Does anyone know (Steve included) if this is some kind of snake oil, or is it legit? Apparently this signal-sending device can put you on the fast track to burning in cables, and cords, and amps, oh my!

If the science is sound, it would be pretty cool to burn in an amp at light speed and cheat your way to the sweet spot. Then again, it might just be smoke and mirrors. Anyone know which it is?

https://hagerman-audio-labs.myshopify.com/products/frybaby3-compact-burn-in-gene...
rator

Perhaps, they do. Maybe when you get a really good sounding cable, that's a part of their secret sauce.

Donnie wrote on 02/17/22 at 20:42:12:

Some manufacturers and distributers DO offer this as a service when ordering. And some do burn in cables before shipping as SOP.

I decided to try a Frybaby2 because I really do not like the ups and downs of burnin if I can avoid it, and those I could find who had actually used it really liked it. I have been using one for quite a few years, mostly for cable development and burning in caps, resistors and wires for modifications. I do tend to go longer than the instructions, like a few extra days for cables, but I am using really good UPOCC wire and low mass ends, on ICs, so they can get close in 4-6 days, and settle pretty fast as I recall.... perhaps half or a bit more of the hours it would take the same cables to burn in fully with music. Whereas, I ran some UPOCC/Copper/teflon 9 gauge Taiwan made cables for a few weeks and they needed more time, good right off, but noticeably changing for some days, so I put them on again and have not retested them since. But that is a lot of wires and dielectric.

For nice caps I have gone 2-6 weeks with good results, nary a bit of the painful dull times and vacillations as with regular amp burnin. But I am not sure I need to go so long. I just can and it seems to work well. I figured that since a lot of nice caps can take 600-1000 hours with music to really get "right," I would go longer with them, but I have not tested really short cap times until very recently. I finally got some VHAudio Odams I have been wanting to try, and Chris VenHaus suggested to "not overcook them" going 3-4 days on the Frybaby. So I went four, and they were good.... still changing subtly until a few weeks later, but they were nice and even sounding straight  off the Frybaby. They just continued to open up and get more nuanced with music for a few weeks of 5-7 hours a day.

I need to try this shorter method with Miflex Copper Oils, a fav cap. But I can say I burn in my Miflex Copper/Polys  with the Frybaby (I tend to use them as part of my power supply bypasses), and they have been good in 2-3 weeks. Working on a component for someone else who had Miflex Copper/Polys in his, and comparing his caps that had been burnt in all with music, and mine having gotten a big kickstart with the frybaby before music, it was not AB comparisons, but adding and subtracting those I burnt in, and those that came in his component from 2020, so well burnt in, I heard what I expected from all the caps. I was generally experimenting with one or two at a time, and then listening for a few days to decide if I was on the right track. I could not hear any notable differences. So I don't think these particular caps were "overcooked," but I need to test them and see if I get as good a result with 5-7 days. Have to wait for some new caps though as when I burn caps and resistors in, I alligator clip together strings of them, burning in a lot together, so don't have any that have not been treated.


I have no idea how the Frybaby might effect tubes, as I have never tried mine on a component, the only new things here being parts or cables for quite a while.

My system is very resolving, refined and nuanced, so not having the pain of burnin with modifications is pure liberation for me. And having explored loads of things in amps and other components, and trying cable iterations steadily for many years, I know that especially the component modification/refinement work would have taken way, way longer without pre-burnt in parts for me to get a good sense of what I had gotten from a change. Where with the Frybaby, I can tell pretty well right off, and at most in a day or two after things settle some... then I can move to the next area trusting the last tuning change. There is no doubt at all that for these uses the Frybaby2 works.... It still takes some time with music for things to find the ultimate burnin balances, but more like a 50 hours give or take rather than lots of daily play with music. I got a Frybaby3 recently, since it has a ground lug and two sets of stereo out/ins rather than just one pair. And though they are supposed to work the same, but twice as many connections at a time, I have not verified this yet.

Donny, I doubt folks would advertise frybaby use if they are a cable company, as it is little and good for home use or perhaps quite small scale cable production. The cable companies I have heard of using burnin are either using some proprietary systems or AudioDharma Cable cookers, a much more powerful and complex device. I have not read about it in so long I can't recall exactly, but I think they are powerful enough that you can burn in spools of wire rather than lengths???

Anyway, it is popular with some folks to dis these things. But all I can say in response to that, is that in my experience, the FryBaby2 and Frybaby3 work really well, and my guess is that those who dis them out of hand have very likely not tried them.

Hope this helps.

Will

You are welcome Bluemage.

Looking over my previous post, I don't think I was clear on the changes after Frybaby burnin. Generally, my impressions fresh off the frybaby, are that the parts or cables are pretty resolving and spectrally complete right off, but a little on the brighter and a little more brittle side at first. Then with playing music through them for maybe 3-10 days of 5-7 hours a days (small cables and resistors faster and caps slower), they smooth and refine in all subtle ways.

I am not sure how much resistors burn in, but I recall liking them better after the Frybaby, sounding more easy flow and complete after a week or so on it. Unfortunately I was not logging these impressions and it has been a long time ago now, so not clear... but I do remember liking the effects on some resistors I had used previously without any burnin so just adopted the practice, putting resistors between a few caps in a Frybaby string.

So when I talk about being able to tell what I can expect with caps within a day or two of putting the Frybaby pre-burn caps in during modifications, they will still get better with music, but are quite close enough for me to extrapolate. Whereas, Frybaby per-burn resistors seem to be "finished" by maybe 1-3 days in the amp with music. The wires I use in modifications are pretty close also within several days of music as I recall. But in struggling to accurately recall these things I think tells a lot. I am really sensitive to burnin fluctuations, especially with modifications, and the cool thing in thinking about this for me, is that I don't think about it anymore... It just works a lot better this way for my uses, and "better" enough that I rarely think about these things as I use Frybaby parts or cables.