What if you threw the device in the river and played 'She Blinded Me With Science'??
Interconnect Directionality
Have I lost my mind? I swear that I am hearing differences in the direction I hook up my interconnect cables between my preamp and power amp. These are custom built solid core silver cables with Eichmann bullet plugs. There is no shield so this is not a case where one end of the cable’s shield is grounded and the other isn’t.
There are four ways ways to hook them up:
Right: Forward. Left: Forward.
Right: Backward. Left: Backward
Right: Forward. Left: Backward
Right: Backward. Left: Forward.
There is no difference in construction between forward and backward, but here are my observations:
When they are hooked up forward/backward there appears to be more airy-ness and what appears to be a slight phase difference. When hooked up forward/forward or backward/backward, the image seems more precise like they are more in phase. The difference between forward/forward and backward/backward is that one seems to push the soundstage back a little bit while the other brings it towards you more.
What could possibly cause this? Does it have something to do with the way the wire is constructed and how the grains are made while drawn through a die? Am I imagining this? Have I completely lost my mind?
There are four ways ways to hook them up:
Right: Forward. Left: Forward.
Right: Backward. Left: Backward
Right: Forward. Left: Backward
Right: Backward. Left: Forward.
There is no difference in construction between forward and backward, but here are my observations:
When they are hooked up forward/backward there appears to be more airy-ness and what appears to be a slight phase difference. When hooked up forward/forward or backward/backward, the image seems more precise like they are more in phase. The difference between forward/forward and backward/backward is that one seems to push the soundstage back a little bit while the other brings it towards you more.
What could possibly cause this? Does it have something to do with the way the wire is constructed and how the grains are made while drawn through a die? Am I imagining this? Have I completely lost my mind?
346 responses Add your response
Controlled double blind tests are right out of the Middle Ages. The same sort of thing was employed to determine whether a woman was a witch or not. She was tied with a rope and thrown into the river. If she floated she wasn’t a witch. If she sank she was a witch. It’s the same thing with a double blind test. If the test fails the device under test is a hoax. Or so they say. We know how “they” is. It used to be the Church back in Medieval Times, now it’s Science. We’ve been double blinded ....by Science! 😎 https://youtu.be/ivoK4ArgZDE |
roberttcan .... it is the pundits who need to take said blind tests and prove they can hear a difference ...Nobody here is obligated to "prove" anything to you or anyone else. Of course, you’re not obligated to accept any of their representations, either. This is a hobbyist’s group, where everyone is free to share their experiences. Beware the audio guru. |
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robertcon- "
There is an assumption (often a self assumption) that certain "audiophiles" have golden ears, and hence they use all these "tweaks" because they have super-human hearing and can hear differences the rest of us cannot. The reality is that it is equally plausible that what they really have is a higher susceptibility to suggestion, self suggestion, and confirmation bias. At this point is it hard to argue that the latter is not the more likely case, as most of these claims fall apart when the ability to see/know the change is remove from the equation." AND, from the Something For The Fuse Guys thread:
"........but when someone brings up a group, made of up actual audio researchers, experts, and others who are viewed by their peers as experts, that that group is suddenly of "no value"." I especially appreciated the opening line, about, "self-assumption", AS IF the poster was free of such things, after the egregious, unmitigated hubris, they've exhibited. I suppose, everyone is expected to believe, "susceptibility to suggestion" and expectation or, "confirmation bias" MUST be nonexistent, within Bobbie's cadre? What about peer pressure? Imagine one of them, admitting to actually hearing a difference, let alone an improvement, knowing what they would face. Oh, wait: those guys(the Naysayer Cadre) are COMPLETELY impartial(snort of derision). Or- is it possible, that there’s ever been a panel, selected from a completely random pool of music lovers, that have never met or compared notes, as relates to their listening preferences/biases? And: had their aural acuity tested, prior to listening? I’d be mildly interested in the results myself, were that the case!
