Yes...you are correct.
Directional cables are a bit different from conventional cables.
Shield connected to ground at the source side of the cable; while the opposing side is floating (signal) - before it reaches the other component.
Conventional cables are typically floating on both sides, hence the difference in sound quality. Great question! |
The article is not about cables, but about wires and the short single core wire is completely symmetrical if we are about audio signal. Just in case you missed it, the overall point is:
- Every piece of wire is directional.
- The preferred direction can be determined in every circuit of an amplifier.
- Wires directions in signal and AC/DC wiring are arranged systematically in contours.
There are some DIY tips and tricks also. |
interesting...thanks for sharing |
This should be a good one to follow.
Cable direction. Any bets on how many posts until it unravels? |
It depends on what exactly is to be unraveled.
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Good work. Directionality is easy to hear, even in stranded cables which you point out are never as clear as solid core. However it is so much work to unsolder and reverse wires I have always just left things alone. With fuses however it has been easy to hear with one way obviously better than another.
So much so that the first Synergistic Blue fuse I ever tried, I knew within the first minute it was the wrong way! The sound was just as you described, less clear and tonally correct. Reversed, and everything snapped into focus, with incredible detail and beautifully accurate tone and timbre.
If there is that much difference in the one inch of a fuse, I can only imagine what can be achieved with everything going the right direction. You say you were able to do this all the way down to the level of tube pins and RCA plugs? Incredible!
That is the one thing missing from this very understated low-key article. If the difference I heard from just one inch of fuse was carried out across every wire in every part of the amp, I have to think the final result would be mind-boggling in ease and clarity, with a truly holographic 3D presentation. Which it better be, for the time it takes to get there! |
Do you also have a sensitivity to absolute phase? I’ve often wondered if there is a correlation with cable directionality, but either my ears or my system isn’t up to the task. |
If there is that much difference in the one inch of a fuse, I can only imagine what can be achieved with everything going the right direction. You say you were able to do this all the way down to the level of tube pins and RCA plugs? Incredible!
Yes, EL-AL-AZ German 1938 tube sockets can be easily disassembled. Then pins are tested the same way as wires, then sorted and marked, at the end new sockets with correct pins directions are assembled. As for RSA, I use handmade ones https://www.backtomusic.ru/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/cons.jpg. They are made the same way - first directions of old metal blanks are determined, then details of the plugs are lathed according to their direction and finally the plugs are assembled with right parts direction. If the difference I heard from just one inch of fuse was carried out across every wire in every part of the amp, I have to think the final result would be mind-boggling in ease and clarity, with a truly holographic 3D presentation. Which it better be, for the time it takes to get there!
The thing is more complicated than it seems to be. When you orient the first few conductors in a good amplifier, the gain in clarity is as high as possible. If you continue to pick up directions from more and more conductors in the amp circuit, the quality gain begins to slow down. I think there are several reasons for this: 1 - There are limits to any perfection, and the sound tends to this limit exponentially. The further you go in your search, the more difficult it is to get a proportionate result. 2 - A person quickly gets used to the good and ceases to appreciate it. 3 - The more transparent your system sounds, the more difficult it is to find a recording that is at least somewhat commensurate in quality with your audio system. From some point on, you start to hear all the mistakes of sound engineers, musician kicks and other interference that is not noticeable on the average audio systems and it is very annoying. So the vast majority of recordings become uninteresting, but the little rest is revealed in such unexpected, astonishing colors that I am still quite puzzled how it ever could be. |
Do you also have a sensitivity to absolute phase? I’ve often wondered if there is a correlation with cable directionality, but either my ears or my system isn’t up to the task. In my opinion, if there is any correlation, then no one can accurately determine it. The fact is that it is impossible to set up a correct experiment here, with all other things being equal. To determine the alleged effect of the absolute phase on the sound, you must assemble a phase inverter device that will contain a number of radio elements and wires including a bypass switch for comparison. During a comparison test when you listen either through the phase inverter or bypass it, the difference in sound will naturally be heard, but it is impossible to interpret it unambiguously, since the phase rotation device contains many parts and conductors that randomly affect the sound. The people who initially experimented with the audibility of the absolute phase were most likely professional radio engineers, among whom there are practically no people who accept the existence of sound of individual wires. However, these people heard the difference during the comparison tests and decided that this is how the absolute phase manifests itself. This opinion is widespread among audiophiles, but this does not naturally mean that it is true. I don’t see a way to solve this problem, but my opinion is - the absolute phase can not be heard. |
For the sake of clarity: I assume we are discussing polarity, not phase. |
I'm sorry, what do you mean by polarity? |
For the sake of clarity: I assume we are discussing polarity, not phase. And it can definitely be heard. It manifests itself as a strange hesitance in attack. As though a woodwind would suck in air rather than blowing it. Unfortunately there are numerous studies indicating that the majority of recordings are out of polarity. Using a phase inverter is a good way of training one‘s sensitivity to the phenomenon and it should be standard issue on music servers |
Phase is 360 degrees scalar, polarity is binary |
Why are you so sure that you are hearing the polarity and not something else?
