Directional cables - what does that really mean?
andy2 At least it gives me something to chew on while I am sipping Cabernet Sauvignon lols. >>>>One assumes you mean instead of your cud. 😬 |
elizabeth If they are directional... Are they MARKED North? South East West? Maybe you bought a cable to use in the South by SouthWest with an elevation to the beginning to end of 27 degrees downslope, only to turn back and rise at an angle 63 degrees to final point due North? What then??? >>>>Always nice to see some more bloviation from the Wicked Witch of the West. |
All of that may be true, it’s all been said before, but it actually doesn’t explain why the sound is better in one direction vs the other. If resistance was the deciding factor we’d all just use large gauge wire. Hel-loo! The only thing a difference in measured resistance tells means is the wire is not symmetrical. It’s evidence but not proof. So, it looks like we’re back where we started. Nowheresville. |
Audiophiles would be much better off if they believed in too much rather than too little. Skepticism, real skepticism, involves curiosity and investigation to find out what is actually going on. Skepticism on this thread, however, is simply beating your chest and repeating the same tired mantra: This cannot be! Directionality disobeys the Laws of Science! It’s not RF! That’s not skepticism, folks. Geez! You guys act as if all this directionality stuff is something new. It’s not. It’s been known for twenty five years, you know, by the ones who know it. 🤗 |
Let’s take a deep breath, gentle readers, and go back and look a little more closely at the original post OP for a moment, shall we? “Directional cables - what does that really mean? Some (most) cables do sound differently depending on which end is connected to which component. It is asserted that the conductor grain orientation is determining the preferential current flow. That might well be, but in most (all) cases the audio signal is AC (electrons going back and forth in the cable), without a DC component to justify a directional flow. Wouldn’t that mean that in the 1st order, a phase change should give the same effect as a cable flip?”>>>There are enough Strawman arguments in that paragraph to choke a 🐎. To whit, ”...in most (all) cases the audio signal is AC (electrons going back and forth in the cable)...” >>>>>Actually electrons barely move at all 🐌 and they are not (rpt not) the audio signal. Electrons are simply charge carriers. An obvious Strawman argument! 😬 ”...without a DC component to justify a directional flow.” >>>>All wire is directional in DC circuits AND AC circuits. It’s not true that directionality only occurs in DC circuits. OR that a “DC component” is required for directionality to occur. This is why a fuse located where the power cord enters an amplifier is directional. 🔜 There is a measured difference in resistance of any wire, even a fuse wire, in an AC circuit OR DC circuit. This is obviously a Strawman argument! 😬 ”Wouldn’t that mean that in the 1st order, a phase change should give the same effect as a cable flip?” >>>>>Phase or Polarity change is unrelated to directionality. Phase change is accomplished by switching + and - wires, whereas directionality involves flipping the wires/cables and keeping + and - connections the same/consistent. Of course, it is possible to have both incorrect direction and out of phase conditions simultaneously. Yup, you guessed it - another Strawman argument! 😬 |
Copper and silver and most metals are comprised of crystal structures in their natural and molten states. As such, their atomic structures are symmetrical. If wires could be produced simply by pouring molten metal in a cast they would be atomically symmetrical lengthwise. And would therefore not be directional. But when wire is pulled through a die the entire cross section of the wire is deformed, not only the surface. I.e., the metal crystals are squeezed, crushed and elongated in the direction opposite to the pulling. Like the quills of a porcupine. 🦔 Now we come to “Perfect Surface” technology, which at least one company is using for cable manufacture. Highly polishing the surface of a solid core wire is claimed to reduce directionality by reducing high frequency distortion. But the signal in wire is not the music waveform. It’s alternating current and voltage, not frequency. 🔛So the skin effect should be irrelevant. What is the audio signal? Photons, not electrons. Electrons are the charge carriers. Current and voltage are electromagnetic EM waves that travel in wire at near lightspeed. Only photons can travel near lightspeed in wire. All electromagnetic waves are photons, visible lightbeing a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. X-rays and Gamma Rays are also comprised of photons, but photons of much higher energies. Current is not the music waveform and does not contain audio frequencies. The EM wave traveling in the direction away 🔜 from the speakers is not (rpt) audible so we don’t care if that EM wave is distorted. We only care about the EM wave headed toward the speakers, that direction is audible.🔚 So here’s the $64,000 question: How is the signal - the EM wave, the current - in wire affected by deformed crystal structures? And how does that affect the final sound produced by the speakers? The electromagnetic EM wave (photons) in metals is slightly - but audibly - distorted when it encounters deformed crystal structures pointing towards it. Like stroking a porcupine’s quills in the wrong direction. The EM wave is not distorted when it travels in the same direction as crystal deformation - like stroking a porcupine’s quills in the right direction. 🦔 |
