Directional wires/cables

I said ELECTRICAL energy transfer, especially through the wires, not all form of energy transfer!

Read carefully!

r27y8u92, everyone here is talking about the same energy. They may not know that, but it is all the same form of energy.  The problem is, some, like you,  just don't understand what they are talking about. Sorry, but I don't know of a nicer way to say that.

In a stereo system, it is energy in the form of an electromagnetic wave that follows a wire from one point to another. It is NOT a flow of electrons. That same energy can flow through a vacuum which pretty much proves it is not carried by, or caused by, or causes a flow of electrons. 

You can find all sorts of sites that say that it is the flow of electrons, but they are wrong. You can either educate yourself and accept the truth or continue to believe something that isn't true.. up to you.. I can't help you any further.

I did not say electron flow. Actually electrons does not flow in the audio cases.

I said energy transfer. Transfer is not same word as "flow".

In some cases, the electrons actually, really flow. Einstein's Nobel paper is not of the relativity theory, but electron flow effect in vacuum tube!

More talk about "Electron move/flow"

Wikipedia explains Einstein's Phoelectric Effect consisely like this:

The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from a material caused by electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet light.

I’ll add my $.02 of observation - about all it’s worth. I won’t profess to understand why or explain how as I’m a finance guy (retired) and realize the limitations of my background in this area.

I auditioned some TOTL speaker cables - in a line whose “house sound” I am well acquainted with. The dealer didn’t have them in stock so he had his distributor ship them to me. I didn’t like them as they weren’t an improvement over the brand’s model I had in system. The dealer was really surprised and we discovered in talking that the distributor sent me a fresh pair that had never been used. Dealer was frustrated and got a set that had been played in which resulted in a different experience. No - not night and day as the general sonic signature was the same, but there was an ease to the sound that was missing before. Cable break in is fairly well documented.

If cable “break in” is a thing, then is it not possible that they break in directionally? Again - not a physicist. But it made me aware of the potential.

It would not surprise me that some cable types and topologies exhibit this effect to more than others. I’ve since moved on, but used Silversmith Fideliums (superior performance/value at their price range) speaker cables for several years. No dialectric, floating ground, or direction indicated. I can imagine those being somewhat or even entirely immune to the effects of directionality. Indeed, I did not experience them breaking in over time though they may very well have. I can only confirm they were good out of the box. But Nordost and AQ are clear in indicating direction and their topology is markedly different. And I did experience break in with Nordost. On my Matthew Bond speaker cables, they did improve with time (could be my imagination) but the effect was less pronounced than with Nordost (pretty sure it wasn’t my imagination).

My local dealer then relayed a story about another audiophile customer of his who is a professor of biomedical engineering (I believe - might have the discipline wrong - but science related) who does work in the medical imaging field. That customer relayed to him the need for cable break in on their sensitive imaging devices. He said the quality of the image is notably better after the cables have settled in for several weeks. The dealer relayed that story to me after my experience - so it was not “expectation or confirmation bias” that I was exhibiting. It was data confirming what I had already heard.

As always YMMV - particularly given the remarkable variations in cable chemistry, topology and technology employed. Interesting discussion.