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What else would the phase inverter change, then? |
Nice job, that makes me think if same models sound identical when leaving factory.
G |
What else would the phase inverter change, then? I wish I could be as confident as you) There are two ways to switch the phase - analog and digital. I have already described my opinion about the analog version: it is impossible to put a pure experiment here. But the digital is also full of mysticism. I have my own experience in this matter. The code of any software player can be divided into the part that deals with the actual decoding of the sound and the part that creates the user interface (buttons, menus, etc.). It is natural to think that the sound is affected only by the first part of the code, the rest can be changed as you like. Once, for certain reasons, I decided to check this statement, and made several versions of the same type of software mp3 player for Windows with different interface. To do this, I used the "Multimedia builder". As a result, the player with the most complex interface - with a clock, track time, the ability to visualize music and many more, sounded the most muffled and and generally the worst of all. The most pure music played through a minimalist version of interface in which there was nothing at all except "open file" and three buttons. The experiment definitely indicated that: - The sound is affected by the entire code, not just the part associated with encoding and decoding the audio signal. - The simpler the software, the better it is for the sound. Both conclusions are mystical, but I got used to such things. And I have to say that to me the difference was quite significant. Therefore, when I am told that the phase inversion in the software player makes a difference in the sound and this proves that the phase is audible, I answer that unfortunately this does not prove anything. We don't know how the piece of code that responsible for inverting the signal would affect the sound in case it didn't invert anything, but was simply added to the player code in a way of interface or so. And we also don't know is the code in inverter part technically correct, mistakes are what make us human. I have found this mp3 player, you can try its sound if you have Windows - https://backtomusic.ru/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/play.zip |
Nice job, that makes me think if same models sound identical when leaving factory. Of course they sounds different, the only question is to what extent. If we, for example, compare two modern conveyor amps made in the same day or week, they may differ just slightly. But if we compare any couple of amps of the same model with an issue date difference of several years, the contrast in sound may be as large as if it were completely different amps. And the old stock one will most likely be better, but it is impossible to guess for sure. |
@anton_Stepichev,
as far as I am aware when done in the digital domain (my experience is with puremusic) it doesn’t involve going through all sorts of additional DSP hoops. That would be dysfunctional and is one of my key issues with Roon which has poor SQ compared to a pure renderer (e.g. Squeezebox-based) |
Unfortunately, I can't say anything about Pure Music or Squeezebox. I've never heard of them.
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Good work Anton on something I have been thinking about for a long time. The fundamental idea is sound of course but in practice daunting and so congratulations for taking on something so many others simply throw up their hands and mock as impossible.
Once having done all the work to map and sort you probably could build an amp that would far outperform what anyone would be able to get from the same parts any other way. Have you built complete amps for sale? Or is this more of an intellectual pursuit? Either way, awesome!
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There was an audio internet site that was run by a bunch of Japanese audio enthusiasts. They were among the first to use those NOS WE 16GA speaker cables. They were very fastidious about it, trying all the types they could get their hands on.
Many here tried those cables and loved what they heard. Going through what else they were into showed them to check directionality in the cables they used when building their gear, if I'm not mistaken. It's been quite awhile and I can't locate the site.