andy2 Let’s hear your Part 2. I got the entire Albertsons beverage selections at my disposal. If I distract you, just drink some booze. Since you wasted my time, I’ll distract you :-) Fair game. >>>>Enough with the interruptions! Right now I’m removing all the long words and making the sentences extra short so you won’t have so much trouble with understanding it. |
don_c55867 posts07-14-2019 6:25pmWith some RCA cables the shield is grounded at the source end only! This may reduce noise pickup through the cable and can be noticeable on some systems. Report this >>>>That’s real good but we covered that in class last week. |
Andy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come here and post a comment and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me. And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. Understand? Now, we're going to make a new rule. When you come in here and you hear me typing or whether you DON’T hear me typing, or whatever you hear me doing; when I'm in here, it means that I am working, that means don't come in. Now, do you think you can handle that? |
Audioquest advertises highly polished surfaces of their solid core conductors for some of their high end cables.. Does that eliminate the problem? 🤔 DRAGON CONDUCTORS: SOLID PERFECT-SURFACE SILVER (PSS)Perfect-Surface Technology applied to extreme-purity silver provides unprecedented clarity and dynamic contrast. Perfect-Surface Silver (PSS) is AudioQuest's highest-quality metal. Solid conductors prevent strand interaction, a major source of cable distortion. Extremely high-purity Perfect-Surface Silver minimizes distortion caused by the grain boundaries that exist within any metal conductor, nearly eliminating harshness and greatly increasing clarity compared to OFHC, OCC, 8N and other coppers. |
This is closer to reality. As long as we’re talking about it. All of that cilia of the ear and how the neurons transfer energy is SO silly and old school. Silly cilia! Auditory specialists and neuroscientists are long, long way from Tipperary. In reality the brain acts like a transceiver. A transceiver that’s tuned to many frequencies not just audio frequencies and not only conscious information. From my website, “How the Clever Little Clock Works.” (Excerpt) Chronological Memory Our internal clock controls how memories are stored and retrieved. If we wish to reminisce about a favorite book or movie we can recall the highlights fairly easily, and if we put our minds to it we can remember scenes from movies in remarkable detail - scenes many hundreds of frames or more in length. A movie’s images and sounds are "videotaped" by our eye and brain, then stored in memory chronologically. Furthermore, the movie’s images are integrated, synchronized with the movie’s soundtrack in memory. If our memory was not chronological we wouldn’t be able to recall high-density, multiple-frame scenes from movies and replay them in our mind’s eye. The brain even has a Scene Selection feature similar to a DVD player’s so we can consciously select specific scenes from a movie and replay them in our mind’s eye like, say, Remember Sammy Jankis or Memories can be Distorted from Memento. Our internal clock is always running, whether we’re conscious of it or not. Sometimes we awake just before the alarm clock goes off because we know it’s time to get up. All the things we see and hear and do are time-stamped with Present Time coordinates. Thus, the next day, the following week or ten years later we’re able to associate specific times in the past with our experiences. "What were you doing last Tuesday evening?" "Let’s see, at 8 O’clock I was watching Total Recall. At 9 O’clock I watched Altered States." So, whether we’re aware of it or not, we maintain a continuous record of events, sounds, words and images, including time of occurrence. We can sing a song from memory or play a musical instrument. With a little effort we can remember passages from books and movies like Roy Batty’s death speech in Blade Runner, "I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All these moments ...will be lost... in time... like tears... in rain. ...Time to die." Time is Relative The Clever Little Clock addresses an esoteric