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
Place theory is what Bekesy worked on with the cochlea, he came up with his traveling wave theory which won the Nobel prize.
Yes and he never equate pitch with frequency nor he reduced hearing to fourrier analysis...

Anyway if you read my last posts above quoting from the Master Handbook you will understand what i speak about....in the master handbook of acoustic pitch is not described as only frequency or linearly related to frequency.... Reality is way more complex....

Pitch

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Sound/pitch.html#c1
The fact that some tool work with the hypothesis of this reduction dont infirm the question linked to the nature of sound and hearing.....

read Ansermet and Essien....

i apologize here because Alas! Ansermet is not translate in english....

The fundamental question is simple: his human consciousness an epiphenomenon or the essential phenomenon...

With Essien and Ansermet i think that human consciousness is fundamental and irreducible to quantity, measure, or the brain mechanic ... The qualitative experience of the world is irreductible...

But our friend here claim the opposite and i guess you also....


I will recommend to you the books or youtube video of Bernardo Kastrup about consciouness fundamental reality ... materialism is dead long ago.... It is only technology evolution that hide this fact to some...

If you are not afraid of big book my philosopher  for general  knowledge theory is Ernst Cassirer... 





Meanwhile, for those who want to actually build better audio systems, try my Imbalanced System Test, wherein you take the "directional" wires and for half the system turn them around the wrong way. Listen. If there is a shift, a skewing, imbalance tonally, dynamically, etc. then further exploration/discussion is necessary. 

If, however, there is no noticeable difference, then you have demonstrated in your system with those cables that it fails what I call my Law of Efficacy. It's a worthless "improvement", and directionality with those wires is negligible. 

That is how one goes about actually improving audio systems. It's really not so hard, and it doesn't take dozens of philosophical posts, and it doesn't take concern that there is no way to resolve the issue. 

There was a time when audiophilia was eminently sensible. It's not anymore - as an be seen here.  :(
@dougschroeder

people hate it when you come on here and say stuff that just makes sense but creates work

people here want to sit on their behinds and type endlessly and argue

so please stop
If there is a shift, a skewing, imbalance tonally, dynamically, etc. then further exploration/discussion is necessary.



Yes, you either have some contacts you need to clean, you plugged the directionally shielded interconnect in wrong (unlikely), you need to get rid of those silly cables with the overpriced RC tone control built in, return those Tellurium speaker cables, because who thought a cable whose parameters shift big just by moving them was a good idea, or have someone make the change for you, because odds are you are imagining it.  Occam's Razor. The simplest answer is the most likely.