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Directional speaker cables - switching direction

Some time ago I started a thread regarding speaker wire directionality and my inability to understand how it could have any affect on sound quality. The question was inspired by the fact that, after quite a few years using them with my Martin Logan Odysseys, I discovered that the cables (Straightwire Octave 2) had arrows printed on them. Not surprisingly the opinions expressed were pretty strong on both sides of the argument but those supporting directionality were the most vociferous and in greater numbers, one to the point of being downright insulting. In no case, though, was an explanation given by those supporting the importance of cable direction for how this phenomenon occurs except that it should be obvious that when a cable is broken in in one direction only someone with an uneducated ear would be unable to discern the difference.

Even though I still don't get it I'm not taking the position that there is no validity to the directional claim; if there truly is I just don't understand how. This leads me to my two part question. I haven't been using the Octaves for a few years but now, because of cable length issues, I want to put them back in my system partly to avoid the cost of new quality cables.

IF, then, the directionality theory IS valid and I don't recall which way the arrows originally pointed or which direction they were "broken in" do those in support of directionality think I should install them with the arrows pointing toward the speakers
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Showing 9 responses by mceljo

mceljo
1,348 posts
 
I think the configuration of any shielding has potential to be directional, but this seems like it should be more of an interconnect issue as most speaker cables are not shielded, right? Maybe the geometry of the speaker cable is such that it isn't identical in both directions in the same way that tread on directional tires is different. Like you, I can't imagine a scenario where the break-in would matter or how direction would matter in a simple cable design such as basic monster cable or my 10 AWG Blue Jeans Cables.
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
We may not know the mechanism or just not be willing to consider that the change isn't the gear. How do we explain changes in the way we perceive the sound when nothing in our gear has changed, at least nothing we can control?

If my gear wasn't in a heavy entertainment cabinet making access to the back of the amplifier difficult I would probably do some swapping, but considering it takes an effort to squeeze in a critical listening time with two small kids, it is unlikely to happen.

I have had more than one experience listening where things just didn't sound right on a scale that I am positive is more significant than reversing my symmetrical cables could be. It is really hard to identify real differences when any change is expected to be within the normal range of the system sounding great or not so great. I find, for example, that I perceive a better sound most f the time in the evening when the sun s ting down. Is it related to the power grid or is my mind just in a better place that time of day? Impossible to know for sure.
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
Grannyring - what happens if you reverse you cables?

If a cable is reversed when there isn't an audiophile around to know about it, does it really matter? Is this significant enough to recognize a change without knowledge of said change? I can easily tell my receiver from my tube amplifier, but if a gnome ran off with the sort kones under my CD player I would never know unless I noticed the physical loss of height.
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
Scvan - I tend to agree with your line of thinking. I think my at people can identify a 0.5 dB volume difference which is a difference of about 5% or less. If volume differences are any indicator for what the human ear can discern, then how does that compare to the tolerances that you can measure? I would guess you can measure a lot of attributes to be different in "identical" cables. I am positive that you would measure a significant difference on any cable that a majority of people could hear a significant difference with.

Ironically, the resistance can impact volume which is not necessarily an indication of quality, but the louder one is almost always the preference. Is it a better cable?

I think that a lot of cable comparisons are mixing apples and oranges because the attributes that can be measured easily are not matched to see if the other attributes make a difference.
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
Scvan - the problem with your idea is that a lot of audiophiles believe that science isn't up to measuring audio equipment. As stated in the post just prior to mine, things can measure the same and sound different. I agree that it is impossible to measure every attribute of a component, but believe that a lot of things believed by audiophiles are not significant, if true, to be audible.
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
One thing is for sure, if you can't measure it then you can't design it. This is interesting as most companies at least attempt to advertise using some scientific claims.
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
I wanted to follow up my previous post that was cut short to feed my kids.

If there are physical attributes in audio equipment that cannot be measured but have a real impact on the sound, then the audio industry is effectively reduced from engineers and designers to a bunch of mad scientists developing products by trial and error. The real downside to this idea is that there would be no way to know if a given product would be better or worse in my system because it was developed using trial and error methods to please a few individuals in at most a few select systems. There would never be a reason to assume that an expensive product would perform better than a cheap one.

I don't know how components are actually designed, but it should be possible to measure the final signal while changing specific design attributes one at a time to learn what the effect is. It seems obvious that the closer the original signal the final signal the better the product is.
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
Jea48 - interesting quote. I thought it was interesting that they found a way to measure what they were hearing. I would guess that they used that measurement for future designs. What they heard could be measured
mceljo
1,348 posts
 
Scvan - Excellent way to summarize. I sense a sense of humor that makes me think we might get along.
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