ok, now these are the cheap cables you’ll be hearing’ so see what we are doing, if anything, to ourselves.
12 million people believe the earth is flat, and they believe this with a passion.. Humans can believe anything they want, for their ego trusts their ‘common sense.’ I believe the human mind frankly is poor at having ‘common sense’ (not even a real thing) about a great many things.
Buy it mate – or the poodle gets it!
Of course there is an exception here , in that in most Rap Music scenarios – they actually are holding guns to each other’s heads!
All the non believers in this thread which is aged, also believe the an automobile is the perfect listening environment. The reason cables need a break-in period and even the cheap cables, is that every single electronic circuit produces heat and vibration period. every wire that an electron passes through especially in copper wire which has a degree impurity such as iron, the impurity or the iron will decrease to some degree due to the heat and “signal” passing through it allowing less resistance in the cable as a whole. I COULD GO AN AND ON…and the reasons for break in are many…spend the money on a true audiophile system before making assumptions, kenwood and yorx won’t cut it people! pony up, spend 10-60k on a system, put in some cable, even cheap cable…keep a signal passing through it for a week or so solid then listen again and you will know what all us seasoned audiophiles are speaking of. Better yet, contact Nelson Pass at Pass Labs and regurgitate to him the same uneducated BS your feeding us. He will have an answer for you.
Um, no. The impurities in a wire will not “decrease to some degree” due to the heat and “signal” passing through it…
ummm….yes it will, its common metallurgy ….iron impurities are the weakest form of impurity with relation to copper, and break down at a molecular level which is why iron is generally prevalent at surface once the copper wire is formed. This is also one reason people feel that oxygen free wire is actually oxygen free, it isn’t…once its oxygenated and it will always be, it is not oxygen free and because claimed oxygen free wire sounds and performed better than standard wire of the identical structure is quite simply due to the “process” of attempting to create oxygen free wire which by all intents and purposes is the longer version of iron removal from copper wire…it brings the impurities to the surface with what is called “heat” and on a molecular level, doesn’t take much to do this. Does it remove or “relocate” all of it …no, but does have an effect to some degree. Do some homework and see how copper is annealed and what impurities remain and where and “not” on a molecular level. This of course will also depend on how much current is passing through said cable. Ever see the temperature is depending on what awg ,with 240v passing through vs one with 50v and what the internal breakdown over time is? One will maintain faster signal transfer than the other with less capacitance and resistance. Why you ask? Because one now has less internal restriction, hence “impurity”, than the other… Do your homework.
One more thing…Humans can only hear up to 6000hz…vast majority have high frequency hearing loss to some degree hearing only 3000hz max with mid-range loss from 800hz to 2500hz…sounds to me most non believers here have shit for hearing and we all do not hear the same or we all would most likely have the same system…
Typically, the range of human hearing is 20 Hz to 20 kHz. While humans (especially when young) can hear frequencies above 20 kHz, it’s just noise and adds nothing to audio quality.
That is completely true, although the vast majority don’t exceed 6000hz with an audible distinction. God I wish I could hear up to 20k!!! I would fell so much better about my 70k audio investment! People don’t understand our sickness is not our fault! lol
I have owned many different cables over 40 years of experience, and I do think they sound subtly different to my ears.
Would the people that say cables all sound the same, also say that all wines must taste exactly the same because when you analyze them scientifically they all turn out to be fermented grape juice?
It’s a yoke and they know, “Morrow Audio or “Moron Audio” ?
I think the moron is the one who comes to the discussion 4 years late and leaves trite little sophomoric drivel without adding anything to the discussion.
Yep!!!
I’ve been screwed by Morrow…”Morron Audio” once.
Never again!
Same cable that i bought a year before, apparently @ 50% rebate on sale was selling 125$ less.
Ask the owner how come?
Answer…nothing we can do.
Morrow is the worse company to deal with and lots of BS.
Still very good cable, but wayyyy too expensive for what it is.
They sell the break-in service for 25$ wich i bought @ the time.
Disapointing…nothing less.
How do you know its the wires’breaking in’, because i’ve used standard power (copper cables) for years through tannoy golds from a worked phase linear 700mk2 at 390watts rms per channel to master and record the records youidiots listen too and i can tell you your ears percieve sound differently all the time as the brain instructs them too.i’d listen to a mix of an album many times,same material,and each time its sounds different,it ain;t the wires,its simple psycho acoustics, period!
The only “psycho-acoustics” in my house – are what comes out of my mouth , when I get home. Turn my system on , and realise that the wife has been listening to Barry Manilow and Take That again.
Takes days to clean that filth out of my expensive speaker cables. Bitch!
This thread still very hot.
And still after 10 years, so called ‘audiophiles’ are stupid at best 🙂