In November of last year I posted a Vertasium YT vid titled "The Big Misconception About Electricity". Well it caused quite a stir and like an arachnid had many legs many of which attempted to draw A'gonrs into the poison fangs!
Well, here is the follow-up to that original vid which caused quite a stir in the "intellectual" community as well.
Vertasium "How Electricity Actually Works".
This does have implications for our audio cabling...
Most obvious is why the dielectric, insulation, used to cover the bare conductor on ICs and speaker cables can effect the sound. Example Teflon vs cheap PVC. Going even deeper it may also explain why the geometry build of a cable can have an impact on the sound of a cable.
Can does not mean does in a fashion that can detected by human hearing. Everything can have an effect. Fortunately all these things are well understood by many, are easily modelled, and can be related directly back to electrical signal levels. That should be sufficient to make an accurate estimate if humans are able to detect the change.
Oops! "Preamp on top of the power amp." Although from a heat dissipation standpoint I guess that could make sense, but I have certainly never seen them stacked that way. 🙄
This does have implications for our audio cabling...
What implication would that be?
Most obvious is why the dielectric, insulation, used to cover the bare conductor on ICs and speaker cables can effect the sound. Example Teflon vs cheap PVC.
Going even deeper it may also explain why the geometry build of a cable can have an impact on the sound of a cable. Move the discussion from the signal energy traveling in the conductor to traveling outside the conductor through the dielectric in the form of an EM, electromagnetic, wave traveling in one direction from the source to the load at near the speed of light in a vacuum. Note the EM wave is not confined in the dielectric... It extends beyond the insulation. What effect does cable geometry have on the signal EM wave? What effect does shielding have on the signal EM wave?
I thought I knew something but learned I only believed what I was taught that got the job done but not in anyway how it was actually happening. The field, that makes complete sense as I have read some great books and watched some excellent videos on the the subject. I still believe there is far too much snake oil in the cable industry and will continue to make my own cheap great cables from designs I have learned directly from some dang fine audio engineers or well accepted designs easy enough to find with a simple search.
I will also look at some of the higher end cables a bit differently now and understand some just want the best they can find(in reality or perceived reality) and will spend what it takes, even if there are minuscule differences to be gained, or not. I have spent $15k on coilovers(shocks and springs combined), $10k on brakes, $5k on a differential.....when 20% of those costs would of netted 95%, or higher of the same results.
Thanks for posting the video, most fun thing I have watched in quite some time:)
It is a problem when you are taught the analogy of plumbing where; water flows through pipes, just as electricity flows through wires , if they are made of copper, in this case. (That was a nice touch in the Cal Tech experiment.) It completely screws up the individuals understanding when learning about electronics in depth, and there have been tons of posts here where knowledge of the true nature of electric current flow would benefit the people posting them and help them understand other posts as well.
That brings up my point. The fields that exist in a stereo system are many, and they do interact with one and other at many different points in the system, think components stacked on one and other, very bad to have the power amp directly on top of the preamp; big transformer, big powerful field. But this would reinforce peoples arguments that separates sound better than integrated, would it not?
But, as Amir points out on his board and YT videos, most of these fields are negligible from a performance and auditory standpoint. Simply beyond the range of human hearing. Probably a good idea to have more MuMetal on the inside of every electric component though, especially an integrated amp.
My question is this: Does this explain why twisting speaker cable seems to be the first rule of improving speaker wire performance? (Oddly enough, sort of like DNA strands.) In other words; if you took those cables that go off into outer space and return and twist them, still maintaining the distance between the two, does that intensify the field between the two parallel wires and help isolate them from outside field interference?
@builder3I'd say that there are a lot of affluent people here...seems there is a low positive correlation between detailed technical knowledge and fiscal success.
My take-away as far as audio goes is that proximity of cabling to each other matters. This is well known and I don't think it is even arguable at this stage of the game.
carlsbad, it's that way on every forum I've been a member of. We have a generation or more that has been taught that any thought that enters their head is valid. I was a member of a gun forum for years. There were people that owned blued pistols who stripped the bluing off so that they'd look like the stainless pistols that others owned. Both shiny silver, right? Uhm, no. Hey, at least here no one has shot themselves yet, knock on wood.
As one of the few people here that has the education necessary to understand the video, I still fail to see significant application to audiophile sound.
I will say that the understanding of basic electricity is surprisingly low on this forum and many members would benefit from a better understanding but this isn't it.
I watched the first video quite a while ago. This one was great as well!
The initial video put a lot out there that needs to be out there. It was one of the first things widely available, which I could agree with on the subject in quite a while that can actually help push understanding forward.
This video was even better! "Good Job"!
But until we begin to admit the faults enshrined in so many of our contemporary accepted texts? We are still just holding footraces "uphill" in the sand dunes. And that is just hard to do. It wears people out.
I'm glad I'm retiring. Electrical Engineering degrees. I dug ditches and laid pipe. Water runs down hill. OK, You got a degree in plumbing. Oh and keep your hands out of your mouth. How many engineers does it take to wire a new house?
I got a question. Why 50 or 60 hz and why 220-230, 100vac, 120vac, and why AC and DC? Isn't most solar DC? Maybe Edison was right. Water still runs down hill though.
Unless they've majorly updated the EE textbooks, since my days of higher learning: those taking such courses are still being instructed on how folks thought electricity worked in the 1800s.
Of course: when you're only interested in (basically) making things work, those old theories, laws and measurement practices are fine.
It was interesting, comparing what was taught and lectured upon, between the Physics and EE Depts, regarding electricity, at Case.
Made for quite a few interesting discussions between course participants.
Our discussions weren't quite as animated as those at the 1927 Solvay Conference, I suppose, BUT: there was still a contingent (like here, on AudiogoN), that wanted the universe (and electricity) to always make sense. Of course, it's been widely/scientifically proven: it seldom does.
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