Break In Period???

[Shwamdoo]

I'm sitting here reading people's cable reviews and I am in shock. Everyone keeps saying "Sounds great after a 100 hour burn in period." Or something along those lines. I may be entirly mistaken, but how in the world can a cable break in? It has no moving parts. Its properties don't change with use. It just doesn't make sense to me.

If there is such a thing I would love to know about it and what all it entails. If there is no such thing, I find it amazing that so many people can have the wrong information.

P.S. I posted in the wrong area. Sorry.

[RobotCzar]

This may very well be the correct forum for this post.

The fact that many home audio fans believe in a host of ridiculous things: wood pucks, green markers, audible power cords, etc., etc. should somewhat damage the crediblity of the "masses" when dealing with issues such as the abiltiy to distinguish amps and many other "issues". Unfortunately, worrying about and talking about things like "cable burn in" is fun, and anybody can do it. You too can be an expert on cable burn in (because it is all in your head)! The whole "field" is rife with nonsense and misinformation--which is a shame because there are plenty of real issues to worry about and also music to hear.

The logic behind cable break in seem to be "hey, cars have a break in period, therefore cable must also". Sorry, sorry, this is a further example of how little our culture values both science and critical thinking. As you point out, there are no moving parts in cables. There is no burn in for cables, arrows on cables are meaningless, it is ridiculous to think that peope can hear differenence in audio cables, it never ends, it goes on and on....

Why is it assumed that cables sound "better" after burn it? Burn in requires a change in electrical properties (or magic) so how do we know the "new" properties will be a better "match" to any particular system? Why do I never hear someone say "after burn in my cables sounded like crap"?

All I can say is that it IS possible to be rational and still have fun and appreciate music. And, it is a lot cheaper.

[ruadmaa]

I'm sitting here reading people's cable reviews and I am in shock. Everyone keeps saying "Sounds great after a 100 hour burn in period." Or something along those lines. I may be entirly mistaken, but how in the world can a cable break in? It has no moving parts. Its properties don't change with use. It just doesn't make sense to me.

If there is such a thing I would love to know about it and what all it entails. If there is no such thing, I find it amazing that so many people can have the wrong information.

P.S. I posted in the wrong area. Sorry.

Nowhere on the planet can you find a more gullible group of marks than "Audiophiles". This doesn't seem to matter what phase of audio you are talking about whether it be cables, amplifiers, digital sound, or anthing else in the world of audio. It's a place where you can sell plain copper wire for hundreds of dollar per foot (after it's properly burnt in of course) or sell amplifiers for thousands of dollars that sound no better than those you could buy for a few hundred. P. T. Barnum would have a field day with this group of people. It is amazing how so many erudite people will try to con you and then run away faster than Dracula from the cross when you mention double blind testing.

[Beckman]

[QUOTE=ruadmaa]Nowhere on the planet can you find a more gullible group of marks than "Audiophiles".[QUOTE]

No more gullible than any other consumer group.

[risabet]

I'm sitting here reading people's cable reviews and I am in shock. Everyone keeps saying "Sounds great after a 100 hour burn in period." Or something along those lines. I may be entirly mistaken, but how in the world can a cable break in? It has no moving parts. Its properties don't change with use. It just doesn't make sense to me.

If there is such a thing I would love to know about it and what all it entails. If there is no such thing, I find it amazing that so many people can have the wrong information.

P.S. I posted in the wrong area. Sorry.

Run-in is more important for the insulation than for the conductor itself. All insulation acts as a tiny capacitor, storing and later releasing energy. PVC, teflon and the other common insulators all have different characteristic dielectric constants. Most designers today find the coefficient of absorption of the dielectric to be more important than the dielectric constant, as are the dissipation factor, the ability of the dielectric to convert the absorbed energy into heat, and the velocity of propogation, how quickly any absorbed energy is returned to the conductor.

Run-in simply places the cable's insulation in a constant state so that its dielectric behaves the same at all times. This state is not permanent, a long period of disuse will return a cable to its original state.

If one accepts that the insulation of a cable can absorb and then release energy, then while that absorbtion is occuring and changing, the sound of a cable can change. As to whether or not a cable takes 100hrs or so to break in may be excessive but it certainly is possible.

When you purchase a new component does it sound the same fresh from the box as it does 6 months later? Probably not. The caps, circuit board, resistors and other parts have characteristic run-in periods also.

