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Cable burn-in (keyword: Charge carrier)

post #1 of 5
3/18/11 at 4:50pm
Thread Starter 

According to a certain physics professor, the burn-in of cables is plausible due to the "fact" that the arrangement of charge carriers within the conductors will change with electrical current.

Is this true?

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post #2 of 5
3/18/11 at 4:57pm



 

Quote:
Originally Posted by 3602 View Post

According to a certain physics professor, the burn-in of cables is plausible due to the "fact" that the arrangement of charge carriers within the conductors will change with electrical current.

Is this true?


Citation ?
 

 

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post #3 of 5
3/18/11 at 5:05pm
Which professor?

Also, I would very much like to know how long a cable has to "burn in" before the change occurs. Assuming it occurs at all.
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post #4 of 5
3/18/11 at 5:18pm
Thread Starter 

Actually it's my physics teacher. So I exaggerated a bit on the scale.

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post #5 of 5
3/18/11 at 6:33pm

"conduction band" electrons are often modeled as a gas so the arrangement of the conducting electrons is pretty random in room temp conductive metals

 

at extreme current densities high currents can cause the metal atoms to move - but the current levels are so high and the "electromigration" so small an effect that typically is only seen in microscopic conductors, today mostly in digital integrated circuits

 

further the effect is only cumulative for DC currents - not the AC currents in audio interconnect cable/wiring

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration

 

bulk metal conduction properties is by the numbers not a good place to look for "cable sound" - wire makes a really linear resistor and typical audio interconnect resistance is fractions of a percent of the load resistance


Edited by jcx - 3/19/11 at 6:08am
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