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Directionality of wire

I am a fan of Chris Sommovigo's Black Cat and Airwave interconnects. I hope he does not mind me quoting him or naming him on this subject, but Chris does not mark directionality of his IC's. I recently wrote him on the subject and he responded that absent shunting off to ground/dialectric designs, the idea of wire directionality is a complete myth. Same with resistors and fuses. My hunch is that 95% of IC "manufacturers", particularly the one man operations of under $500 IC's mark directionality because they think it lends the appearance of technical sophistication and legitimacy. But even among the "big boys", the myth gets thrown around like so much accepted common knowledge. Thoughts? Someone care to educate me on how a simple IC or PC or speaker cable or fuse without a special shunting scheme can possibly have directionality? It was this comment by Stephen Mejias (then of Audioquest and in the context of Herb Reichert's review of the AQ Niagra 1000) that prompts my question;

Thank you for the excellent question. AudioQuest provided an NRG-10 AC cable for the evaluation. Like all AudioQuest cables, our AC cables use solid conductors that are carefully controlled for low-noise directionality. We see this as a benefit for all applications -- one that becomes especially important when discussing our Niagara units. Because our AC cables use conductors that have been properly controlled for low-noise directionality, they complement the Niagara System’s patented Ground-Noise Dissipation Technology. Other AC cables would work, but may or may not allow the Niagara to reach its full potential. If you'd like more information on our use of directionality to minimize the harmful effects of high-frequency noise, please visit http://www.audioquest.com/directionality-its-all-about-noise/ or the Niagara 1000's owner's manual (available on our website).

Thanks again.

Stephen Mejias
AudioQuest


Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-15-audioquest-niagara-1000-hifiman-he1000-v2-p...


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Showing 4 responses by koestner

koestner
626 posts
 
Ok, back to your corners guys... Let's say wire has a direction created from the formation of the wire, and in theory will pass the signal better one direction vs. the other. But wait... music signal is all AC, so whichever way you place the wire it's still going to be incorrect 1/2 the time, and correct the other half. It's kind of like a tug-o-war where each side pulls the center ribbon back and forth 20-20,000 times per second. It's a lot of work, but unless one side is declared the winner, it makes no difference which way you hook up the wire.
koestner
626 posts
 
Doesn't music signal go from the amp's positive to the negative, then from the negative to the positive? This would be an AC signal. The "load" is just a big loop of long wire (speaker plus cables) and the electromagnetic wave changes direction to make the driver cone vibrate. So this changing of direction is what I mean when I say the cables are in the proper direction only half the time.
koestner
626 posts
 
Geoff said:

"The only portion that’s audible is the portion that’s traveling toward the speakers. That’s why you can hear wire directionality in AC circuits just like DC circuits. Which is what HiFi Tuning and I have been saying all along. "

Geoff, I understand what you are saying! The speaker will only play the signal that is traveling towards it, never the signal that is moving away from it. So you can have proper direction of the cables all the time. That was a subtle, but completely understandable answer. Thank you for taking the time to write that.
koestner
626 posts
 
The way I see it is we're all looking at this in a classical way, but when dealing with EM fields that propagate at the speed of light in their respective mediums, it's more like relativistic effects. We think the signal is traveling down the wire like a tire tube in a lazy river. When in reality it's at the speaker the same time as it exits the transistor output. The changing direction of the DC signal 20-20,000 times per second is painfully slow compared to the instantaneous  speed of the forming and collapsing field. So it may be better to think of having your speaker directly connected to the transistor's output instead of picturing this "wave" making its way down the wire. We all lay out this "fire hose" cable to make the trip easier for the signal, when it's really at your speaker the moment your source reads it.

OK, so after reading this a few times I see it makes little sense, but I'm sending it anyway. Let's just keep in mind that in our houses the speed of light is the closest thing to "instant".


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