PS: Air is the best dielectric

[Mash]

Mr. risabet

What an absolutely fascinating explanation! I did notice some "qualifiers" in your discourse- what my coleagues would call "WEASEL WORDS".

Still, I would like to point out one concept, among many, that SIMPLY CANNOT BE!

Re your comment: "Most designers today find the coefficient of absorption of the dielectric to be more important than the dielectric constant, as are the dissipation factor, the ability of the dielectric to convert the absorbed energy into heat, and the velocity of propogation, how quickly any absorbed energy is returned to the conductor. "


First, please understand that there is an irreversable hierarchy for ENERGY.

You CAN directly change electricity into heat, i.e. electric baseboard heat in a house. But you CANNOT readily change heat into electricity. When you convert electricity into heat you have also increased entropy. Remember entropy, Mr. risabet?

Electricity and heat are both forms of energy, but electricity is at the top of the pile and heat is at the bottom of the pile.

Consider kings and serfs: Kings do not readily exchange places with serfs. And all through European history, serfs were prohibited from being kings.

You CAN use heat to generate steam, and that steam can be expanded in a steam turbine and that steam turbine then can drive an electrical generator to produce electricity.

But in no way will any "velocity of propogation" reverse entropy and convert that heat back into electricity to return it to the conductor. Nor can the "absorbed energy (It can only be heat because of entropy, remember) be returned to the conductor" because heat must flow from a higher temperature to a lower temperature and therefore it cannot be " returned to the conductor" because in the conductor that heat has nowhere to go! So that heat must be lost into the ambient air..... And "velocity of propogation" is a fancy sounding term but I can fathom no meaning for it here.

So how about using some basic EE and (the three laws of) thermodynamics to better illustrate your explanation for us?

[RobotCzar]

Let's take a look at risabet's comments from a critical thinking point of view. First off, is he credible? I don't know, he certainly makes no attempt to qualify his statements which is a bad sign. What are his sources? None are given.

Run-in is more important for the insulation than for the conductor itself.

Well, ignoring for a second that I don't know what the heck "run-in" is (returning quickling from the audio store?), I must point out that nobody has suggested that burn-in is more important for the conductor than the insulation. The suggestion is that the idea is ridiculous for any part of the cable. This is a straw man or a diversion.

All insulation acts as a tiny capacitor, storing and later releasing energy. PVC, teflon and the other common insulators all have different characteristic dielectric constants. Most designers today find the coefficient of absorption of the dielectric to be more important than the dielectric constant, as are the dissipation factor, the ability of the dielectric to convert the absorbed energy into heat, and the velocity of propogation, how quickly any absorbed energy is returned to the conductor.

This misdirection is quite common in high end technobabble. Quote some simple facts and then act as if you have established your contention. Yes, all insulation acts as a capacitor (tiny or not) and yes capacitors store energy that can later be released. Yes different materials have different dielectric constants. So what? What does this have to do with burn in or even run in?

Notice how risabet can speak for "most designers", did he take a poll? And, what kind of "designers"? High end cable designers? If they are misguided crackpots or entrepreneurs why should we care what they think? What do electrical engineers think?

Run-in simply places the cable's insulation in a constant state so that its dielectric behaves the same at all times. This state is not permanent, a long period of disuse will return a cable to its original state.

How does rssabet know that run-in place cable insulation in a constant state so that its dielectric behave the same at all times? Could it be that a cable's insulation is always in a "constant state" regardless of run-in? hmmm...

If one accepts that the insulation of a cable can absorb and then release energy, then while that absorbtion is occuring and changing, the sound of a cable can change. As to whether or not a cable takes 100hrs or so to break in may be excessive but it certainly is possible.

Whoa there. What if the absorbtion and relase occur very quickly and then at a constant rate so that there is no overall effect? While this is "occuring" (why changing?) maybe it happens so fast that any effect is inaduible. Maybe the energy is so small as to be inaudible? Is there any evidence or calculations to say that they are? This seems to be a really major flaw in logic.

The major contention against burn-in is that it takes 0 hrs to break in, I mean that is certainly possible. Isn't it?

When you purchase a new component does it sound the same fresh from the box as it does 6 months later? Probably not. The caps, circuit board, resistors and other parts have characteristic run-in periods also.

Well now that is kind of exactly what the question really is, isn't it? Actually, my components sound exactly the same after 6 months. Don't yours? Haven you any kind of evidence that they do?

PS: Air is the best dielectric

What you mean by "best"? And, no it isn't.