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roberttcan There is an assumption (often a self assumption) that certain "audiophiles" have golden ears, and hence they use all these "tweaks" because they have super-human hearing and can hear differences the rest of us cannot. The reality is that it is equally plausible that what they really have is a higher susceptibility to suggestion, self suggestion, and confirmation bias. At this point is it hard to argue that the latter is not the more likely case, as most of these claims fall apart when the ability to see/know the change is remove from the equation. >>>>Well shut my mouth and call me corn pone! I wouldn’t have believed if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. The best use of Strawman arguments all week - and there’s been a bunch, frequently by you know who. I don’t think I’ve seen so many logical fallacies jammed into one paragraph. Bravo! 🤗 A mite presumptuous, don’t you think? |
I n another thread, you linked a comment about capacitors. There are some audiophiles who believe capacitors cannot make a differences. However, for capacitors, we can show that the dielectric absorption effects are at least large enough that audible effects are possible. There may be electromechanical effects due to the large plate area that also comes into play. Roger Skoff points out in this article why cables can be considered to act like capacitors:https://positive-feedback.com/audio-discourse/capacitors-speakers-cables-and-other-magic-stuff/ If one were to accept what Roger states, then there's another way to look at cables and the possibility that we don't fully grasp the hows and whys of it all. All the best, Nonoise |
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@roberttcan. Say someone takes a homeopathic remedy for chronic pain. The remedy has been tested and the results are it contains no pain relieving properties. Yet the person taking the remedy swears he is pain free and feels great. Are you stating he’s wrong and he is not pain free, he’s just fooling himself and he actually IS in pain and feels terrible? |
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So ... a theory was posited (well stated as fact), that the signal being AC (changing polarity) mattered not w.r.t. cable being not directional, and that cables were directional because energy only flowed in one direction, towards the load. Claims were made w.r.t. current in speaker wires, and in AC wires that the current moving away from the load had no audible effect, and hence could be ignored and because of this, interconnects were directional. I expect most on this forum would not be in a position to agree with this or refute it. The first statement about energy transfer direction is correct, as the energy flows towards the load along the Poynting vector. The Pointing vector defined the flow of energy in an electrical circuit. The second statement is not correct. It sounds right based on the first statement but it is not. The Poynting vector is the spacially integrated cross-product of the E (electric) and B (magnetic) fields, over the WHOLE circuit, and that everywhere current is flowing (in a wire), there are E and B fields, meaning that EVERYWHERE current flows impacts the Poynting vector. If you didn’t have current flowing both towards the speakers AND away from the speakers, you wouldn’t have E and B fields and you wouldn’t have a Poynting vector and you wouldn’t have energy transfer from the source to the load. The current traveling to the speakers and away from the speakers are equally important in defining the Poynting vector. At a macro level, the Poynting vector is the same for both polarities of the AC signal, as the E-field is structurally the same, but as opposed to that justifying interconnects are "directional", the opposite are true outside of transmission line effects. geoffkait17,732 posts10-13-2019 7:51amibmjunkman geoffkait17,732 posts10-19-2019 4:18pm |
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... but on a serious matter, do you even know many of the designers of these most contentious products in the audio industry? Some of them really know their stuff. Some of them I think would have trouble screwing in a light bulb without a Youtube video. However, they are really good marketers and hence they move a lot of products.... and they have a whole army of GK's to help them :-) |
Two words .... Magic Pebbles I rest my case. geoffkait17,701 posts10-24-2019 6:32pmSomebody and I won’t mention any names didn’t understand Roberttcan the question. The question has nothing do with directionality but is a very general question. What is the audio signal? Hint - it’s not the audio waveform. Or is it? You tell me. There are many reasons why the audio signal can be degraded or improved, no? Better interconnects, better power cords, better amplifier, isolation and other tweaks. So, gentle readers, what change occurs to the “audio signal” that would improve or degrade it? In order to answer that question you have to know what the audio signal is one would think. |
