Power Cord burn in

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by bajaed, Mar 17, 2018.

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  1. Metralla

    Metralla Joined Jan 13, 2002

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    The problem with most burn-in strategies is they are not really simulating what happens when the power cord is connected to a typical power supply in an audio component. The demands they make are very different to the demands any lamps, fans or basic electric motors place on the power cord. Full wave bridge rectifiers pull very high almost instantaneous current bursts from the top and bottom of the 50 Hz sine wave in order to fill the storage capacitors in the power supplies. These are millisecond events with very high peak currents. Hard to simulate.
     
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  2. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    A couple months ago I won an ebay auction for a Zu Mission PC. When it arrived I hooked it to my amp immediately. It's probably got 100 hours of on time so far. If there's been a change I haven't noticed it.
     
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  3. bajaed

    bajaed Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    How do you like it? Any difference from your old cord?

    I've heard Morrow IC's change with burn in. I've tried 2 aftermarket power cords on my amp that I thought sounded worse. Never burned in a pc before but I've heard from a number of folks that burn in really helps the Zu. I'm going to leave it on the tv for a couple hundred hours then try it.
     
  4. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    If you leave it on the tv, how will you know whether or not it improved? Don't want to be critical, but I don't understand this approach.
     
  5. Slippers-on

    Slippers-on Forum Resident

    Location:
    St.Louis Mo.
    Bajaed......I purchased a power cord a few months ago. It required about 300 hours to run in. I purchased it through Wylie. I had him cook it a few days on his cooker. When I got it back it was sounding good but still needed more hours so I put in on the amp I purchased it for and it continued to change and then a few days later it stopped change. It was done.

    Do you know any one or a dealer who has a cooker? Much faster that way. Or you could send it to Wylie to let him cook it.
     
  6. Slippers-on

    Slippers-on Forum Resident

    Location:
    St.Louis Mo.
    If you can't find any one to cook it, then just plug into system and continue to play music....you will hear the music changing and sounding different from day to day. Then one day you will notice it's not changing any more. Plugging it to a tv doesn't sound like the best thing when you need to hear it to know when it's done changing or burning in.
     
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  7. bajaed

    bajaed Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Good points Slippers. I don't want to necessarily hear the change if, as I've heard, it goes from bad to good. I just want to burn it in and hopefully start at good or close to it.

    With my tube amp, I don't like to leave it on for extended periods and also didn't want to waste 200 hours of tube life. I'll listen from 200 to 300 hours and see how I like it instead of starting from 0.
     
  8. Slippers-on

    Slippers-on Forum Resident

    Location:
    St.Louis Mo.
    When I had mine on the cooker for a few days and removed it, about a week later of listening it was finished. But I've had gear that started at day one running in and the music changes from good to bad , from good to bad, and once ran in you know it...it stops changing.
     
    bajaed likes this.
  9. showtaper

    showtaper Concert Hoarding Bastard

    Why don't the fancy cable sellers demand burned in raw stock? Seems simple........
     
    bajaed likes this.
  10. bajaed

    bajaed Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I agree. I read that Zu does a major break in on their speakers. I would think it would be easy to run a few cookers and have the cables burned in and ready to rock.

    Honestly, part of the"break in" may be our ears getting used to a new sound. But I have heard a major improvement in soundstage, depth, seperation and clarity with my Morrow IC's. That was not adapting to the cables but a palpable improvement.
     
  11. samurai

    samurai Step right up! See the glory, of the royal scam.

    Location:
    MINNESOTA
    I believe in cable break-in (please don't stone me) but 200 hours seems excessive for a PC.
    In my experience PCs break-in pretty quickly. What's the story?
     
    apesfan likes this.
  12. Sugar Man

    Sugar Man Forum Resident

    You're looking for the exact point when the magnetic field of the plutonium in the flux capacitor stabilizes. Until then you're pretty much screwed.
     
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  13. Socalguy

    Socalguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    CA
    It's when the stitching in the emperor's clothes starts to unravel
     
  14. Jim13

    Jim13 Forum Resident

    I’ve heard if you burn it in on a tv, your system will result in incredible imaging..true story!!!
     
    chilinvilin, timind, thxdave and 5 others like this.
  15. Blank Frank

    Blank Frank King of Carrot Flowers

    It's because electricity pixies (y'know, the ones that run around from the power station, through all the sub-stations and high tension wires and on through your domestic consumer unit and domestic wiring, finally delivering all that primo electricity to your devices) are very fussy and pernickety about new things and it takes them a while to get to know a new piece of wire and decide that they are prepared to take the electricity through it.

