What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?


Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).

For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.

As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.

If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?

Regards.
anton_stepichev
the map is not the territory. the book is not the exploration of unknowns. The textbook is very much NOT science.

it is a book for engineers to follow directly as being 100% dogmatic. that’s why they used the words LAW in expressing theory, for engineering textbooks full of numbers, math and formulas.

Good luck with your scientism religion boys.

Engineering as a trade, as an academic endeavor channel in training people... was literally created to deal with the dogmatic mind and make it useful to building out the world. LITERALLY.

That the creation of the area of endeavor called engineering was literally created by the renaissance men of the 16th century to make some positive use of the predominately dogmatic minds of men.

They took the thing that worked in the area of religion, and then baked it into the creation of the formal expression called engineering.

Seriously. I kid you not. Woe to the engineer who starts believing that junk and starts spouting it to extend comfort in/of life and control into others and subjects --which they don’t understand. (dogmatism comes alive in the ego haunted mind...)

Importantly, engineering is specifically NOT science. Engineering is all about facts.

Facts do not exist. Science understands that fact don’t exist and that all is theory, there are no laws in science.

Laws are for punishing people who have not moved and acted according to the dogmatic mean of the group. To  attack the social crime, the comfort of self and group aspects that underlie, color and wholly filter the unconscious expression of logic in mind. That you cannot have a thought without it being run through the unconscious and the reptilian hind of the mind. In or out of it. All filtered and colored by the underlying animal. Only when calm.. can reason emerge. when the reptile is almost..but not quite...asleep. That's the origins of the mentally predominant expression of dogmatism in humans. Some more than others.

~~~~~~~~~~

Coming back to the cables, this means that you have to deal with it as science, not engineering.

So, we have a quandary.

Where people say they hear things and the engineering based measurement systems that are the common currency... seem to find... nothing.

Yet the observation persists. To the tune of HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS who hear it. over a thirty year plus window. Persistent beyond belief. Where these people, they refuse to back down and write it off as some sort of misheard thing, that does not really exist, They have no reason whatsoever to doubt observation.

Science is founded in observation and then investigation. Observation is king. It lies at the heart of discovery.

This means a scientific exploration is in order. Science. so we have to take the observation for what it is, and then explore the why of it. Find the weak link in the ’measurements’. find a new measurement. look for something we don’t know. Look for what we are missing.

THAT...is science.

and importantly, I know the ins and outs of it in full. In the most minute details. but..this is business. this is my lore. This is how I make a living. So I owe the challengers NOTHING.

I’ll do you the honor of sharing that the quandary exists... and that your ranting is off and totally outside of science.

But that is as far as I will go and is also a lot further than I’m obligated to go. 

If that pisses you off, well suck it up. Deal with it. I owe you zero.

Do some science, figure it out,  grow the hell up.
Of course, there is a bias, but let’s still assume that not all people who use special audio wires are biased. That sounds too far-fetched)

Why is it too far fetched? 

You make a claim saying there is only one conclusion, I give an alternate conclusion you say is to far fetched.  I fail to see how humans have bias is more far fetched than unknown signals hidden in wire unknown to science??  Let's not assume bias is to far fetched since we know it's a common human condition. You make an extraordinary claim concerning hidden signals, do you have any extraordinary evidence? 
@millercarbon
I know from experience there are huge gains to be made from using higher quality caps, inductors, and resistors.



- Capacitors have electromechanical effects that show up as very real and very significant electrical changes at audio frequencies. That is not even getting into ESR, etc. all substantial at audio frequencies.


- Inductors can have high DC resistance or low DC resistance and parasitic capacitance, all again which lead to significant electrical changes

- Resistors can have inductance, thermal noise, and thermal modulation. All lead to significant electrical changes.



Now do wire direction, at audio frequencies, with an effect large enough to be audible, without making anything up.

teo_audio,


Now find me a scientist who uses argumentum ad populum as a justification for their arguments in their doctoral thesis. There went 4-8 years down the tube. You appear to have a lot to learn about science, and engineering and what actually happens in those disciplines but in either one, they have very strict rules for what they consider evidence. 
Why is it too far fetched?
Because the 2 arms of the bias accusation are too large and encompass everything...

No Biases can explain or debunk 2 years of incremental changes in my system and no blind test is necessary... You dont need a policy guide to pilot you on a straight line road called listening experiments...Blind test is a scientific rigorous  " statistical" tool or a marketing tool for companies and sunday scientist....

All those who use this rethoric against someone are most of the times  consumers who never create their own system.... they believe only specs sheets  redacted by others it seems...

Spec sheets are not sound experience.....Only minimal assurance of some standard design quality....