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).
"Some of this stuff is so simple and so easy to get to the truth."
>>>>>I always get a little bit suspicious when a long post starts out with the word truth in the first sentence and, "I’ve got decades of experience," in the next breath. This seems to be simply a case where someone barged into the thread without reading the preliminary discussions on this thread. Sometimes naysayers barge in where angels fear to tread.
"Though, Power Cords especially. Why? Because you can not reverse the ends. They don’t fit. Even if you push really hard!!"
>>>>Power cords are like fuses in an AC circuit. I.e., they’re directional. Of course I’m not (rpt not) suggesting you can flip a power cord around like a fuse, obviously you can't. But what I AM saying is that manufacturers should be AWARE that wire is directional, all wire, just like Audioquest, to name one, states. And like HiFi Tuning states. Even the teeny tiny strands of wire in stranded cables and power cords are directional. Thus, IF the manufacturer is AWARE of wire directionality AND he CONTROLS the manufacturing process - so when it comes time to affix the connectors on the power cord - he knows which end is which. Follow?
The Audioholics article is apparently 13 years old yet contains the same misstatements of the facts and the usual appeals to "reason" and double blind testing as today’s uber skeptics. 13 years old but still fresh as a daisy! My favorite Audioholics response? This gem: "Let’s not forget that an audio signal is AC, and effectively random from a physical perspective. Nothing can align to a random signal by being anything other than random."
kosst_amojan I’m pretty sure the DSM has a diagnostic name for those who hear things that have no basis in reality. It’s called schizophrenia.
>>>Actually, that’s incorrect. Pathological skeptics are unable or unwilling to hear things that are really there. The name of that particular mental disorder is bipolar disorder. 👥 Or maybe they’re just superstitious, like George. Hey, George it’s OK to come out now. The war has been over for many decades. George, George, George of the Jungle, strong as he can be, Ahhh, Watch out for that tree!
Wasn’t Korea where they make the smartphones that kept blowing up last year? You know, Samsung. I kind doubt anyone’s opinion right off the bat who’s opinions are described as having a "high degree of confidence" or representing the pinnacle of high end audio. Gimme a break! That’s such an obvious Appeal to Authority it’s not funny. Are you trying to be controversial? Don't we have enough controversy already? 😀
@jea48 > Where is your proof? Hard data? Any science supportive of your claims?
Nope. Not a bit. Just my own ears and opinions as were put down in this thread. I;’m not even gonna Google it to further support my claims.
I don’t care what any science, measuring equipment, theory, or electronic pathology states about anything in life. At some point later on someone will challenge it or refute it, or entirely oust it from popular opinion..
Years ago Coffee was said to be carsenogenic. Then it was red meat. Then it was red meat cooked very rare, then later it was said only the cooked well done meat was bad. And next it will be something else. Super. Fine.
Here is what I can control and attest to which is not my own truth but ‘the’ truth……. As I am able to perceive it.
Once a highly resolving system is established, one with sufficient transparency, exchanging in and out links, componentws, accessories, are all detectable merely from familiarity and astute listening sessions.
Pardon the vain attempt at humor from the power cord no matter how hard you push business. Sorry. It sounded funny to me. It still does.
I view the world at large by hwat, how or when I experience it first hand. It is said here on these pages repeatedly “try it for yoruself’. If a doubt exists.
If you can hear a difference, then there is a difference, in your opinion and may well be a difference in fact. It doesn’t matter what someone else opinion may be… in this arena it is the opinion of whom so ever is chief cook, and bottle washer which matters.
As erstwhile, frank, direct and open as are the notes of our experience we so liberally post on these pages remains, I am hard pressed to figure anyone, is intentionally stating contrary information or being outright deceptive. Passionate? Misguided? Confused? Possibly. But I feel the subjective accounts of members herein are so very often, quite genuine.
I refuse to be lead about by some bit of scientific data which essentially means nothing to me, when I can simply connect this to that and find out first hand what has changed.
So ‘skin effect’ and hole flow’, and aligning microns of the metals thru cryogenics are all just so much nonsense to me.. there is far more to this hobby than focusing on the minutia and remaining so pedantic we allow a past time to become an ‘all the time’ situation. As Riley said about that particular point in time, “the Thrill is gone.”.
There is gonna be smoke and mirrors everywhere there is advertisement. Marketing. Sales and salesmanship. Competition. Technology.
Big deal.
Corvettes have a load of technology built into them lately. How we find out if we like one is to drive it. Period. No other way. We have to experience one first hand.
Audio is the same exact identical thing! Experience things first hand. Damn the technology. Damn the hype. Damn, a lot of this stuff is freakin’ expensive! Lol.
New approaches on older themes occurs all the time. OK. Choose. Listen to them and give them a try…. Or ignore them. Its your pick. I tend to give credence to whomever… at first … and if it is an affordable thing to experiment with.
I’m never gonna know what its like to have a room professionally treated for acoustics. Never gonna know what it’s like to have a complete DCS stack of electronics.
I recently heard Ethernet wires make a diff in the SQ. Really? Well, I can find that out for myself. And will.
Do wires need to be run in? well, they sure sound different after a few weeks of playing than they did the first couple days.
I have more than one system in house. Meager as it may be, it helps me get wires run in with out wasting the main rig’s resources. Hell, the refrigerator does most of the power cord brning in duties.
