I'll take a shot at responding to these.



"Burn in" is not an exact description of what I understand to be the process involved in breaking in cables, but it's as good a name for it as any. It is not heat related or even entirely chemical composition related. From the bits I've seen written on it (and this is a bit vague to avoid over-stepping the info I have on hand -- I'd do a little searching online but I've had too long a day today), "burn in" involves factors like crystal structure of the conductor (as current aligns the crystals in the wire over time, the signal can travel better); capacitance/inductance of the conductor, insulation, and shielding (which takes time for that trickle of power to carry to a saturation or equilibrium point); and a few other "weird" interactions between the components of a cable. Yes, it all sounds bizarre and perhaps even absurd, but there's a lot of information out there on the subject. I've noticed improvements over time as cables burned in, although not as substantial a change as involved in speaker break-in.



I suspect that the specs Outlaw developed for the 750 and 1050 call for a different grade of copper and insulation than you'll find in an Optimus receiver from Radio Shack. Are they doing that just for marketing? Nope. Do some people pop open their speaker cabinets and re-wire their speakers? Yep -- and they don't do it just to kill some time. You buy quality components and count on the manufacturer to provide good wires and such. But your on your own for speaker cables and interconnects. Which is why we have this thread.

For a long time I thought it was sort of bizarre that people could get so fired up over cables, but I've actually tried some different cables and my ears have told me it can make a difference. If you want to decide if your ears see a difference, trade out those Monsters for some TMC, or BetterCables, or Phoenix Gold, or Audioquest, or Tributaries, or Kimber, or whatever else catches your ear. You may find no difference whatsoever. Or you may find yourself re-visiting your CD collection.

Edit: Let me add this suggestion -- anybody out there want to volunteer to provide a better explanation of "burn-in" than my jumble, or an explanation of the benefits of high-end cables? If work slows down some, I may try to do a little research. Also, we don't want to get entirely off topic, so anybody who wants to add comments on the interconnects and cables they're using should jump on in.

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited August 07, 2001).]