Now I don't want to argue with risabet. I really don't want to offend him, but I find his comments to be rather an insult to my intelligence. He makes no logical argument in his statements, nor does he attempt to support them with so much as a reference, nor does he qualify: he seems certain, like he is lecuturing to us unfortunate unenlightened tin ears. At the very least he should offer some kind of reason to believe his "theory" would result in audible effects. Maybe those tiny caps are just so tiny that any overall effect on the signal cannot be hear. I mean, its possible, isn't it?

[Toga]

Not too many years ago, the microprocessor fab arm of the computer industry hit a snag in further reducing feature size in silicon. As they delved into "deep submicron" territory (under 18um), they noticed a curious thing about the aluminum connector traces between switching elements.

ELECTRO MIGRATION!

http://www.altera.com/literature/wp/wp_copper.pdf

When a current passes down a conductive wire, the net effect is a trend towards most electrons moving in a vector along the normal axis of the wire. However, many electrons will be moving perpendicularly or even in reverse of expected electron flow.

That’s right, as the circuit is active under elevated current stress, the passage of electron handoff through holes would occasionally bump an atom aside from its designated position, and the cumulative effect could be the failure or conductive change of the trace. This wasn't like the heating of a fuse, but more like the aging characteristics of a light bulb filament being accelerated by DC rather than AC, but at lower temperatures.

Imagine a stone lying in the sand near the surf at the beach. As the waves wash in and out, the stone causes eddies in the flow of the water. This moves sand aside from the stone, changing its position. As I understand it, electro migration happens because the trace is down to a few atoms thick and under a hundred atoms wide; enough that granularity becomes severe at this feature size. It becomes a growing problem as more atoms are lost at slight choke points, and the process continues.

It seems copper metalization staved off this problem for even smaller feature sizes, because copper resists electro migration better than aluminum.

I'm sure someone can use this actual industrial occurrence to sell some new cables that have had their "atoms realigned through burn-in", and they can point out copper is "more resistant to electron migration".

hehe

[jneutron]

Here's another link on electro-migration, this one provides some numbers to look at for comparison.

As described, the phenomena occurs as a result of current density. For typical wires, the current density approaches 10Kiloamps per cm squared (we limit to about a kilo per inch squared) while on the chips, it is in the realm of 10e10 amps per cm squared, a factor of a million more current density. It is momentum transfer that moves the atoms..so it ain't gonna happen to wires, unless lightning strikes. regardless of what some cable vendor states..
http://www.csl.mete.metu.edu.tr/Elec...ation/emig.htm

The speed of propagation within a cable is directly related to the amount of energy stored within the wire.

The equation for prop velocity within a wire...

V = 1/ sqr[LC]

C is directly proportional to the Dielectric coefficient.

L is directly proportional to the permeability.

So, it can be "obtusely" claimed that "cable designers" worry about the prop velocity, but they are trying to claim that some frequencies are slower than others, like that erroneous Hawksford claim about smearing with the 2.93 meter per second 50 hz stuff...

But, the prop velocity is indeed related to the total storage energy...most cable vendors, just don't know how, and have glommed the words because they sound neat...

Risabet: If one accepts that the insulation of a cable can absorb and then release energy, then while that absorbtion is occuring and changing, the sound of a cable can change. As to whether or not a cable takes 100hrs or so to break in may be excessive but it certainly is possible.

Insulation absorbs and releases energy in a very predictable way..it is called capacitance. and that is very well known.. For ac signals, that is pretty much all there is..the DC model includes several other mechanisms, but we aren't talking DC.

Risabet: PS: Air is the best dielectric

No..it is not.

Air has a dielectric breakdown potential of 70 volts per mil (this being the dry nitrogen, STP value). Kapton is 6 Kilovolts per mil, nomex 1.35 kv per mil, Emerson and Cuming 2851 KT is 425 volts per mil.

Air and vacuum share the same dielectric coefficient, that being 1.

If you believe it is a better dielectric, perhaps you can explain why it is better?

Cheers, John

PS...does anyone know how to turn html code on here? planting equations without super and sub capability is just a pain, I'm gonna hafta set the scanner up..

[Toga]

ho-ho!

Hi jneutron, you HAVE to know I was joking, right?

My thesis is this:

Take a real phenomenon, misapply it to audio when in reality it affects ultra high frequencies, nanostructures, or really LARGE scale properties, and make it a new "problem" to solve that a given "guru" has the magical mystery punch-in-a-cup to "solve all of your problems".