I’ll plug whatever into the main affair and check it out. But always that day or the next, put it/them into another system to get run in for 7 – 10 days and recheck them. Some need more than 200 hours. Some don’t. I’m very allergic to ‘placebos’. They do nothing to me physically, but emotionally I’m irritated someone actually thought nothing in a pill could alter my state of mind. Its like being cheated. IMO
So which way should wires run? Find out for yourself. There’s no other legit argument and what you discover regardless what other’s say even in consensus, will be ‘the’ truth, won’t it?
I pray this sheds more light onto my previous post.
No one said it’s a good thing. Certainly not me. I would call it a subtle thing. Subtle but powerful. Just for the record this is about the fourth time I answered the same question. Or should I say non question. A Nothing Burger. 🍔
All of those illustrious names are just names. You are a name dropper. Name dropping doesn’t win arguments. It’s an Appeal to Authority, a well-known logical fallacy. Especially in these audio controversies. You forgot Albert Einstein. Follow? You're not going to argue with me? Huh? You just did. Even though it was an illogical argument.
I was beginning to really follow along in paragraph 3. Good stuff. Then the "pure snake oil" comment. Pffffffft. The balloon lost its air. Honestly, is there a more overused and trite slam in the world of audio? You can do better.
kosst_amojan @jea48 You’re joking, right? You really want me to post pics of me testing a piece of wire both ways with a DMM so you can see there’s no difference?
>>> Speaking for myself I prefer that uber skeptics and naysayers not (rpt not) test cables or fuses for direction for obvious reasons.
Folks are selling this jazz like 9/11 truthers with rebranded accusations of cognitive dissonance, defying me to prove a negative.
>>>>Whatever..
Skin effect is subtle, but that CAN be measured.
>>>>>>So can directionality be measured. And very easily, too. Don't you have your listening ears on?
Nobody here has cited a phenomenon that would explain a wire being directional because there isn’t one.
>>>>>Again, you don't have your listening ears on. The phenomenon has been known for at least 20 years. Have you been living in a cave?
If there was a way to build a directional wire, you can bet your ass that you could buy it by the mile.
>>>>actually, you can not (rpt not) build a wire that isn't directional. See the irony?
High speed data buses are forever plagued with termination challenges, specifically, preventing signal reflections from traveling backwards down the bus. If there was any way to form a directional trace or wire, buses for memory and parallel SCSI wouldn’t require meticulous termination. A big reason computer buses have gone serial hub based point-to-point is because terminating them is a hell of a lot easier and cheaper.
>>>>Wire directionality probably would not (rpt not) show up in data communications. I've already addressed this. It's an audiophile thang! 😁
Directionality is pure snake oil. Scour JEDEC and IEEE standards. You won’t find mention of any such phenomenon.
>>>>>I doubt you have actually "scoured" those standards or any standards. Besides there are no standards for sound quality or for audiophile cables. There are no standards for many audiophile issues, actually, like polarity.
teo_audio What is that difference? Where does it come from? That the number, the measurement and the math can’t find it is utterly meaningless in the face of the observation. That it cannot be scientifically found, does not make the observation invalid. It makes the claimant of science being above and ruling over the validity of observations, observations made by what is actually moving into being millions of people (over the years) --at fault. Audiophiles and their friends and families have been exposed to the directionality question--so it's into the millions of people exposed to the quandary. To add, we’ve now got this huge group of headphone fanatics who are spending mucho cash in this area and they are also caught up in the directionality question.
You got me there. I was under the assumption there were only around 200 audiophiles, 250 tops.
Geoff, honest I have been paying attention. But can you remind me, in your pictures are the little sheep the nonbelievers and the little people following them the naysayers? Or is the opposite way around?
kosst_amojan I seriously doubt there are millions of people who buy into this directionality fantasy. And by your very description, Geoff, it’s pure fantasy with no basis in reality. We can measure distortion far more accurately than any ear can hear, so where’s the measurements? No measurement means your imagining it, pure and simple.
>>>>>What description of mine puts a bee in your bonnet? Directional fuses and directional cables, you know the ones with little arrows on them, have been around almost as long as chunky style peanut butter. Haven’t you been paying attention? HiFi Tuning in Germany, published measurements for many brands of fuses, cryo’d and not cryo’d, glass and ceramic, stock and audiophile brands, in both directions. You must be the only person on this thread who doesn't know that. Wake up and smell the coffee! ☕️ it doesn’t do your side any good to just repeat the same mantra over and over again without doing your homework. So, far your posts are really just Nothing Burgers. 🍔 🍔 🍔
Idiotones cannot be measured yet we hear them in the form of tinnitus. Heck, they can't even figure out how it works.
Any argument that points to the limits of hearing ability glosses over the fact that our ears are cluing into sounds at lower, normal yet infinitely more complex forms than a test tone (overtones, harmonics, phase distortion [what we know to be accurate vs what we hear], etc,) that can be heard, analyzed and processed immediately (thank you evolution) and that is what can't be measured, but appreciated.
geoffkait Wake up and smell the coffee! ☕️ it doesn’t do your side any good to just repeat the same mantra over and over again without doing your homework.
Now that is the pot calling the kettle black, Geoff you are really commit-able. You and your little avatars need to be locked up, I'm amazed the mods are letting you post.
hifiman5 Do you believe that everything experiential is measurable?
You need to know that even audio prototypes are done 100% using measurements, they're not concocted up in a blender.
Heisenberg is speeding down the highway when he's pulled over by a cop. The cop asks for his license then asks to look in his trunk. When he opens the trunk there's a dead cat inside. The cops says, hey, buddy, ya know there's a dead cat in your trunk? Heisenberg replies, well, I do now!
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