but fundamental problem that occurs when playing an LP, CD, DVD or any other audio or video media. This problem also occurs when watching taped programs on television or listening to recorded programming on the radio in your car or at home. In all of those cases the observer is confronted - subconsciously - by time coordinates that are different from the Present Time coordinates he’s been using his entire life to time-stamp sensory information. What are these interfering time coordinates, where do they come from and why are they a problem? The alien time coordinates are contained in the recording (or videotape). The time coordinates (of what was then Present Time) of the recorded performance, millisecond by millisecond, are captured inadvertently along with the acoustic information. When a recording is played, the time coordinates from the recording session (which are now Past Time coordinates) are reproduced by the speakers along with the acoustic signals of the recorded event. Those Past Time signals become entangled, integrated in the listener’s mind with Present Time signals. Because the listener is accustomed to using Present Time signals to synchronize his chronological memory, he subconsciously perceives the confusing, interloping Past Time signals as a threat. This perceived threat produces the fight-or-flight response, which in turn degrades his sensory capabilities. The reason that live television broadcasts, like the Superbowl and the 2010 Olympics, are generally observed to have superior audio and video compared to taped broadcasts is that they don’t contain Past Time signals, only Present Time ones. The time coordinates on the recording are associated with the 4-dimensional spacetime coordinate system (x, y, z, t), where t ranges between the start time and end time of the recording session. While you could say that t0 of the spacetime coordinate system marks the first instant of the Big Bang, it’s the relative difference between Past Time and Present Time that’s important, not the difference between t0 and Past Time or Present Time. |
That’s in Part 2, silly goose. 🦆 First things first. Part 1 explains why wire or fuses in AC circuits are directional - assuming a physical non-symmetry of the wire - and establishes what the audio signal actually is and isn’t. By the way, we’ve already shown the theory regarding the drawing of wire through a die has some problems. So if anyone has any brilliant ideas feel free to chime in. Pop quiz 🤗 - The skin effect states very high frequencies travel on or near the surface of the wire. People sometimes claim the skin effect is the reason wires are directional, i.e., high frequencies are distorted in one direction 🔚 but not the other 🔜. But the “signal” is current and voltage. It’s not (rpt not) audio frequencies traveling down the wire. So, what’s going on? |
What do we know so far? Part 1 The “audio signal” in a wire is a voltage and current. The audio signal is not (rpt not) the music. It is not the musical waveform. It doesn’t become a musical waveform until the speakers produce acoustic waves in the room. The audio signal in a wire is alternating - in most cases the circuit is AC. In a fuse the alternating signal goes back and forth in the same wire. In speaker cables the signal also goes back and forth on both separate wires, the - and +. Push me pull me. 🔛 But we are only interested in the signal moving toward the speakers, the direction that affects the sound. We can forget about the signal when it’s moving in the opposite direction. 🔜 That explains how a wire in an AC circuit can be directional. Next up, why is a wire non-symmetrical and how does that physical non-symmetry affect current and voltage? And what is the electrical signal - current and voltage - comprised of? |
There is no evidence to support the idea of tiny diodes occurring in wire or tiny magnets for that matter. As for high-speed communications, as fate would have it directionality shows up in audiophile Ethernet cables, USB cables and HDMI Cables. Directionality is not an issue in any communications, including telephone wires or networks. |
Question - If there are a “lot of tiny diodes” in the wire as you suggest how do you explain why they would all be in the same direction? Furthermore a diode inherently suggests the signal is transmitted primarily in one direction. But this is not the case for wire, even when the wire is described as directional. In the ordinary world, the one outside of audio, the word directionality has no meaning. It’s strictly an audiophile term. |
