Timrhu wrote,
"I truly envy those who have enough time in their lives to sit and critically listen to their cables and then swap the direction and do it again. And to ensure they heard what they think they heard, do it all again over and over."
What's it take, about 60 seconds? Now, compare that to 30 years of slaving on the system trying to get it sound good. |
Is it really true that wives hear better than their better halves? Or is that an old wives tale?
;-) |
Omsed wrote,
"I suppose shining lights on the cables makes you hear different resutls, and I suppose after moving them they have to "break in" again."
Actually, those are two things I think are true. Thanks for reminding me. |
As it turns out Elizabeth is an English major. Does anyone see the irony? |
You haven't seen her in weeks? How about six months? Time goes by fast when you're having fun. |
Well, whoever wrote it most likely never saw the inside of a physics book. Maybe any book. |
Jea48, I think if you sift through all the words and agree that the (audio) signal through copper cable/wire propagates at near light speed what's a couple feet difference in cable length between friends? We are talking about speaker cables, no? Certainly not as much as the differences related to speaker driver off set distances, comb filter effects, you know, where the speed of the signal through air is around, what, 1100 feet per second? |
Yes, current is flowing both ways. But the signal is only flowing in one direction. You don't listen to the current. Hel-loo! |
Jea48, the speed of propagation depends mostly on the medium. Since the electromagnetic wave is comprised of photons, it propagates at light speed in a vacuum but somewhat less in a metal conductor. All the other things you mention are pretty irrelevant. Does that answer your question. |
Jea48, that's a different question. The speed of photons in a medium is a constant. In a vacuum we know it's the speed of light. In copper the speed is some percentage of the speed of light, IIRC about 70% times c. So, I don't think the dielectric material affects the speed. |
Kijanki wrote,
"AFAIK dielectric affects speed of current. This speed is not a light speed but closer to 60% of it (5ns/m). I believe this speed is inversely proportional to square root of dielectric constant. Teflon dielectric offers the highest speed up to 85% of the light-speed."
As fate would have it the audio signal is not the current. The near light speed refers to the signal not current. |
Jea48, directionality of a metal conductor is produced by the orientation of the crystal structure as it is pulled through the final die. As least that's what I think. The directionality is independent of the velocity of the signal, I.e., the audio signal. I also do not happen to think the dielectric material affects the velocity of the signal. As I already said I think the velocity of the signal is fixed (constant) for a given medium, I.e., copper or whatever. Now if you are asking me how the dielectric material affects the signal,I actually don't know. I bet it's complicated though. Wink, wink. |
An electromagnetic wave is not current. They are completely different animals. Even their units are different. The electromagnetic wave is comprised of photons. That's why satellite radio signals move at light speed. In fact in a vacuum they can ONLY move at light speed because the speed of light is constant in the universe. |
Jea48, not sure why you asked the last question, the one about flipping solid core silver, since silver or any metal solid or stranded conductor should exhibit directionality since they are crystal structures. Which brings me to this rather disturbing situation: if copper and silver cables are directional, then aren't all wires Nd fuses directional as well? If that last statement is TRUE then we have a big problem. Mathematically, unless someone tracked the wire as it came off the spool as Crump suggests, there is a 50% probability that any wire or conductor or fuse in the system is installed backwards. This holds TRUE for any internal wiring, capacitor, resistor, crossover network, speaker wiring, transformer, inductor or fuse. If you see what I mean. |
By the way, there is probably no doubt about wire directionality being produced by the final die since cable manufacturers have been marking the wire as it comes off the spool for decades in order to be able to correctly mark the cables with ARROWS. Think of it like porcupine quills. Wouldn't it be easier to stroke a porcupine's back going in the direction of the quills instead of the opposite direction? |
Actually the differences in wire directionality have been measured. These measurements appear on the data sheets on the Hi Fi Tuning fuses web site. Also provided are differences between cryo'd and non cryo'd fuses (wire). Hel-loo! |
Al, what difference does it make if the speed of the electromagnetic wave is variable? For the purpose of argument let's say the speed vary between half the speed of light (or about ninety thousand miles per second) and say 3/4 speed of light (or about 135,000 miles per second). Are you suggesting that a difference of a foot or two in cable lengths would be audible due to difference in time it takes the signal to travel the length of the cables? Now, the dielectric material could affect the sound, but that's a different issue. |
Al, thanks for keeping me straight. |
Jea48, excellent point. One wonders why nobody ever measures wire or cables or fuses to see if they meaure differently when inserted into the system one direction or the other. Wait, someone did meaure fuse directionality! Is that good enough for you? Hi Fi Tuning published the results of a third party test of HiFi Tuning fuses compared to some other fuses, comparing one direction vs the other and with and without cryo. So it's not true that differences cannot be measured and don't exist. They do exist and can be measured, and have been measured! Hel-loo! |
Everyone talks about data but no one ever does anything about it. How come reviewers never measure cables or fuses? Too lazy? |
Anyone see the irony? Noel Lee of Monster Cable talking about hearing the difference between capacitors. |
The most important thing in this hobby is keeping an open mind. Which can be rather challenging when one considers some of the things that have come down the pike such as wire directionality. Demagnetization of CDs. Demagnetization of cables. The Green Pen. Mpingo disc. The Intelligent Chip. Holographic foils. The Red 'x Pen. |