All the best,
Nonoise |
I must admit I have trouble hearing directional changes. How does that mater on an AC circuit? I understand how my copper cables are constructed and use them as instructed but I fail to get the concept into my brain. |
If you can't hear it then it doesn't matter. To you.
As for how it sounds, scroll up, he described it. |
From the article: “Subjective measurements can be considered reliable if one expert or several experts in a blind test have estimates repeated in, say, 80-90% of cases.”
So that’s the pass mark for directionality having an effect. Any results?
Also, as the Audioholics guy is saying just now on his video, the differences between speaker cables measure at below 0.06dB. Utterly impossible for the human ear to detect. If one cable to another has so little effect, will turning the same cable around have the 10x greater effect needed for any audible difference to be heard when blind? Really? |
What part of If you can't hear it then it doesn't matter. To you. do you not understand? |
Anton - you set out the pass mark, you’ve done lots of work, so what was the result? Is directionality easy to hear as MC says, to the extent of 80-90% correct identification in blind tests?
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@Millercarbon
Once having done all the work to map and sort you probably could build an amp that would far outperform what anyone would be able to get from the same parts any other way. Have you built complete amps for sale? Or is this more of an intellectual pursuit? Thanks for the good, Millercarbon. I make no amps or anything else for sale, all this is just intellectual pursuit, as you said. |
@russ69
I must admit I have trouble hearing directional changes. How does that mater on an AC circuit? Perhaps you need to enable some logic here. Directivity is detected in electrical circuits with AC and no current at all (think of tube grid). Starting from here for a well educated radio engineer there are only two logical moves: - There is no directivity at all. - Directivity is a property of conductors that has only an indirect relation to electromagnetism and acoustics. When we listen to music, along with acoustic vibrations, we feel some accompanying vibrations, which, judging by their subjective manifestations stated above, cannot be detected by any measuring devices. It's anything but electricity. I believe that since quite a lot of people around the world claim that they hear the direction, it does exists. It is also clear that it is not easy for a person to identify this phenomenon against the background of other manifestations of the audio signal from the first time, and sometimes after even many attempts. If you want to learn how to hear this phenomenon, then I would advise you to build as simple as possible a mono tube amplifier and listen to it through a bare broadband speaker without a housing. Another option is to buy an old tube receiver from the 1930s and use its amp and speaker as a wire tester after removing from it all the parts related to the RF circuits. On such equipment, the direction can be heard very clearly. Start tests with the speaker cables, listen through them to the music that emotionally affects you the most and at first focus on long tests - more than a minute in one listening session. I am sure that if not immediately, then after a while you will be quite normal to navigate the subtleties of the sound. Many people have come this way, and so have I. |
@bluemoodriver
Anton - you set out the pass mark, you’ve done lots of work, so what was the result? Is directionality easy to hear as MC says, to the extent of 80-90% correct identification in blind tests? I admit this is a difficult question, the percentage of hits depends on many things. First of all, if we are talking about just difference in the sound of the same piece of wire, then here, with all other things being equal, the percentage of hits easily fits into 90% and sometimes 100% . Equal means that we must listen to the same piece of music, connect the test wire to the circuit in the same way (the same contact points of the test wire with the circuit) and hold the wire with our hands in the same way. The problem is that the wire has a transverse component of directivity, and if during testing you connect the wire in the same longitudinal direction but with different sides, the sound will differ, and sometimes this difference can be close in expression to the longitudinal reversal. Your hands also affect the sound when you hold the test wire in them. If you do not know this, then the repeatability in the tests may disappear altogether. So we have some difficulties even in simplest case, but in practice, it is impossible to listen to the same piece of music all the time and work with the same wire ceteris paribus. Here you should not just hear the difference, but choose the best direction in terms of the sum of the pros and cons of different wires. Each wire in addition to the direction has its own character (coloration) and different musical potential, it happens that a successful conductor in the opposite direction sounds preferable than an unsuccessful conductor in the right one. All this definitely reduces the percentage of hits in practice. In short - to be sure that the percentage of hits in long continuous tests is within 80-90%, the results should be rechecked with a fresh head. In responsible places, I sometimes do it even twice. @bluemoodriver
