Cable directionality

Rich, A lot of cables are terminated with both ends of the shield connected. I have a couple of pairs of Tara Labs that are and have seen others. Recently, I have seen where manufacturers are advertising in their white pages that the shield is connected at one end only. I know with a lot of equipment, the shield is ultimately tied to ground of the unit which in turn is tied to the home grounding scheme. To me, this cable thing seems like an episode of the X-Files.

Orbeck, Tara Labs is using this design with their isolated floating ground shield(ISM). However, this is not the same shield that runs with the cable that is connected to the outer portion of the RCA jack. Tara uses a separate shield that is suppose to lower RFI and EMI interference. It is the one connected to the floating ground station. I checked it with a meter and you will not get a reading from the shield to the outer portion of the RCA plug. Tara runs two RSC conductors through the cable. One as the signal carrier and the other as the ground(or shield.) It is connected at both ends as verified with a VOM. If you look at all the equipment, without fail, the outside of the RCA connector is tied to the units common ground. I know there is a lot of potential for noise here. However, back to the original question, what difference does pointing the direction if the signal is alternating back and forth. Since no signal potential should be on the shield, where does it fit in(as in break in.) I can understand the dialectric issue but what would direction have to do with that? Man, lots of questions here.

Geeze, Here we go with the signal return, etc. The signal returns on the same line it went down in the first place. It is AC, therefore, it alternates according to frequency. What has the ground got to do with the signal wire other than it helps isolate the signal from the effects of interference. That is like saying that the AC line in your house alternates on the ground wire. I have taken bare wire (wonderwire to be exact) and plug one end into a CD player and the other into the amp. You know what---it worked fine (other than the radio station I picked up a few times.)

John, But what if the shield is only connected at one end as some other folks are saying? Now, how does flow occur? I agree with the "Possibility" of potential on the ground circuit but I also know that electricity takes the path of least resistance (both voltage and amps---since volts do push amps.) You can see a ground wire (white wire---not the copper ground) spark at the breaker panel when it is connected to a load such as a motor but it has NO potential. Ground faults help with large, potentially dangerous shorts to ground as through your body. You are always going to have a difference in ground potential between a large amp drawing component and something less. You certainly cannot have voltage potential(and flow) without some sort of current, ever how small. No current, no flow.
So, I guess my question remains, since we are dealing with AC, how can wire be directional?

Audioengr, So, lets take a 60HZ signal and run it down the "Signal carrying" wire. Since this would be the same as a 60hz sine wave, are you trying to say that the positive half cycle goes down one wire and the negative half cycle comes back on the ground? We are talking about AC here. Hate to disagree, but I don't think so. Also, we cannot have current without voltage since volts push amps. In less than 120 volt applications, we have one line of potential(as in house wiring)and according to your described theory the ground(neutral) would also have be a hot wire since each half cycle would need to be equal with respect to volts and amps on each conductor. It must return on another wire according to this theory and that would be the neutral. In 35 years of being around electricity in various forms, I've never had the need to measure the ground except when we had an electrical "Short" popping people. However, I am a ME and design air conditioning systems. I will present your theory to my EE friends. If they agree, I will humbly apologize to you in this forum and will consider myself enlightened!

Zaikesman---Amen brother!

Audioengr--- well, I didn't get to talk to the EE's here at work today, duty called. However, I will. I still don't understand this so I will get one of my troopers to explain it up close and personal. With house wiring, the neutrals are connected straight to the buss bar in the breaker panel and and connected to earth ground. I still don't understand your previous analogy of the battery and bulb since DC does flow in one direction period. And you do have positive and negative on DC. There is no such thing as positive and negative on AC which it would have to be. The return would be negative. As I said before, you have the positive half cycle and then the negative half cycle that "Flows" the opposite direction on the same wire. In an Air Conditioning unit you have a step down transformer usually 120/230 to 24 volts. On the output of the secondary, one side is tied directly to earth ground and also serves as the common for the wiring activating all the small 24VAC coils on relays. The other runs to the other side of the coils. I still can't believe that you will have an opposite polarity running through the unit chassis. I know I can't measure it because I have tried. Why would it go back when the path of least resistance is to earth and not through the resistance in the wire? AC is AC is AC. It doesn't matter if its in a house, an Air Conditioner or a signal carrying cable. I suppose coaxial cable, with a single conductor, alternates with the shield and with the shield connected to earth ground and there is no second wire.
By the way, I don't need to be convinced that you are an EE with whatever experience. To me, this is research and I will find a definitive answer that satisfies my curosity. Call me hard headed. And I defer back to my final statement in the last post. Anyway, this post was about cables being directional and not a dialog in electrical theory. They may never let me post again! Anyway, I am convinced that cables being directional is BS and ALL the EE's I work with are in agreement with that.

Audioengr---Well, I just had one of the EE's stop by and we had a nice little chat. It convinced me of basically what you are saying and actually created a few more questions. As stated previously in my post, I will officially acknowledge that you were essentially correct. I think terminology got in the way a little but I have to say this has been a very enlightning experience and I do appreciate your patience with a ME. He also talked about DC coinciding with AC in a cable which I will have to research now. Bleed I believe was the term he used. He left me a book to read (which I will do) and a bag of terms about lifting ground, floating above ground, etc. He also blew right over my head talking of using DC on signal cables to make the AC behave itself. This will require more research.

Audioengr-
I appreciate your information and trust me, I will get a handle on the "Why." I think we have been engineers for about the same length of time. I graduated a ME in 1975. I didn't learn much about electricity in school and have been in industrial design for a long time. We have electrical guys in our group that handle the biggest portion of the electrical work, naturally. I do design air conditioning control systems working closely with general contractors. I have always understood the codes and the wiring requirements but never researched the "Why." I guess now is a good time to start. I have been playing with audio equipment since I was about 12. Never had any electronic training but understand how it works somewhat. I have built some really decent sounding interconnects but don't have a clue to why they turn out as they do. I have played around with the metals and the shield schemes. I have found, keep them as short as possible and for whatever reason, I find solid wire better than stranded. I have never been able to detect any direction inconsistancies in the wire.