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...


128x128fsonicsmith

Showing 7 responses by mitch2

More fun...here we go...
You quoted Chris S. who wrote to you;
"the idea of wire directionality is a complete myth"  
Not necessarily, from a metallurgical perspective, but the idea that any directional deviations (based on wire is drawn or finished, etc.) can be heard in even the most resolving system is a delusion propagated by clever marketing campaigns, IMO.
BTW, since you are newer here, I will point out the most vocal "forum expert" on this directionality subject apparently lives off the grid and listens to a Walkman, so he doesn't even use wires.
Also, get ready because if you don't believe then either your system or your ears will be judged inadequate.
All of these arguments can be flipped around and applied to either side, sort of like a non-directional fuse 😎
Ok, so for an interesting read, I have attached a link to a bulletin from the Michigan College of Mining and Technology....folks who should know a thing or two about copper, because they've seen a thing or two. The Bulletin is from 1936 and is titled, "A Correlation of the Tensile Strength and Electrical Conductivity of Hard-Drawn Copper Wire with Preferred Orientation." 

In short, they test a bunch of samples by cold drawing them in one direction, in alternate/reversed directions, and in two other patterns of drawing one way and the other. They concluded that cold-drawing copper wire creates a preferred orientation of unit cells in the core.  However, the conductivity decreased with more frequent reversals of the drawing direction.  Actual variations appeared to be on the order of about 0.20 percent and the differences in drawing were found not to affect the conductivity of annealed wire.  Annealing the copper wire after cold-drawing increases the conductivity. 

My take on the bulletin is that the authors determined there are indeed surface and cell differences that can occur based on how copper wire is processed.  These differences can be observed by x-ray spectroscopic examination (and possibly electron microscopy?) and can cause very small variations in conductivity that could conceivably be construed as directional differences.  However, the differences are erased when the wire is annealed, which is a process applied to all (almost all?) the wire we use.  In any event, even for non-annealed wire, the differences measured were so small that it would be hard to imagine that somebody could discern a sonic difference in music played through a home audio system due to the wire direction or drawing process.

Does anyone here know of other scientific papers about wire directionality/conductivity relative to processing, from authors without a dog in the fight (i.e., from anyone other than a cable manufacturer or their surrogates)?

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/Bulletin_MCMT_CopperWire_opt_301717_7.pdf
A simple resistance measurement of a length of wire taken from the spool reveals the proper direction for the entire spool. 
This indicates the simple resistance measurement will show differences in the resistance of the same piece of wire  depending on directionality, correct?  If so, would the manufacturer then orient the wire direction for their cables/fuses so the signal flow is in the direction with the lowest resistance?  Do you have any idea what the delta in directional resistance might be for a typical audio cable, say an 8-foot speaker cable with cross-sectional area of 12 awg?  How about expressed as a percent of the total resistance?  Is resistance the only electrical property affected by wire directionality?
@geoffkait"
I don't use cables or interconnects or power cords anymore so I guess I really can't comment."
Does this policy apply to all wire-related threads or only the $5K speaker cable thread? Since you don't use fuses anymore.....