So you think wire conductors in cables are directional? Think again...
Here is a very relevant discussion among physicists about the directionality...the way signal and electrons should flow... based on conductor orientation. Some esoteric, high-end manufacturers say they listen to each conductor to see which way the signal should flow for the best audio quality.
Read this discussion. Will it make you rethink what you’re being told and sold?
andy21,286 posts05-13-2021 2:52pmKind of funny the RF folks now are criticizing about cable directional. RF folks are known for their measurements so they have to live and die by it. If you insist on measurement, you got to put up or shut up.
In RF, there is something called "insertion loss" or RF people would call it "SD21" or "SD12". SD21 is the insertion loss in one direction whereas SD12 is insertion loss in the other direction. And these are never the same especially in RF. You measure insertion loss in one direction, then the other direction, and the results are close but never the same.
Also if RF folks also are making fun of cable lifters, remember that RF cables are very sensitive to the cable bending. If you bend the cable just slightly, your SD21 will change. Expensive RF cables are less sensitive but they all are.
You see, there a lot of these voodoo scientists ... errr... I meant "objectivist". They keep pounding on the word "measurements", but they themselves can't withstand close scrutiny. A lot of these people are using the word "measurement" as a mean to an agenda but a lot of them don't know what they are talking about.
RF and audio spectrums are completely different. CAT cables operate in megahertz with the twisted pairs needing to be in sweeping bends so as not to cause interference/crosstalk with the delivery of digital data packets. Completely different signal delivery system than analog AC current signal.
speakermaster382 posts05-13-2021 4:58pmThe reason that some manufacturers put the arrow on the wire is because they made the wire and know which way the copper was drawn through the dies when it was manufactured the other manufacturers listen for best sound but i can understand how the sound would be better in the direction the copper was drawn out it is the best explanation i have ever heard about this.
It's just not true...especially for AC. The AC current travels in both directions. Here's an easy explanation. Next time you have a burning question for a high-end cable manufacturer, present them with this:
I've never bought into the directionality myth. Blind tests over the years indicate I cant tell the difference when the directions are reversed, no matter where the arrow is. I align the arrows just to assuage my OCD, but that's all.
The same with most cable quality. My 15' and 20' lengths of Canare 12 gauge speaker cable is indistinguishable from the 8 foot runs of Acoustic Zen Holograms I had before.
I especially found interesting in the link to the Physics Forum the idea that this myth is even more fantastic when it comes to digital signals.
Those guys in the link above from the OP, when they start talking about digital signal as 0's and 1's, well they pretty lost all their credibility. Only a layman would think digital as 0 and 1.
It’s just not true...especially for AC. The AC current travels in both directions. Here’s an easy explanation.
Wrong. AC current travels in one direction. Look up Poynting vector. We’ve been through this. You’re a bit late to the party.
The link you provided is like high-school level for those who can’t get past first year college.
You’re also convoluting the discussion of which direction the current should flow through the conductor...which is also not true. It’s the purity that matters more than the direction it was drawn...which is zero.
Reverse the leads at the speaker and the drivers change direction based on the polarity of the charged magnets. The AC pulses back and forth.
Legit curious question: What more than 1's and 0's constitutes digital signal?
1's and 0's are the abstraction. There is really no 1 and 0 in real world data. It's just the voltage level. We assign a high voltage as 1, and low voltage as 0, but that voltage level can be anything. You can also call high voltage as 0 and vice versa if you want. There are rise time fall time. There are jitter. There are overshoot, undershoot. It's all analog.
What most don't see is how these can affect the signal jitter. Why does jitter matter in audio? Because the DAC needs a clock and if the clock is affected by jitter, the audio coming out will be affected too.
Most RF engineers probably don't get it. I know because I get asked this same question by a lot of so called "electrical engineer", and I have to explain this to them. They would soon understand.
Who among us, upon finding an arrow on a cable, will not abide by that directional instruction, or ignoring it, will be bothered by it, regardless of what rational thought says?