Also, as the Audioholics guy is saying just now on his video, the differences between speaker cables measure at below 0.06dB. Utterly impossible for the human ear to detect. If one cable to another has so little effect, will turning the same cable around have the 10x greater effect needed for any audible difference to be heard when blind? Really? It is not the difference in electricity signal that we hear while reversing wires. I have explained my point of view earlier. |
First of all, connecting the shield to one side only creates a great antenna. You can pick up all kinds of signals this way. Second of all wire is in no way shape or form directional. This is a great example of how our minds can trick us. Lay instinct is wrong 90% of the time then, if you want to hear something you will. If you blind yourself and have someone else switch back and forth you will not be able to make out any difference. You have to be honest with yourself and understand just how tricky evaluating by ear only is. The differences have to be pretty severe to be able to notices them reliably by ear only. A lot of these myths were started by dishonest companies trying to separate their gear from the pack appealing to lay instinct. What makes sense frequently does not. |
@mijostyn
wire is in no way shape or form directional. This is a great example of how our minds can trick us. Lay instinct is wrong 90% of the time.. OK, this is your point of view. I believe you are not a layman, then please explain me the following: For example, I love Glenn Gould, I appreciate every note he has. I open YouTube with a professional remastering made by people with a philosophy identical to yours and hear a poor sound without most of the nuances inherent in Gould’s records. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjEAFWKCymYThen I take his record, digitize it on my amateur equipment, compress it into mp3 and upload it to the Internet. https://www.backtomusic.ru/19719Please note that this is not an experiment, all other things being equal. In this situation, I am at a disadvantage because studio remastering was made from master tapes, and I did it from a vinyl that had already been recorded from such a tape some years ago. The LP sounds much worse than the original master tape (ask studio guys if you don’t believe it). I wonder why remastering from master tape made by professionals on very expensive audio equipment, sounds less expressive and is so poor in timbres and nuances compared to mine? Maybe their appliances have been broken that time? Then I can give you many similar examples if you want. |
Thanks for posting those links - fascinating.
All subjective I know. To my ears the Youtube version sounds like it is the same as the one found on Qobuz labelled as a hi-res remastering. You can find on Qobuz the same piece without that remastering badge and at red book and when I asked my daughter’s young and very musical ears which of these two she preferred she said the standard res version sounded “fuller and richer”. She also thought the Youtube copy sounded closest to the hi res badged version we found. (The youtube was airplayed to the system so was red book).
We then played the same piece from your website. Sorry to say, the two young faces and my old face in the room screwed up - “yuk”. Nobody liked the noise, nor the sound. One comment was “it sounds ancient and like it’s being played through a sock”.
Only opinions and everyone has their preferences. My family is not conditioned to the vinyl sound, for sure.
But the point must be that when differences between youtube, Qobuz, and masterings, and vinyl copies are so large, how can the tiny effects of wire directionality matter much? No amount of wire fiddling is going to clean that dull and noisy vinyl... |
@bluemoodriver,
aren’t you confounding quality of input and quality of transmission? An impact of one in no way has a bearing on differences in the other |
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Don’t think so... let’s see. We listened to the youtube, web-linked, and 2 Qobuz versions of what (as far as I can tell) the same performance. Can’t know for sure. Each was sent to the same rig by Airplay at 44/16. Three inputs sounded very similar with only my daughter able to claim hearing a distinction between the youtube and Qobuz versions. All of us very easily heard a very substantial difference between them and the uploaded vinyl version. Expressed as a preference, none of us enjoyed listening to that version due to the noise, and the lifelessness (to our ears). So I did try to talk about inputs, only. And then wondered if the difference between a recording of a vinyl play and a digital stream can be so great, why are we worrying about wire directionality? |
bluemoodriverNo amount of wire fiddling is going to clean that dull and noisy vinyl ... Agreed. If an LP sounds "dull and noisy" then something else is amiss, e.g. dirty disc, bad or worn pressing, worn stylus, improper setup ... |