Meanwhile, ignore all the factors that actual audio designers have been wrestling with for the breadth of the science. Push under the rug such performance nightmares like harmonic distortion from speakers of any design. Output ringing spread over several milliseconds from TWEETERS. Thermal compression. Huge phase shifts from high order filters. Hopeless impulse response from ported woofers.

I remember as a kid looking at the characteristic curves of a transistor, and noticing the "bend" in them. Even with class A biasing and local feedback, I thought to myself, "that will NEVER work"... A common emitter output can only do so well in terms of linearity. But after the vanishing distortion characteristics and high damping factor AB amps of the late 70s early 80s, here we are in SET land, with people who love the sound of "bad specs", and vilify stable amplifiers that have some control over their speaker load.

There is some laughing and crying all at the same time.

[jneutron]

I thought that the left hand button responded to the origional poster, but apparently I accidentally posted under you..oops. sorry bout that.

ho-ho!

Hi jneutron, you HAVE to know I was joking, right?

My thesis is this:

Take a real phenomenon, misapply it to audio when in reality it affects ultra high frequencies, nanostructures, or really LARGE scale properties, and make it a new "problem" to solve that a given "guru" has the magical mystery punch-in-a-cup to "solve all of your problems".

Meanwhile, ignore all the factors that actual audio designers have been wrestling with for the breadth of the science. Push under the rug such performance nightmares like harmonic distortion from speakers of any design. Output ringing spread over several milliseconds from TWEETERS. Thermal compression. Huge phase shifts from high order filters. Hopeless impulse response from ported woofers.
.

Um, actually, I don't understand your initial statement..we most certainly see eye to eye with respect to grabbing the latest buzz words and using them..I was not directing any verbage your way, just adding...that was why I linked to the origional post, and not in response to you..I agreed with you.

I just added the link to show how the actual effect is 6 orders of magnitude beyond currents that are excessive to begin with..your link gave a more user friendly version, but after all...this is the "Lab", so I had ta include some tech stuff...:-)

Cheers, John

[jneutron]

I was sure the left hand "post reply" button directed the post to under the origional poster...obviously I was wrong..

Moderator: what am I doing wrong???

And, how do I turn on HTML coding, so I can use equations?

Cheers,

John

[Tony_Montana]

Why is it assumed that cables sound "better" after burn it? Burn in requires a change in electrical properties (or magic) so how do we know the "new" properties will be a better "match" to any particular system? Why do I never hear someone say "after burn in my cables sounded like crap"?

That have always been my argument also. Those that argue that cable burn in is a fact seem to only acknowledge the positive effects of it, but never the negative effects of it. Your argument is one of negative side effects, and another is cable that need burin to optimize is not stable over time.

So when somebody post that their cable sounded best after a period of burn in, in actuality are saying that their cable is a lemon since it is not stable over time. One can't have it both ways

Insulation absorbs and releases energy in a very predictable way..it is called capacitance. and that is very well known.. For ac signals, that is pretty much all there is..the DC model includes several other mechanisms, but we aren't talking DC.

This was your response to Risabet when he said that "If one accepts that the insulation of a cable can absorb and then release energy, then while that absorbtion is occurring and changing, the sound of a cable can change."

Also whould like add to your comment that while signal is AC, absorb and release energy action is continuos as according to polarity of signal, and there is never a dielectric "stabilization"-which will occur after the burn in period. So, the stabilization argument is very shaky from the get-go

[hermanv]

The deaf man says, I can't hear, so sound can not exist. The blind man says, I can't see, so light doesn't exist.

Not all things are understood. When I go to someones house that has a mega buck system full of ridiculously ovepriced components and cables what I usually hear is beautiful sound. When I listen to a $100 Radio Shack stereo powering $69 speakers what I usually hear is dreck.

There is a factual differnce between these two extremes. To pretend that this difference becomes absolute zero at some price point whether it's $150, $500 or $2,000 is plainly ludicrous. There exists a continium of performance, admitedly the improvements become smaller and smaller as prices rise towards absurd but the good (almost always more expensive) stuff sounds better - get over it.