I don't care who is right...if I buy a freakin cable of any kind, and it has directional arrows, then that shall be the way it is installed. I also follow what chord recommends, and connect wires with the print reading in the direction of the signal, it makes me feel better. 😬
This reminds me of the philosophical conversation the theologian had with an atheist. "By participating in a discussion regarding the existence of God you have proved you believe God".
I have wires that are directional - balanced cables and internal biwire speaker cables.
"By participating in a discussion regarding the existence of God you have proved you believe God".
“The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton." ...and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It 's a ghost!" Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. numbers exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. it's that only that gets me. science is only in your mind too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. or ghosts either." Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Law of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts." ...we see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past.” ― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
The original theory of MOND by Milgrom was developed in 1983 as an alternative to "dark matter". Departures from Newton's law of gravitation are governed by an acceleration scale, not a distance scale. MOND successfully explains the Tully-Fisher observation that the luminosity of a galaxy should scale as the fourth power of the rotation speed. It also explains why the rotation discrepancy in dwarf galaxies is particularly large.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternatives_to_general_relativity#Relativistic_MOND
Damn! Now I don't even know if I should believe in God or these so called scientists :-)
From time to time I find some very interesting topics and points of view to consider. I even learn a thing or two from those who have something of value to offer.
And then their are the ones that have to keep rehashing old crap that has been beat to death. Especially where you know this thread will go.
@andy2 wrote about Insertion Loss. I was curious, so I spent some time reading about it. He’s right: There are two objective measurements, Insertion Loss and Return Loss, that measure signal attenuation in metal and fiber cables. These are evidently well-understood phenomena that are commonly measured.
He’s also right that Insertion Loss and Return Loss show different results depending upon which end of the cable the measurements are taken from. These two measurable parameters clearly show a difference in measurement depending upon the direction of the cable.
If you do some reading, you’ll quickly find many engineering shops that offer this measurement service. You’ll also find that it’s common to measure from both sides of the cable, then average the different results from each side to get a single basic reference value for Insertion and Return loss.
There’s no argument about this - it’s real, measurable, and there’s a whole industry built around it.
But - can a person hear these directional differences in a 3 foot interconnect? I have no idea and I’m not asserting an opinion about that. Some people claim to be able to hear it; some people say they don’t hear it. That’s fine with me because this is basically the normal state of everything in the world.
All I’m asserting is that cable directionality is in fact measurable as @andy2 wrote, via the Insertion and Return Loss parameters. And if there’s a measurable difference, however small, then it seems reasonable to believe that some people may be able to hear that difference.
I think your response is one-dimensional. I'm suggesting the physics theories are wrong - I'm suggesting our perception of music is a 'point in time'
When we listen to music we recognize our brain can augment our senses with memories.
And as far as the theologian perhaps he's giving credit to Decartes' "I think therefore I am" and trying to apply the mathematical concept of transference.
There is a common misconception that signals are carried in conductors. Somehow this association crosses over to the idea that conductors carry both signals and energy. A few simple calculations can show that this is a false idea. Consider a 50-ohm transmission line carrying a 5-volt logic signal. The initial current at switch closure is 500 mA. A typical trace is a a gram-mole of copper that has 6 x 1023 copper atoms (Avogadro’s number). Each atom can contribute one electron to current flow. Knowing the charge on an electron makes it easy to show that the average electron velocity for 500 mA is a few centimeters per second. What is even more interesting is that only a trillion electrons are involved in this current flow. This means that only one electron in a trillion carries the current. This also says that the magnetic field that moves energy is not located in the conductors. The only explanation that makes sense is that energy in the magnetic field must be located in the space between two conductors.Conductors end up directing energy flow - not carrying the energy.
Very good article it shows how the idea of cable direction at audio level is nonsense unless you think the number of electrons change with direction. The signal will flow either way through the field at the same speed using the same free electrons.
