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Got to tell you a story about something that has just happened to me. I bought a new pair of headphones (Sennheiser HD650 - good price for a brand new pair on Ebay) and purchased a headphone upgrade cable from Cardas (yes, I fell for the waffle after reading comments about how much this cable improved the sound quality over the standard cable.) Anyway, I got the items and the Cardas cable came with a burn in CD and a "Cable break-in Guide" which mentioned something about "fine wine" and "patented design uses an irrational progression in strand size to eliminate the glare and ring found in all other conductor configurations" and so on. So I followed the Cardas instructions to the letter, connected my new headphones with new Cardas cable to my CD player - left the burn-in CD playing at "between 60-75% volume level" for the recommended 24 hours. But when I came back to my newly burnt-in cabled headphones I found that I had not correctly inserted the headphone's plug into the CD players headphone socket - sound from the burn-in CD was only coming from the left hand headphone! Thus I am in the dilema of having burnt in the left sided cable only - does this mean that this cable is now rendered useless or do I create a copy of this CD but only record it to the right hand channel and then play this CD back for 24 hours?

not only that but you have also ruined your headset, there will be significant phase errors due to imbalanced playing hours. I do, however, have a cable for you which will solve the problem. you will also recieve 2 cdr-s:one containig special bright-white noise and one cd containing a selected pink tone varying from 16bit to 26bit in many different waveforms. these two cds shoul dbe placed overhead hanging from the ceiling to break unwanted frequencies.

you'll be fine. connect the other side.

can't you just run the CD through a mixer or something and pan it or mute the left channel?

Thankyou for all the top advice supplied by the audiophiles at this forum. I did not make a note of when I started and stopped my unfortunate cable burn-in session so do not know for how long I actually burnt-in the left hand side of my cable. As I therefore don't want to take the risk of under or overburning the right hand side of the cable, I have decided to insert a small strip of (unused) toilet roll in my left earlobe to counterbalance the effect of the burnt-in left hand cable and unburnt-in right hand cable.

Thankyou for all the top advice supplied by the audiophiles at this forum. I did not make a note of when I started and stopped my unfortunate cable burn-in session so do not know for how long I actually burnt-in the left hand side of my cable. As I therefore don't want to take the risk of under or overburning the right hand side of the cable, I have decided to insert a small strip of (unused) toilet roll in my left earlobe to counterbalance the effect of the burnt-in left hand cable and unburnt-in right hand cable.

right. the used paper would be for the overbuned-in cable.

On 2005-10-19 20:38, hesnotthemessiah wrote:
"patented design uses an irrational progression in strand size to eliminate the glare and ring found in all other conductor configurations"

irrational!!!

that does look like nice cable. it must be some kind of monster cable knock-off. it IS possible to "tune" cable through the choice(s) of conductor. this is extreme...

it's o.k. to "burn in" the cable. i doubt you will be able to "overdo" it. the wire may go through some changes as current flows through it(i doubt if your ears are really that sensitive, but...), however, it would soon stabilize. more "burn-in" shouldn't make much difference.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2005-10-20 21:09 ]</font>

frankly, I don't get what the hell you guys are talking about.

You're playing back some special CD to "burn-in" the cables.. the power flowing through the cables is supposed to do what? I mean, I can imagine letting the sound loosen up a new cone.. not sure what goes on in the cables.

On 2005-10-20 20:58, garyb wrote:
right. the used paper would be for the overbuned-in cable.

That is correct. By using this method I could reduce the amount of toilet paper inserted in my earlobe as the cable on the other side becomes burnt-in until the point where both sides of the cable reach their ultimate burn-in point and thus I will have reached an equilibrium between both the left and right side of the cable and can dispense with said toilet paper.

On 2005-10-20 22:12, kensuguro wrote:
frankly, I don't get what the hell you guys are talking about.

You're playing back some special CD to "burn-in" the cables.. the power flowing through the cables is supposed to do what? I mean, I can imagine letting the sound loosen up a new cone.. not sure what goes on in the cables.

To put it briefly, this cable uses an irrational progression in strand size to eliminate the glare and ring found in all other conductor configurations. This design also avoids the inductivity and multipath problems of tightly twisted conductors, and gains the advantage of a high "Q" or the resonant frequency at which the wire resonates. The only drawback to this unique design is the strands must be at equal tension for this mathematical progression to work. The electro-mechanical resonant point, or Q of a strand, is a function of it's mass and tension. Current flowing through the cable during break-in, and each warm up period, will relax the structure of the strands.

At least that's what the guide says.

On 2005-10-20 22:12, kensuguro wrote:
not sure what goes on in the cables.

well, current flows through the wire so that has to make some slight change, the wire heats up and a magnetic field is produced....

the explanation is an interesting mix of science and nonsense...kinda like the bird flu....


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2005-10-21 01:20 ]</font>

the explanation is an interesting mix of science and nonsense...kinda like the bird flu....

that's what it sounds like to me too. A great mix of science and nonsense.

Is there a cartoon or funny video that goes with all this weirdo zealot stuff ?

The whole topic of improving sound quality by buying better cables, using contact conditioners ("fills microscopic irregularities creating a smoother contact surface"), using specially designed audio storage racks/spikes, etc. and the industry surrounding it would make an interesting documentry/investigation. I would like to see if the men in white coats (I will call them "scientists" for now) could actually do a test on the various cables and other techniques available. By using equipment to measure the results, the scientists could provide frequency response charts for each upgrade device tested. An independant audio expert could then turn these figures into real world terms and describe the differences between the various tested upgrades. Sadly I am no expert on these matters (I just spend a wad of cash on an upgrade cable because everyone else says it is worth it ) so, perhaps, this is not a suitable or possible idea.

There is the option of "blind" tests where cables and other devices are tested to the general public and "audiophiles" to see if they perceive any difference in sound.

I would also be interested in finding out about the "upgrade" industry (pricing/advertising/endorsements etc.).

i've done some tests on cable and i can say definitively that cable makes a BIG difference. this situation looks like extremism to me though...

Great informative post. I'm sure cable makes a difference. In this case I'd suggest the following remedy. Get a thermometer and check your body core temperature. Ensure it's running around 37.5 degrees. Don't try this if you have a fever. Now take the cable jack and leave it sitting in the freezer for about 12 hours. While this isn't as good as cryogenics, it will cause some decent realignment of the molecules of both the jack and the attached wire.

Done this? OK. Now, just before you go to bed, take that cable jack, and stick it carefully up your ass. Sleep with it up there the whole night. If you wake up and it's fallen out, you'll have to go through the whole process again.

By morning you will have corrected any imbalance in the cables. Honest.

wow.