[Kaboom]

Ok here's one for all of you (first of all let me say i dont believe a word about cable break in, and i havent owned any kind of equipment good enough to be able to asses the effects of run-in, but hey, i guess that if capacitors blow over time, that means that use affects them in some way right?)
now back to the cables...
check this OUT: an electrical current be it AC or DC will cause the wire to heat up, HENCE the insulation will be heating up also. we could argue that heating the insulating material can cause its properties to change. PERHAPS they might get permanently altered, who knows... These capabilities include heat storage and dissipation.
Resistivity of a material goes up with temperature. So as the copper heats up, some of the heat is transferred to the insulation which now, due to the "changed" properties, have a better ability to disspate heat. this in turn allows the copper to run cooler, therefore decreasing its resistivity, and better preserving the purity of the signal.
i think from the physics point of view, the argument is "reasonable". however, i believe i've never written such a bag of wank.
there is NO effect, no matter which, that oculd ever be big enough to alter the sonic properties of the cable.
i dont believe in spending 2k in cabling either.

[RobotCzar]

The deaf man says, I can't hear, so sound can not exist. The blind man says, I can't see, so light doesn't exist.

Not all things are understood. When I go to someones house that has a mega buck system full of ridiculously ovepriced components and cables what I usually hear is beautiful sound. When I listen to a $100 Radio Shack stereo powering $69 speakers what I usually hear is dreck.

There is a factual differnce between these two extremes. To pretend that this difference becomes absolute zero at some price point whether it's $150, $500 or $2,000 is plainly ludicrous. There exists a continium of performance, admitedly the improvements become smaller and smaller as prices rise towards absurd but the good (almost always more expensive) stuff sounds better - get over it.

Ok, on with the critical analysis:

A scientist says, there is no evdence for ghosts, so they don't exist. There is, however, evidence for sound and light regardless of our senses. Come to think of it, I don't know any deaf or bind people who deny the existence of those phenomena. You made that quote up, didn't you?

We all agree that home audio systems can and do sound different. The issue is why. And also why isn't there always an audible difference among some components and why does price not seem to matter for others?

The major critical thinking error of hearmanv is this: He notes a correlation between price and performance, and he wrongly assumes a causal relationship between price and performance. Correlation is not causation, is a major lesson of beginning stat courses. Something is causing the differences he hears, but is it price? Moreover, is it price alone? Could it be that price greatly affects the audible qualities of one type of component (say speakers), but not another (say amps)? It is illogical to assume that because price affects the audible performace of some components, it must affect the audible performance of all components.

Get with it.

[RobotCzar]

Ok here's one for all of you
check this OUT: an electrical current be it AC or DC will cause the wire to heat up, HENCE the insulation will be heating up also. we could argue that heating the insulating material can cause its properties to change. PERHAPS they might get permanently altered, who knows... r.

As I have been crticial of critical thinking, lately, let me just say that Kaboom is attempting to think critically in attempting to use the facts he knows (e.g. current heats a conductor) to come up with a way that permanent changes can occur that might affect performance. He also critically points out that the change may be so small as to not make any audible difference. Bravo.

My major critical objection to his hypothesis is that cables don't heat up very much. If they did your voice coils might melt which is a definite permanent and audible change in cable (in this case burn out rather than burn in).

[Kaboom]

yap, i kept in mind that cables will barely heat. Incidentally, out of curiosity, at a reasonably loud listening level, what kind of voltage and current are flowing through the cables? i mean obviously they are varying or there would be no music.
but are we talking 10k volts and low currents or tens of amps and low voltages?

[Kaboom]

Oh come ON! there IS a correlation between price and quality UP TO a price point. I find a 12k bucks koetsu cartridge VERY hard to justify, but i've owned cheapass gemini, decent stanton, pretty good shure and very good Goldring, each of them costing more than the one before it and there were pretty tangible differences that my sister who doesnt know what the **** a phono cartridge is on the first place could spot.
I've auditioned B&Ws 601 at 400 bucks, 602s at 500 and some kickass Sonus Fabers at 5000, and there DEFINATELY was a difference. as there was between a rotel RA-01 at 450 and a Musical Fidelity at 4500.
However, past a price point, the improvements that can be made to the quality of the components and the build quality is so minute that it becomes much more of a "status" and "self-suggestion" thing.
Personally, i think that if you think that blowing 60.000 on a stereo system makes your music sound better and makes you happy (assuming you can afford that kind of equipment without starving your family) go for it.
Basically, i think specially at the lower (between 0 and 3000$) price brackets, moving up in bucks will bring a noticeable increase in sound quality, therefore stablishing a correlation (this is, however, all subjective. a lot of people nowadays will prefer systems that just shake the walls, even tho they do that with horribly distorted bass. and you can do that with a couple of 100s)

[RobotCzar]

yap, i kept in mind that cables will barely heat. Incidentally, out of curiosity, at a reasonably loud listening level, what kind of voltage and current are flowing through the cables? i mean obviously they are varying or there would be no music.
but are we talking 10k volts and low currents or tens of amps and low voltages?

