In the early 80's, at Christopher Hansen's audio showrooms in Beverly Hills, I had the pleasure of meeting Bruce Brisson right after he left MonsterCable, and had begun making his famous MI330 interconnect and Music Hose speaker cable. He was there to train Chris's technicians to prep the epoxy-coated wire and terminate his cables; since he was still in the process of putting together a manufacturing facility. He was very clear that the arrows printed on the cable should point to the end where the shield was tied to ground. This was only the the second interconnect product on the market, at that time, to carry such indicators on the jacket (the first being the IC's Bruce designed at Monster.)
Neither product had any printed text on the jacket to indicate what the arrows meant, and it was Noel Lee of MonsterCable (great marketer that he is) who first came up with the "signal flow" idea, which was mentioned in the packaging but never printed on the cables themselves.
The only other (consumer audio) cable makers at that time were Straightwire, which made the standard coax stuff and Kimber which had his famous braided design. Audioquest followed a few years later. Mogami (preceding all of them) remained in pro-audio field.
Unfortunately, and probably due to Noel Lee's playing fast and loose with the science (like some on this thread) no standard was ever adopted. But for the first post-Monster decade at least, arrows appeared ONLY on shotgun-type single-ended interconnects.
Today, arrows appear on every kind of audio cable and power cord, mostly meaningless for any practical purpose. There are a least three manufacturers (Purist, Magnan, and Aural Symphonics) who each use different, and unconventional shielding topology, and who also mark their cables with arrows. Those people are very open, if you care to contact them as I have, about how their cables are designed and how the arrows relate to each of those designs.
One manufacturer I know of, Cardas, and maybe others, does build a shotgun-type single-ended interconnect which CAN be used in either direction. This is because the interconnect has TWO concentric shields, insulated from each other, with each shield tied to ground at opposite ends of the cable. I think those have arrows on them too!
Tbromgard, those are the historical facts. The answer to your original question UNFORTUNATELY depends on the construction of the specific cable you are using. Any of the better-known brands will follow Bruce Brisson's original shotgun design (so point all arrows to the preamp.) If you're not sure, call the manufacturer, and ask specifically what the conductor layout is, and if the cable has a floating shield. If they hedge, or don't seem to know what a floating shield is, or God forbid!, tell you the arrows point in the direction of the signal flow, then you might want to consider replacing your cables with ones from a more reputable manufacturer ;--)
Sorry your thread got hijacked.
