Recently bought a pair of second hand silver speaker cables.
They came with WBT 0610cu bananas fitted. I thought this was a bit odd, seeing as they were silver cables. When I removed the bananas they had a copper wire around the end of the cable where the bananas ‘dug’ into for grip via the set screw.
I’ve replaced the bananas with the WBT silver version and currently running them in.
I’m interested to see if other members have experience with adding WBT silver bananas to their system and what they found regarding burn in.
Not exactly the same experience, but when I replaced the AC plugs on old power cords, they definitely went through another burn in period. For example, Furutech 50 NCF plugs took more than 250 hours to sound good.
I am sure any new connector will need time, I believe you will hear improvement over time, probably a day or two in your case.
I was beginning to despair, I had 40 hours on them without really hearing sny change, but around 50 hours they have started to open up.
Cymbals have more ‘sizzle’, vocals are more open.
I was told by the distributor that there would be no change after they were installed as they weren’t a component or cable and so wouldn’t require break in.
Your experience with the mains plug reminds me I’ve experienced this too and again they are ‘only’ a connector.
Raised the topic to see if others have any experience with this scenario.
At one point I purchased an audiodharma Cable Cooker from Cabledyne. I’d previously bought their Silver Reference USB cable. They had used the Cooker to break in their cables and electrical outlets. Burn-in was and is a recognized phenomenon.
Your problem isn’t burn in, it is the terrible connection you get with threaded contacts. You need a GAS TIGHT seal, and to get that you need to silver solder (lowers the tin solder melting point so as to not fry everyting) or a sonic weld each connection. Using the cable automatically burns it in like it or not so no worries there. But never, ever, use threaded connections. Screw and thread thermal cycle and get loose over time. This isn’t the kind of burn-in you want!
What you say feels rather intuitive to me. Unlike the notion of connector burn in which is not intuitive and slightly suspect rationally. But I still believe.
I was planning on getting the connections soldered in the very near future. I already have a one meter length of 4% WBT solder and I’ve just ordered another as I don’t think one meter would be enough to do 8 bananas. I’m hoping 2 meters will be enough.
I’m not using them, currently using the two ‘grub’ screws to hold the cable and wire in place, but I’m getting wbt silver solder to really hold and seal the wire into the banana.
Thanks for the info.
I’ve gone ahead and soldered the ends of my silver cable, after cleaning off any discoloration, which I’m hoping seals the cable against further oxidation.
Put my silver 0610 bananas on again and I’ve been using the cable now for several weeks.
My main cable is Kimber 3038 silver cable and I’ve been using the Kimber 9038 jumper cables, which gave a detailed smooth sound.
The new silver cable replaced the jumper leads and so far I’m happy.
There’s a touch more treble extension with a bit more air and space, that I like.