I think you should continue to work this out for yourself. Consider the information you do know. Your speakers' nominal and minimum impedance and your amps' max output (usually into 8 and 4 ohms resistive but more information is available in some cases).

Just keep in mind that people probably listen to their amp putting out about 1 amp on average, maybe a bit more under critical listening and significantly more listening to heavy metal and club levels. And, of course, speaker efficiency is a factor.

How much does 1 amp heat up 3 meters of 18 ga. hooked up to eight ohms? I'll bet jneurtron might have some data on that.

[jneutron]

How much does 1 amp heat up 3 meters of 18 ga. hooked up to eight ohms? I'll bet jneurtron might have some data on that.

Yup.


5 amps RMS into a #18 awg wire pair will increase the temp 10 C over ambient..in still air.(Belden tech info, page 16.4).

Dissipation is proportional to current squared. P = I squared R...

So, 1 ampere is 1/25 th the power dissipation..if you assume linearity, the temp increase will be 10/25, or .4 degrees C, .72 degrees F. If you assume non linearity, the temperature difference could be as much as a degree.

This temperature rise is considerably below the variation the cable will see within the room environment when the room is cooled or heated. And, will do nothing whatsoever to the microstructure of the copper, or alter any dielectric properties.

Cheers, John

[FLZapped]

The deaf man says, I can't hear, so sound can not exist. The blind man says, I can't see, so light doesn't exist.

Hmmmmm. Another version of the old "If a tree falls in the woods, will it still make sound?" argument.

Not all things are understood. When I go to someones house that has a mega buck system full of ridiculously ovepriced components and cables what I usually hear is beautiful sound. When I listen to a $100 Radio Shack stereo powering $69 speakers what I usually hear is dreck.

Usually? Obviously you have stated there are exceptions, therefore, your attempt at drawing a hard fast correlation between price and performance is null and void by your own admission.

BTW - what would happen if you switched the equipment to each other's acoustic environment?

There is a factual differnce between these two extremes. To pretend that this difference becomes absolute zero at some price point whether it's $150, $500 or $2,000 is plainly ludicrous. There exists a continium of performance, admitedly the improvements become smaller and smaller as prices rise towards absurd but the good (almost always more expensive) stuff sounds better - get over it.

While there may be factual differences between the equipment - or even measurable ones, the key is audibility. At some point, the differences are inaudible. A point so sorely missed by many, including yourself.

-Bruce

[Shwamdoo]

I think Kaboom is correct. A few extra dollars can go a long way to improve the quality of a budget system. However, as you enter the realm of cost-no-object audiophilia, the law of diminishing returns takes over. If people have the money to spend $10,000 on MIT Oracle cables or $125,000 on Wilson X-2/Alexandria speakers let them do as they please. I'm sure that their system will be personaly gratifying, and thus it will serve its purpose. To deny that those pieces of equipment sound superbly is foolish. It may be your opinion that they are outrageously priced, but that doesn't mean that they don't perform.

FLZapped, it may be true that Kaboom did not perform his comparison of his friends expensive system with the Radio Shack stereo in a scientific manner, but does that mean that his observations are invalid? Do you not agree that a "mega buck system" will outperform a Radio Shack stereo?

[noddin0ff]

FLZapped, it may be true that Kaboom did not perform his comparison of his friends expensive system with the Radio Shack stereo in a scientific manner, but does that mean that his observations are invalid? Do you not agree that a "mega buck system" will outperform a Radio Shack stereo?

No, it doesn't mean his observations are invalid. However, without some scientific rigor you can't claim the observations are valid either.

[RobotCzar]

No, it doesn't mean his observations are invalid. However, without some scientific rigor you can't claim the observations are valid either.

Actually, scientifically speaking his observations are invalid. Anecdotal evidence or obervations under uncontrolled conditions are simply not accepted as useful evidence (i.e., they are worthless).

Speaking outside of science, his observations are also invalid as we have no idea what factors matter in making a cheap system sound cheap. Some of us claim that only the speakers, room, and recording matter. So, if you spend more money for those things, you could improve quality significantly. If you spend more money on things that do not matter (do not result in audible differences or improvements), then no improvement in system quality can be expected. It make no common sense to say "everything matters" any more than it does to say "nothing matters" (every system sounds the same).