jonheal;159444 Wrote: > Cable burn-in sounds like a classic case of audiophile voodoo to me, but > I would submit that running electricity through a wire does change it > over time. I've been doing a lot of electrical fixes in our 40-year-old > house. The copper in the romex is very brittle. I can snap off bits of > it with the pliers pretty easily. Now it may be that the copper is > oxidized, although that seems unlikely to me as it's jacketed. > > And of course, a 120V @ 15 amps gusher of electrons is a little > different than the trickle passing between your SB and amp, or between > the amp and speakers, for that matter. > > But then our telephone wiring is brittle, too. > > Maybe it's just the impurities in the copper taking their toll over > time.
It's not electricity running through the wire that changes the copper, but contamination from mostly ppm level (parts per million) of H2S or SO2 over many years. We see this in cables in my business (instrumentation) where we have millions of miles of the stuff. SO2 or H2S can come from many sources, mostly by burning something (cigarettes, coal, hydrocarbons, gasoline etc). We take care of this problem in large termination rooms by pressurizing with clean air (also to keep out flammable hydrocarbons). In households there is no such protection, so after 40 years you are likely seeing long term corrosion due to atmospheric sulfur. Over time too, the gas can migrate along the wires inside the insulation. There is also the issue of traces of salts deposited on the ends of the cable by the original installer (sweat etc) which set up a very slow acidic attack on the copper. Of course in the houses of serious audiophiles, there is the gas from those damned farting mosquitos that always seem to be just at the limits of hearing. Anyway, lots of things that can degrade copper over time, but I don't believe its the actual flowing electricity that does it. -- chinablues ------------------------------------------------------------------------ chinablues's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7955 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=30223 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