jea48 What about the type of dielectric, insulating material, used to cover the wire? >>>>We are rather certain the problem is the wire, not the insulation because of the directionality of fuses. What happens to the sound of an audio system if cables that have been installed in an audio system for 100s, 1000s, of hours are flipped end for end? >>>>>Directionality of wire doesn’t go away by breaking in the cable or fuse, even after 1,000s of hours of play. In fact, in the beginning HiFi Tuning claimed that no matter which way their fuse was inserted it would eventually break in to be the “correct direction.” They later recanted that claim. You can try this for any fuse, flipping it around after many years. You should be able to hear a difference. With cheap cables that use stranded conductors and PVC insulation there’s a good chance you will not hear any differences. But how about good quality audio grade cables that use better dielectric insulating materials? >>>>I believe you will hear a difference even with inexpensive stranded cables and PVC insulation. Of course it helps to have a reasonably good system and a good listener To perform that experiment. As I said directionality is not related to the dielectric material. All this directionality stuff is not brand new. It’s been established over the course of many years. I realize it might be new to some. Obviously shielded cables can also be directional if the shield is connected at one end only. But that is a separate issue from wire directionality. |
mahgister You think a lot Geoffkait, but it is very interesting and I think true....The human apparatus it seems is also the key to anything in perceived phenomena, not only electricity "per se" and other materials factors that are necessary but not sufficient... >>>>I would like to keep the two categories separate. One category is for tweaks that operate by standard physics, which includes those affecting the electrical or audio signal anywhere in the system, acoustic waves in the room, vibration, RFI/EMI, even quantum mechanics devices like WA Quantum Chips I include here. The second category I reserve for everything that affects the sound indirectly, usually by affecting the subconscious one way or the other. And by affecting our sensory perception of sound. When I use the term sensory perception of sound I equate that to hearing. There is no difference. This category includes most PWB Electronics products like Silver Rainbow Foil, the Red X Pen, Morphic Message Foils, etc. I also put in this category the Photos in the Freezer Tweak, my Clever Little Clock, my Teleportation Tweak, and the Black Cable Tie Tweak for Drain Pipes. While some folks have insisted these tweaks in the second category MUST work by some known, conventional method, I assure you, gentle readers, they don’t. By the same token, and ironically, a lot of folks like to claim the tweaks in the first category, the relatively conventional tweaks, operate by psychology such as placebo effect or expectation bias. |
mitch2 Wire is cast and then drawn through a die, which creates a pattern in the grain structure and a non-symmetrical pattern at the surface of the wire, affecting high frequencies and causing the sound to be comparatively flat and grainy in one direction and more relaxed and natural sounding in the other.....so they say >>>>>>That all might be true. But it doesn’t explain how the signal is changed by differences in the surface pattern. Or how that change to the signal translates to differences in sound heard by the listener. For example, very slight differences in resistance would not entirely explain the relatively large differences in sound, as I and others have pointed out. Your explanation also fails to explain why low audio frequencies are also better when the wire is in the proper direction. |
A free tweak to the best short explanation why wires and cables and fuses sound different when you reverse them. I’m not talking about whether they act as diodes, magnets or porcupine quills. I’m talking what physically takes place to produce such differences. I’m not even talking about measuring voltage drop differences. In the case of fuses, disregard the fuse holder to discourage arguments by you know who. |
Actually, the companies who control cables for directionality know exactly which way the wire will sound best all along the whole process. As soon as they receive the wire they know. It’s not rocket science. All it takes is a little coordination. The ones who have to try a wire both ways are the ones who don’t care about wire directionality. So the claim is in fact a strawman argument. If the speaker cables or the interconnects are not controlled for directionality then you don’t necessarily know if both L and R channel cables are in the same direction. So reversing their direction simultaneously might not do anything except move the problem to the other channel. Obviously I’m referring to big operations, in terms of stranded cables. If someone has a basement operation, and can’t automate, who cares? |
