Directional interconnect cables

Showing my ignorance here, but if analog audio signals are AC, how is there any directionality at all apart from shielding ground?

Showing common sense. IMHO. Wires are not diodes. It doesn't matter which way round they go. Shield ground point can have an effect.

Musicnoise, I agree with most of what you said but the velocity of electrons (called drift velocity) required to move a few A of current inside a copper wire is indeed only a few mm per second.

For those lay people confused by this. Think of a a wire like a garden hose filled with water. Water being the current. In order to get a drop of water out one end of the hose you only need add a drop the other end. The drop has not moved magicaly thirty feet down the garden hose but the result is as if it had done so.

Sound waves in the room are the same. Remember the Alien film plug "In space, no one can hear you scream" - so this kind of thing won't work in a vacuum. In the same way that the water in the hose transmits a signal the air particles in your room jostle around and bump eachother and convey the pressure wave (acoustic signal) to your ears - this all happens very rapdily (speed of sound). In the case of electrons, this also happens very fast (close to the speed of light - now that is seriously fast!) - even though an indiviudal electron does not physically move very far - think of the wire being stuffed full with electrons.

Audio signals can be thought of in the same way as the garden hose analogy rather than "electrons racing through a wire and encountering all kinds of obstacles". This means a small added pressure (voltage) at one end is all that is needed to get a signal out the other end. It also meand that small impurities (say for example dissolved particles/minerals in the water) have practically no influence on the result. If you were to add a restriction in your hose or a one way valve or a conrtolled nozzle then this would somewhat be analogous to a diode or a transistor in the circuit ;-)

trust cable companies - they certainly know more and have more experience.

I am sure you can trust many of them, however, I would be cautious about their vested interest in selling higher margin products. And a $400 audio or video cable is likely a much higher margin product than say the latest competitively priced big ticket item such as a plasma HDTV or a speaker. Let's not be totally naive about the fact that these companies actually sell these things for a profit. There are probably very few who sell cables as a service to humanity because they "know more and have more experience".

Since you guys are running a tab, I'll have a Pear D'Anjou liqueur and matching set of cables.

It is only the practitioner that is forced to assume that tested and undisproven theories are facts.

A true scientist realises nothing is ever proven

I find the theorising here, by both sides, as pointless too

...and might that include your own remarks too? ;-)

Here's some food for thought

Food? Sure I'll have a slice of pie. Man this liqueur is heady stuff.

As for directional interconnects, let's stick to hard facts - the connection is key - and everyone knows that either way round works. Although a shield grounded at one end is advisable, especially if you are not sure of what RF/EM you might pick up.

And while your at it, Carl, is there any tea left in the celestial teapot? I'd love a cup!