@bluemoodriver The difference between vinyl and digital is really big. The digital is like McDonald’s meal, makes everything pleasant, smooth and equally delicious, but has less natural taste and not very useful. Vinyl, especially early mono before 1970, appeals to the senses, it is always different, like home cooking, it can be unsalted, or under cooked, but it feels like a natural product, the pulsation of life for which you can easily put up with clicks and interference. But there is also shellac, which appeals to the senses even more strongly. Recordings at 78 revolutions will be easier to compare - the experiment will be approximately all other things being equal, there were no tape recorders then and everything was written directly on the matrix. The difference here is more obvious, hope this tells you more. So young Yasha Heifetz 1917 acoustic recording, Ave Maria Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X02-C99cIuwMy entry - https://www.backtomusic.ru/17723 |
I get it, I really do! For the same sort of reasons, I only build and ride steel-framed bikes - I would never want to own or ride a carbon fibre framed bike. I’m only interested in my sailing boat - I’d never want a jetski. I only brew and drink real ale and I never touch Budweiser or other cold and fizzy synthetic apologies for a proper drink. My car is a manual - an auto just feels wrong. All these are preferences and there are substantial measurable differences between them. In every case the carbon fibre frame is stronger and lighter than the steel; the jet ski is faster and more reliable than the sailboat; the lager is more consistent and thirst-quenching than the ale; the car computer makes better and quicker gear changes than I ever could. No question. Nor is there any question that the digital stream is measurably better in every way than the vinyl; simply much closer to the master than vinyl can ever be, and a difference so great that no wire tweak can get close to addressing it. But like bikes, boats and beers, there’s no accounting for taste. |
bluemoondriver you have a very creative, flowery, and expressive literary style, approach, and content but what you have suggested, expressed, and explained is what is known as a "faulty analogy" so I suggest you pursue, explore, and investigate the basics, fundamentals, and foundations of elementary logic. |
If I had said “an automatic gearbox is better than a manual, therefore streaming is better than vinyl” you might have had a point. But I didn’t so you don’t.
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@bluemoodriver, thanks for your attention to this complicated topic. We need to clarify something about the difference and hierarchy of values in music now.
You talk about the technical characteristics of the surface-noise and frequency response - but the wires and their direction do not affect these things. Only indirectly, when the recording is lively enough to involve you in listening, there is an involuntary effect, when the noise and the frequency response curve seem to recede to the side and stop interfering with listening, and the music comes out to meet you.
A good musical performance has a certain direct message to the soul that practically does not depend on the noise level and the linearity of the frequency response, otherwise no one would have listened to 78 records and CD cassettes before. This is a very subtle substance that is formed during a live performance, consisting of many elusive things - musical intonations and shades. This substance is hierarchically the most valuable part of music, it makes you a music lover, makes you tap your foot to the rhythm or takes you to the clouds. As soon as your perception begins to confidently distinguish it from everything else, you begin to look for only this component of the music in any record. They say in rock, people are looking for the Drive, in jazz - the liberation of the soul, in classical music - voices of angels.
I have been researching this phenomenon for many years, trying to highlight it from the music so that the music will capture you even more. However, the selection of these subtle things almost always occurs at the expense of technical characteristics, it is extremely difficult to combine Hi-Fi and Music itself. So, according to my records, you do not need to judge the technical capabilities of vinyl, you can no problem playback vinyl linearly and without clicks, you just need a new record, an MC cartridge and a standard RIAA preamp.
The potency of the music itself is another matter. My recordings pull out the soul of the artist, he opens up to you much clearer than the options on YouTube. It is at this point that I would like to draw your attention.
So how do you like the singing of Heifetz violin and what about the difference? Perhaps your system is not open enough due to its complexity and the use of AirPlay, try an simplier system. Often Internet recordings sound more lively and clear directly from a mobile phone, no matter how strange it seemed to you.
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Anton, "...your perception begins to confidently distinguish it from everything else..."
Differences in SQ can only be confidently distinguished by properly run blind testing.
If you are not testing blind, your results are personal and subjective and therefore not useful. |
Exactly clearthinker although, people who are use to listening to known defects are better at identifying them without blind testing. The lay audiophile does not have access to this kind of equipment thus is flying blind. It is easy enough to build AB switch boxes. I'm surprised nobody sells them. Since the birth of remote control in audio it has become easy to switch sources. I have my old blind relay driven switch box with RCA ins and outs but I have not pulled that out in decades. I decided on the wire issue decades ago.