Somebody and I won’t mention any names didn’t understand Roberttcan the question. The question has little do with directionality per se but is a very general question. What is the audio signal? Hint - it’s not the audio waveform. Or is it? You tell me. There are many reasons why the audio signal can be degraded or improved, no? Better interconnects, better power cords, better amplifier, isolation and other tweaks. So, gentle readers, what change occurs to the “audio signal” that would improve or degrade it? In order to answer that question you have to know what the “audio signal” is, specifically, one would imagine. |
I won't say what I want to say, so I will paraphrase. Absolutely Nothing At All. It is a whimsical attempt to use a book of knowledge one person has in one area to justify a potential phenomena, i.e. that fuses are directional, in the framework of audio equipment (debatable of course). If fuses do really have directionality w.r.t. detectable sound reproduction (repeatable, testable, verified), then a whole host of other common electrical and electro-thermal properties are far more likely. jetter1,402 posts10-24-2019 5:27pmJEA and all, WTF. For those of us who have no clue and maybe a bit less interest, what does the answer to above mean to the sound of the music? |
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the audio signal is the moment to moment differential. The intelligence or information in or of the system, over time, so to speak. It’s the given changes in the state of the system, in relation to one another, in a specific direction in time, as a sequenced record. Just one way of potentially many to think of it. as for mr robertcan: Our patent folks, quite educated in the sciences and in patent knowledge, thought our patent made for the biggest change in electrical conduction in the area of small signal and/or transmission lines, in at least the past 150 years. Explain why it is that, or why it isn’t. Good luck. |
jea48 geoffkait @geoffkait LOL Tell you what Geoff, LOL. I’ll pay you $5 bucks, (payable by PayPal gift), if you can find any credible evidence that says the signal energy EM wave travels both directions as it flows at near the speed of light from the source to the load. Geoff, there’s an easy $5 bucks to be made..... >>>>>>Thanks, anyway, I prefer not to get involved in speculation. 🤡 But now that you mention it, it appears we’re back where we started about a month ago, actually longer. I’ve been asking, even gave some pop quizzes, if anyone knows or would like to speculate exactly WHAT specifically gets distorted and/or gets noisier when the wire or fuse is in the “wrong direction.” What is the “audio signal” prior to the speakers? Obviously after that is the acoustic audio waveform. Even die hard skeptics can offer answers. You don’t have to believe in directionality at all. I am including the power cord, too. What is the AUDIO SIGNAL? Nobody seems to know. Here are the candidates, feel free to add others, 1. The audio waveform 2. The current 3. The voltage 4. The power 5. The timing 6. The electromagnetic wave 7. Electrons 8. Photons 9. The Poynting vectors, E and H (electric and magnetic fields) |
Care to start a thread? I don't mean that facetiously. As I said, I am willing to fund, it, but not all of it. I think we would need local assistance for good quality equipment. I can think of a few in the industry who would help with things like ensuring the acoustic treatment is done well, speaker placement near optimum. I would not want to enter any of my potential bias into it. We could start a GoFundMe. It either dies on the vine, or it goes through. Count me in! cleeds2,494 posts10-24-2019 1:40pmroberttcan I am willing to test on any system you wish to configure ...Let's see if the group can agree about what that system might look like. Then you could try to assemble something comparable at one of the major audio shows, and invite Audiogon readers and others in to participate. |
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The crap is where the details are jea48: - Buried in some ... probably a lot of my messages back and forth with Geoffkait was that I was specifically referring to, and I used these words, analog audio signals and "non time dependent digital signals". I used those words very specifically as most DACs today either reclock the external optical or digital serial audio data and/or they are USB based and hence generate a local clock for audio. I specifically took time dependent digital signals out of my discussion, because as I clearly stated above as well, MHz level digital signals have 10's and 100's of MHz bandwidth and hence are subject to transmission line effects. Let's add the most obvious reason in the case you provided, RCA connectors are not controlled impedance connectors which is why most good equipment has BNC connector now. (p.s. probably even before that article you linked was written, I was modifying my equipment to better match source/load