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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...


fsonicsmith

Showing 6 responses by shadorne

shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Maybe it's just me but does anyone else notice it's almost always the most uh, obstinate repetitive salesmen, and no, I won't mention any names, who claim they hear it for perfectly good reasons (self interest)?
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
+1 Almarg

...a voice of reason in an ocean of purveyors of fanciful misinformation
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
@ivan_nosnibor

I don’t deny truth. However, before attaching strong beliefs to unsubstantiated claims I require something more solid than conjecture. This is why man-made global warming remains a remote and infinitesimally small possibility to me as nobody has successfully proven the main hypothesis is true in our atmosphere (which we know for certainty is influenced by other natural factors to a much larger degree than claims for man-made effects)

This is not paranoia it is actually just being reasonable and independent of thought rather than being a sheep and blindly believing everything one is told.
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
"Not everything can be measured"


Exactly. Whatever experience that can be measured repeatedly and independently becomes accepted verifiable fact. What cannot or has not been successfully measured repeatedly and independently is in the realm of conjecture or hypothesis or "marketing hype" or "unsubstantiated claims".

There is a big difference in how much credibility one should really give to conjecture especially wild claims that are not easily verified.

For example, "man-made global warming" is conjecture and a hypothesis that is currently impossible to verify - we don’t know what component is natural variation and what might be man-made - we do know that natural variation can be colossal compared to what is conjectured that man might cause - so the theory has NOT been proven a fact although it is a surprisingly widely held belief. Quite a lot of widely held beliefs fit this category and it is often hard to distinguish fact from conjecture - our media and Internet forums certainly do not help.

shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
@almarg

Sorry to see that common sense is all but absent on Audiogon because of those who work so hard to maintain and propagate myths.

The onus is on those with wild claims to prove via repeatable measurements that their weird and uniquely bizarre phenomena actually exist - especially when nobody outside of a few audio wing nuts swear by these new phenomena.

Science does not have to disprove every wacky claim / it is the responsibility of those with the extreme wacky claims to provide proof that their claims are not bogus errors or imaginations run wild or just made up anecdotal BS.
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,477 posts
 
@jea48

The speaker transducer moves forward and backward according to EMF acting on the voice coil - see Faraday’s law and Maxwells equations - so both +ve and -ve current direction along the speaker wire causes transducer movement.

A wire with directional properties would be a disaster for reproducing accurate audio. So Audioquest marketing mumbo jumbo is obviously just mumbo jumbo - Otherwise their products would not work .
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