Anton, while all that true to some degree I find it most applicable in comparing performances of the same piece by different artists. You forgot to mention the visceral component to live music that is frequently missing from reproductions. |
clearthinker Differences in SQ can only be confidently distinguished by properly run blind testing. Blind testing certainly has its place in audio - although not so much for the typical audiophile - but this statement is completely false. Those who insist on blind testing usually cite "placebo effect" or "expectation bias" as justification for their rather odd belief system. Those are very real mechanisms, no doubt, but they are not absolute. Placebo effect will not cure cancer. No blind testing is required to distinguish between extreme examples of audio components, nor is it always required to detect one that is malfunctioning. If you are not testing blind, your results are personal and subjective and therefore not useful. You’d be better off speaking for yourself rather than for others. You may well indeed require blind testing to know how something sounds, but that’s not a universal trait. So, @clearthinker, please tell us about your blind tests. How were they conducted, how many test subjects, what were the results? |
@clearthinker
Differences in SQ can only be confidently distinguished by properly run blind testing.If you are not testing blind, your results are personal and subjective and therefore not useful. Almost twenty years ago, when I first realized that I was hearing the sound of a wire and that it was not a hallucination, I tortured myself and my friends long enough to test the audibility of these effects. Now I just double-check myself after a while and that’s it. At the same time some mistakes are still left, but blind tests are not a remedy for it. Moreover, in our case, the blind tests lead to system errors themselves. To evaluate quality of the wire we need, among other things, to assess expert’s involvement in listening, that is, how he reacts sensually to certain music, but the blind test was developed by scientists for quite another purpose - to determine the difference in the audible sound (frequency response, noise, distortion). This is the whole problem, scientists test the wrong thing, and then they believe the Stradivarius violins sound worse than some ordinary-level instruments. |
mijostynThe lay
audiophile does not have access to this kind of equipment thus is flying
blind. It is easy enough to build AB switch boxes. I'm surprised nobody
sells them. They are available from multiple vendors. Van Alstine's has been one of the more popular - it's probably still available even though it doesn't seem to be on its website now. It's not just a switchbox, but a true a/b/x comparator. The Manley SkipJack can also be used. WireWorld makes its own box solely for the purpose of evaluating cables.
I've long that it odd that the measurementalists who claim cables can't make a difference don't seem to avail themselves of some of these tools.
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A good musical performance has a certain direct message to the soul that
practically does not depend on the noise level and the linearity of the
frequency response, otherwise no one would have listened to 78 records
and CD cassettes before. This is a very subtle substance that is formed
during a live performance, consisting of many elusive things - musical
intonations and shades. This substance is hierarchically the most
valuable part of music, it makes you a music lover, makes you tap your
foot to the rhythm or takes you to the clouds. As soon as your
perception begins to confidently distinguish it from everything else,
you begin to look for only this component of the music in any record. Bingo! This guy gets it! He totally gets it! No wonder he is so good! |
@mijostyn
Since the birth of remote control in audio it has become
easy to switch sources. I have my old blind relay driven switch box with
RCA ins and outs but I have not pulled that out in decades. I decided
on the wire issue decades ago. mijostyn, you
often call others laymen and at the same time offer a false,
pseudo-scientific method to determine the quality of wire. Let's assume wires are measurable and when the wire is reversed, it can change its sound by 1 db. But in
your testing device, there are at least a dozen randomly directed
conductors, which according to strict logic can give out 12 db of
difference and you do not know exactly how much. Thus, you will try to
estimate the influence of an amplitude of 1 db against the background of
an unknown influence of the same nature, but at a much higher level,
which in no way can be done accurately.
You can't measure a wire sound with a device that contains wires, isn't it obvious?
Anton, while all that true to some
degree I find it most applicable in comparing performances of the same
piece by different artists.You forgot to mention the visceral component
to live music that is frequently missing from reproductions.
As far as i can get it, you mean exactly what millercarbon have mentioned above.
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You can't measure a wire sound with a device that contains wires, isn't it obvious?
I assume this is an attempt at humor? Unfortunately reading the rest of the post, I am not sure. |
