Directional wires/cables

" As I said, I have always followed the arrows but always thought that it meant they should point away from the source. "

Away from the source is the correct way!

@rodman99999

PERHAPS: that’s changed in recent years and I missed it

Yes, that’s changed in "recent years" (very much in quotes). I graduated in 1990, I have kept myself professionally up-to-date since (unlike you, clearly), and none of the stuff from the late 19th century that you keep thinking is what people are taught, because you were taught it, is current now. My children, who are going through university now, are not taught that, and real images of atoms (electron clouds) are commonplace since the early 2000s. Wake up and smell the roses - you are out of date and out of order.

Inescapable FACT: No one understands exactly how electricity works. That’s why there’s so much Electrical THEORY.

Inescapable fact: we understand pretty well how electricity works, otherwise we would not be having this conversation on devices that use electricity on scales that range from quantum effects to human scale observables. None of the unresolved conflicts between GR and QM is applicable to computers or audio equipment. The story you keep telling yourself that ’nobody understands electricity’ is completely false - and funnily enough, it was Feynman that with QED (Nobel in 1965) added the last pieces to the puzzle. You quote, but you don’t read or understand.

Quiet snort of derision

Very loud laugh from me. Keep digging.

Incidentally - nobody here is saying that different cables do not sound different, or that asymmetrically constructed cables do not exhibit directionality in terms of their susceptibility to noise. Neither of those two observations requires any of the woo-woo that you are spouting about the lack of understanding of electricity (or your incorrect use of the word 'theory' in a scientific context; it doesn't mean what you think it means. A dictionary would be of help - as would a guide to typing. Multiple spaces to align text went out of fashion with typewriters, circa 1985).

@retiredaudioguy 

FYI.  In 1965 I got a 1st class honors degree (summa cum laude) in Mathematics, with Physics as a minor.

My dad was a physicist (and a fellow of the Institute of Physics) and my elder brother taught high school students who were going to read physics at University.

Just saying ...

Yep. And you aren't saying anything that is out of kilter with a "moderately up-to-date" understanding of electromagnetism, unlike others on this thread. 😉

@dlevi67, 

Would you please explain in somewhat laymen terms how a signal travels down a cable.

Thanks

                       WELL: the Cargo Cult's still building runways.

                                          Time for another repost:

Cargo cult science is a pseudoscientific method of research that favors evidence that confirms an assumed hypothesis. In contrast with the scientific method, there is no vigorous effort to disprove or delimit the hypothesis.[1] The term cargo cult science was first used by physicist Richard Feynman during his 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology.[1]

Cargo cults are religious practices that have appeared in many traditional tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures.

     Do a bit of research and you'll learn those primitives were limited in their understanding of what they saw with their eyes, based on their prior experience, education and BIASES.

                                                A rewind:

                 It isn't that the Denyin'tologists are ignorant.

               It's they're knowing* so much, that's WRONG.

                       *heart of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

                                              OR, two:

     The Church of the Naysayer Doctrine (like every other faith-based, religious cult) has as many dopes as it does Popes.   

     Bring up anything resembling SCIENCE/PHYSICS, dated later than the 1800’s and they become apoplectic, not having the formal education to comprehend the concepts, or- possible ramifications.    THAT would be hilarious, were it not so pathetic!        

           Gimme That Old Time Religion, Gimme That Old Time Religion, etc.

        At the very first mention of something as simple as Wave Function (a BASIC tenet of Quantum Mechanics), the Cargo Cult will label you a KOOK.

        But remember: they can only view/understand you, based on their limited experience, education and BIASES.

         They have overlooked the fact that, if not for the hypotheses/theories and experimentation, regarding Quantum Mechanics: a plethora of modern conveniences, medical devices and the gear they so love, would not exist.

          Had scientists, chemists and inventors shared the doctrines of the Cargo Cult (Denyin'tologists), there would be no semiconductors, computer chips, LASERs, or Magnetic Resonance Imaging devices (MRIs).

                                         Solid State amps?

                                     OOPS (back to tubes)!

                                        Your Smart Phone?

                                        FA'GET ABOUT IT!

                                         Your car's GPS?

                                                NOPE!

    Then too: some may be willfully ignorant and just enjoy being contentious.

                        Others: obtuse, uneducated*, misinformed?

      *Typically, from what's been exhibited here: H.S. STEM, if that, would be a safe inference.

      Either way: the result, when the Cult begins it's rhetoric, is a classic demo of the Dunning- Kruger Effect.

                                          But, I digress: 

       Bring up those pesky details, regarding the likes of QED, Dielectric Absorption, Poynting's theorem and possible application/effects, relative to frequency, that our musical signals are carried via photon or wave, outside the conductor and you're a KOOK?

         Again: the Cargo Cult can only understand anyone with an actual background, experience and education in Physics/QED, based on their own beliefs, (limited) education, experience and biases.                                      

     One anecdote that some may find interesting; about their walks in the woods and how Richard Feynman's father would encourage him to look beyond the fact that something in nature exists, into why and how.

     It saddened him that while attending college, during a visit home and one of their walks; his dad asked what he was learning in college.

     At that moment he realized: if he tried to explain what he was learning, there was no way his dad could understand.                               

                            It wasn't an insult or condescension.

                                                Just reality.

                                  Oh well: let the cult go build a runway!

                                                        references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_quantum_mechanics#:~:text=Examples%20include%20lasers%2C%20electron%20microscopes,systems%2C%20computer%20and%20telecommunication%20devices.

https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainsquantum-mechanics#:~:text=Quantum%20mechanics%20led%20to%20the,the%20science%20of%20quantum%20mechanics!

https://uwaterloo.ca/institute-for-quantum-computing/quantum-101/quantum-applications-today

          But: I'm, "religious", because I believe in the SCIENCE, from which all that sprang?

     https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/five-practical-uses-spooky-quantum-mechanics-180953494/

           Einstein got that last one wrong (Quantum Entanglement), BUT- I still wish he'd been alive, when the Hubble Telescope proved, what he considered his, "greatest blunder" (his inability to bring symmetry to his field equation, without lambda)

.https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200507/history.cfm#:~:text=Einstein's%20original%20equations%20had%20been,how%20the%20universe%20will%20end.                                     

                                            How about that?

Another example of a hypothesis/theory, with no way to EXPERIMENT/MEASURE, what you're sure must be there, in some detectable way, or another.

                                               Just for fun:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-times-quantum-physics-blew-our-minds-in-2022/

                                            Happy listening!