And furthermore...even if the 0.000001 parts of impurities acted as tiny diodes or magnets it doesn’t explain how that would affect the sound or the audio signal. Do you believe the tiny magnets or diodes pull the signal faster one way than the other? Cut me some slack, Jack! And while I’m at it, there is no evidence that the separate strands of stranded cables would not (rpt not) be all in the same direction with respect to directionality. The reason the strands are all in the same direction is because the entire process of making wire and making cables is automated and controlled. They don’t just dump the strands in a barrel and pull them out willy nilly as needed. |
Actually for cables manufactured by Audioquest, Anti Cables, Goertz and perhaps others you can rely on the arrows 🔜 provided on the cables since those companies control directionality for those cables. In those cases you do not have to listen to the cables both ways. Obviously, for everything else you have to listen to the cables both ways. But seriously, who really does? Not too many! It’s also why you can rely on the fact the Audioquest high end power cords will be in the correct direction when you plug them in. Because they are controlled for directionality. Ditto the AQ HDMI cables. |
All of that makes no sense. The percentage of impurities is too small. If the copper is 6 nines pure, then the total impurities is only 0.000001. Tiny magnets, indeed. Give me a break! Plus even if the impurities did act like tiny diodes there’s nothing to support the idea they would all be pointed in the same direction. There would be more than just one. |
And another thing. Roger Skoff’s theory that for continuous cast copper or long grain copper wire that impurities that build up between grains causes wire directionality doesn’t make sense since any effects of impurity build-up would be random in nature, whereas wire directionality is not random. It’s predictable, transferrable and repeatable. If it was random you couldn’t control it. I scoff at his theory. 🤔 If it doesn’t make sense it’s not true. - Judge Judy Addendum - He also left out the most important part of the whole directionality theory - how the audio or electrical signal is affected/changed by reversing the direction of the wire or cable. I.e., why is the sound better one way that the other? If the sound is more distorted in one direction, why? |
While I don’t really have an explanation, it hardly seems possible to me that minuscule traces of impurities that might be found in 6 nines copper can be responsible for the rather impressive changes to the sound when reversing cables. This was also the point made by HiFi Tuning in their results of a thorough evaluation of audiophile fuses, which appears on the Data Sheets on the HiFi Tuning website. What HiFi Tuning says, in effect, is the relatively small measured differences in voltage drop for the fuses under evaluation, don’t completely explain the relatively large differences experienced in listening tests. [In fact, the measured differences were much smaller than HiFi Tuning states (5%) on the Data Sheets, by almost AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE. Hel-loo!] So, I hereby declare considerable mystery still surrounds the whole directionality thing. Fortunately, all the world loves a mystery, right? 😛 |
The electrons go back and forth, at least somewhat and at very low speed, they are virtually standing still, but the signal does not go back and forth. That's the issue. Thus any wire or cable will sound better in one direction than the other. This includes wire inside speakers, wire inside transformers, internal wiring of components, fuses, etc. |
I never said you don't need both. What do you think that proves? You need electrons, too, but they can't be the signal, they don't travel fast enough. They are virtually moving whereas the signal is traveling at near light speed. Air molecules in the room are at rest, the acoustic wave is traveling through them at the speed of sound. So air can't be the signal any more than electrons. They are the medium not the message. |
Al wrote in response to the post by Jea48, ""09-28-15: Jea48 You guys that are using a digital coax cable with a solid core center conductor that connects your CD transport to your DAC, you should be able to hear a difference in SQ when reversing the direction of the digital cable. Try it!" I suspect the main reason that may occur in many systems is that the supposedly symmetrically designed digital cable is not truly symmetrical at the very high RF frequencies which comprise the risetimes and falltimes of the digital signal." Unfortunately for that argument, interesting as it may be, is that many cable manufacturers mark their digital cables with arrows that are accorded the cables based on how the metal conductors come off the final die. All one need do is keep track of the conductor's orientation from the time it comes off the die until it's incorporated into the cable. So, it is the directionality of the cable that is responsible for the change in sound - just as shown by the Hi Fi Tuning data regarding directionality of fuses, I.e. Voltage drop across the wire is different depending on direction, for example. |
