Sorry, but I can't help but be somewhat amused by this thread (and ones like it). I know next to nothing about electricity and circuits, so all I can do is humbly take note of the fact that no one yet in this discussion has claimed to have either heard the supposed difference flipping their cables around, or to have tried it and failed to hear a difference. Well, neither can I - I guess I just don't care enough to have bothered (and I'm quite willing to entertain notions of marketing-driven audiophilic excess here). But what I can say with certainty is that I haven't been able to learn anything for sure from all the confusion and contradiction above. Can it be that the engineering side of this hobby contains even less clarity and consensus than the listening side?
Cable directionality
I'm sure this has been discussed before but I missed it, so what is all this stuff with the direction of voltage flow with cables? Every cable you see any more has a little arrow on it. Since the signal is AC and travels one direction as much as it travels the other, what difference could this possibly make. I have talked to numerous co-workers (all electrical engineers) and they ALL say this is the biggest bunch of bunk they have ever seen. Since I am the only "Audiophile", I try to keep an open mind(I'm also the odd man out being mechanical.) Skin effect, resistance, capacitance, etc. are true issues. You pass power through a wire and it creates a magnetic field. You do deal with impedence and synergy with the driving source. How about a few technical answers from the audiophile community.