impedance to the cable, a specific cable, to minimize jitter). DACs were not nearly as good back then. AND, I never said the energy travels back and forth from source to load. That is how you are interpreting it, and that is wrong. I said it travels both directions in the loop, and that electrons flow through the whole loop, which means they are impeded by and pass through the interconnect (or fuse) in both directions, equally, outside of transmission line effects, which don't come into play at analog audio frequencies coupled with SNR and mismatch timing/amplitudes. I will throw in that skin effects in any tolerable cable at audio frequencies, SNR, loading is also a null proposition w.r.t audible differences. Here is the thing jea48, the claim, at least from MFRs, many users are more honest, is that they ALWAYS improve. My $100 one is good, $1000 amazing, and $10000 totally stupendous, and you have to admit MFRs and users make these claims. Tell me, how do you match said cables to equipment that has tolerances in the few percent range? .... and claim "always better"? |
roberttcan I am willing to test on any system you wish to configure ...Let's see if the group can agree about what that system might look like. Then you could try to assemble something comparable at one of the major audio shows, and invite Audiogon readers and others in to participate. |
jetterI have no ideal why what I believe is a small group of persons
on A'gon would think that blind testing won't yield fair and impartial
results. Please do not repeat the GK arguments against it that the
testers are going to rig the test. Nothwithstanding the fact that the conclusions are sometimes dubious, there have been many perfectly valid listening tests. Because it's such a time consuming task from the onset, organizers who actually go to the trouble of conducting such tests typically put extra effort into making them valid. That's pretty well established. |
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geoffkait, you have again advanced the henny penny argument that "the sky is falling". That all the small chances of something not being correct in the double blind test outweigh the much larger chance that nothing will go wrong. In order for all the things to happen that you say could go wrong there is the unwritten inference that one of the test sponsors has something to gain from a certain choice and will sabotage the test to achieve his advantage. |
- I am willing to test on any system you wish to configure. Based on this assumption every person who makes a claim has errors in their system - I am willing to test on any system you wish to configure, hence if it is not revealing enough, that falls on you. However, since you are making the claim (as have others), then their systems would make the most sense to test on, and/or a manufacturers system who is also making the claim. - The subject is not capable of hearing the difference: .. since it is the subjects ability to hear the difference claimed that is being rejected, I would say that is often a moot point. In the context of general testing, you normally do larger sample sizes and most who would participate in these define themselves as audiophiles. - Cabling and or electronics are either brand new or not broken in or not earned up properly. See point one. You (or the vendor) has complete flexibility in the system used. - Test s/w is out of polarity or not good enough to reveal the differences. This speaks back to my point about the person making the claim to hearing differences being the ones who is being challenged. They have already made that claim on a range of S/W, so do the test with the same S/W. - Weather issues mask the audible differences. If weather issues mask the audible differences, then how can you be sure you even heard a difference due to the component change in the first place and not due to a weather change. However, since this is a somewhat quick A/B test, both scenarios experience the same weather. We could also assume indoor and somewhat climate controlled. geoffkait17,697 posts10-24-2019 12:15pm"The trouble I have with blind tests or any tests really is their inherent fallibility. So many things can go wrong. If the results are negative it could very well be for any of the following reasons, which is not intended to be a complete list. The system has one or more errors in it. The system is not revealing enough. The subject is not capable of hearing the difference. The test software is out of polarity or just plain not good enough to reveal differences. Cabling and or electronics are either brand new or not broken in or not earned up properly. Weather issues mask the audible differences. On the other hand, if results of a test are positive, I might be more inclined to think something might be going on since positive results were obtained IN SPITE of all the pitfalls. But, generally to be convincing tests should be repeatable and transferable. One test has very little significance especially if the results are negative." |