    Or something...
     
  16. richbdd01

    richbdd01 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Ideal opportunity for a bonfire
     
    Robert C likes this.
  17. DrZhivago

    DrZhivago Hedonist

    Location:
    Brisbane Australia
    Perhaps you could use the flux capacitor to go back to 1955. Give Doc Brown your power cord to tie it around the dial . At exactly 10.04 PM, the lightning would strike the clock tower and let 1.21 'GigaWatts' through your power cord.
    This should do the job. You only have to figure out how to get back here in 2018.
     
  18. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    You are opening Pandora's box here.

    If the power cord is being used with a preamp, the relatively low VA transformer will supply a fairly constant power independent of signal level. In that case the charging currents to the capacitors have the same amplitude. Let's assume it is a 50VA transformer supplying 20V with 10% regulation (so off-load it will supply 22V). That says that the effective secondary resistance is about 5 ohms (current = 20/50A and that drops 2V). The calculation is a little more involved, but that gives a good enough estimate. Suppose that the smoothing capacitor is 10,000uF. Under those conditions the charging pulses are rather long and half sine in shape - about 7ms (there are various ways of calculating that). The reason is that the charging waveform is determined by the effective transformer resistance, - in this case 5 ohms - and that limits capacitor charging current.

    Now lets look at a power amp, and say we have a 500VA transformer. Now when the amplifier is idling, the power consumption is low (say it supplies 100mA for amplifier quiescent current) and the charging currents to the reservoir capacitors are likewise low (unless it is Class A). And yes, in this case the currents are quite fast, <1ms - because such a transformer has an effective secondary resistance of about 0.4 ohms and it is not supplying much power. But as you play music the current increases, and the charging currents become much longer - at 200W into 8 ohms the charging pulses are about 3.5ms and half sine-like. *And* the charging current waveform is dependent on the music signal and how loudly you are playing.

    So, the currents are of a quite different nature depending on whether it is a preamp, a power amp at idle, or a power amp when delivering power - and then it is power dependent.

    So - if we are going the route of burning in power cables *only* when connected to an amplifier - which amplifier are you going to pick? And since the charging currents are half-sine like in nature and quite long, why do you say that using a true sine current for breaking in using a lamp is not representative?
     
    BrokenByAudio likes this.
  19. bajaed

    bajaed Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    What about on an integrated amp?

    By the way, my wife noticed the cord on the tv. When she asked why, I explained and she said "That doesn't make any sense".
     
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  20. frimleygreener

    frimleygreener "It 'a'int why...it just is"

    Location:
    united kingdom
    Imagine how devastating it would be after "burning in" your power cable for that moment of sonic perfection,knowing that is downhill from thence onward, and you were out of town....
     
    Robert C likes this.
  21. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Yup - that just proves my point. Then you have what class of amp - AB, A, D, G and any of those options with linear or switched mode supply, with or without power factor correction......
     
  22. bajaed

    bajaed Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
  23. Just Walking

    Just Walking Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Interesting. I rate Zu (I have their version of the DL103 cartridge), and met a few of their guys five years ago when I was visiting Salt Lake City on business. Very grounded.

    Another company that offers a variety of added price break-in methods in the UK is Russ Andrews. For example Russ Andrews - Hi-Fi mains and cable specialist .

    As you'll know from my postings here, I try to get under the bonnet of what is actually going on - with real physics if possible. But like Zu, I have no clear idea what is going on.
     
  24. Mike from NYC

    Mike from NYC Senior Member

    Location:
    Surprise, AZ
    If you don't hear an immediate difference from your old cord compared to the new one you've been had and no amount of burn in is going to make it magically sound better.

    I heard an immediate difference when I plugged in my Pangea cords much to my amazement and skepticism. The sound stage became wider and deeper.
     
  25. Socalguy

    Socalguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    CA
    paddycook, Blank Frank and 62caddy like this.
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