A good article from a company I place a lot of credience in (post below)! I do believe in cable directionality and place all my cables / interconnects accordingly. I also believe in Oxygen free copper and directional grain flow effects. I also believe in silver end connectors over gold plated end connectors. Differences are audible and repeatable. I'm happy.......
Cable directionality has to do with where the copper was mined because electrons move differently depending on which hemisphere you’re talking about.
A cable made from copper mined in Utah will favor being plugged in the opposite way from a cable made from copper mined in South America to say nothing of copper mined in Asia.
So....now it's being said the current doesn't flow through the conductor, but the spaces between the conductors. How a bout solid conductors? What happens when you take away the conductor?
Keep in mind that the discussion is about audio frequencies. Not RF, radar, microwave...
What is tiresome is attacking a post without argument.... And attacking someone feeling or expression... especially with only a few bad words without nothing else...
I like oldhvmec because he always speak with humor....And he is a competent mechanic....He even ubderstant pipe organ.... This is enough for me...
Anyway it is better when we accept all character in a meeting of souls....Then i will accept yours...
So....now it's being said the current doesn't flow through the conductor, but the spaces between the conductors.
Current flows through the conductor by the charge carriers. Energy flows through the EM field in the direction the current flows from high to low. The signal is carried by the energy and modulated by the changing levels of voltage.
Any phenomenon can be reduced to some set of parameters on a scale this is measured numbers...
For example temperature is a thermodynamical phenomena about molecules dynamic distributions in volume of space reflected at our body scale by the 2 QUALITATIVE polarities related to the sensation "warm" and "cold"...
There is no cold or warm in nature only measured numbers.... We need a conscious finite body with itself an internal thermodynamical distributions of molecules DIFFERENT from the external system which is not finite like our but indefinite relative to our body to speak about "warm or cold"....
Then when we speak of warm or cold we dont speak about a DEFINITE numbers but about a set of different numbers relative to these polarities in us that define our LIMITATIONS and BOUNDARIES...
The human body is itself a measuring apparatus but contrary to our other measuring tools our body react to many parameters combined in many dimensions at the same time and translate that in a "sensation"....
Then what is "audible sensation" for the human ears is itself the expression of a mutiple sets of polarites distributed in many dimensions which are not measured by any of our tools simultenously if they are measurable for now at all...
And anyway even if this is a placebo effect why erasing it?
What good doctor try to erase placebo effect from his drug? In the opposite he reinforce it, saying to his patient that he prays God to make his drug better if he is WISE and not a credulous member of the scientism club...
True scientist use beliefs....They dont erased them by the "law of their faith" like in a cult....
True scientist erase sometimes belief only for the time of an experiment....They are rational without being slave of "reason"....
No ones talking about skin effect. You're talking about different things. Current is not energy. Current flows in the wire, energy flows along the wire.
The human body is itself a measuring apparatus but contrary to our other measuring tools our body react to many parameters combined in many dimensions at the same time and translate that in a "sensation"....
This is a citation from my last post here above and i want to add an example of what i speak about when i speak about the multidimensional parameters which are timed together and synchronized in the sound perception by the brain which are not measurable by conventional tool of engineering...
Audio is more complex than electronical engineering only... This is my grain of salt in the soup of those who vouch by their "electrical engineering" faith and such partial knowledge erase any possibilities about " directed wiring" experience of perception....
This article is not directly connected to the wire subject but illustrate well how human perception is not reducible to an external object like signals in a wire and a corresponding stimulus sensation or his absence.... Reality is not so simple it is not an object with a subject it is a bit more complicated than that..... Sorry.... Reality resulted from a recreation by the brain and is participated by the consciousness which is NEVER external totally to it.... It is the reason why there is no science at the singular but only SCIENCES in the plural....
Here is an article describing surprizing way the brain reorganize sensations/stimulis at different time scale or from different dimensions, and i recommend it especially for those here who always speak of " placebo" instead of figuring out for themselves the complexities in perception :
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