What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?


Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).

For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.

As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.

If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?

Regards.
anton_stepichev

Showing 50 responses by anton_stepichev

mahgister
I had the impression to look in myself when i listen this music and look in this avatar

So deep down you are a Russian Mahgister. This is very unexpected and pleasant.

I haven't listened to these songs for a long time and once again i note how emphatically all his unique intonations are conveyed in the pre-war 78 recordings. No modern recording can do that way, isn't it strange? Completely outdated shellac beats technological HI-FI in some very important music features.

Thank you.
But Anna has something very rarely heard in his voice colored timbre articulation singing , only the most beautiful voices own that angelic inflexion...
Yes!!

@millercarbonFascinating. So we got a guy saying the audible differences can only be caused by metaphysical reasons. While at the same time insisting everything be proved with numbers. This is Spock-level raised eyebrow fascinating.

No, he does not feel the changes and believes that the bias is to blame for everything. And he is not a person to admit his possible mistakes, now he will write a novel on the subject i'm sure.

On a more pleasant note, I believe we are all Russian. This is after all why we call it Mother Russia, is it not?

I am puzzled, really. I would never have thought that I would read this on an American forum from local people... Live and learn!

Thank you!


mahgister
By the way one of my most beloved composer with Bach and Bruckner is Scriabin

They say that Vladimir Sofronitsky was the most interesting performer of Scriabin's miniatures, and I think so too. Here are a couple of examples - https://www.backtomusic.ru/19684 track 8 and 9.

No less ingeniously did David Oistrakh on his Stradivarius - https://www.backtomusic.ru/19612 tracks 3 and 4. Nocturne just mesmerizes me.

These are all 78 pre-war records.
@dletch2
Meanwhile you put forward a second assumption that in a short piece of wire the frequency response can change when the wire is reversed. And It follows from the content that these changes in the frequency response go without the presence of signs of electrical asymmetry of the wire. According to Ohm’s Law, this cannot be.

Again, Anton, you are assigning words to me that I never said. There can only be a change in frequency response if the wire is not symmetrical. No Ohm's law violations required.


These are exact quotes from the discussion you entered in halfway through:

1 - @cmichaelo: "Due to manufacturing tolerances, a cable isn’t electrically the same from both directions."
2 - @anton_stepichev: "Let’s assume that the speaker wire has an error, but it is microscopic, on the verge of perception and measurement. Then, we will have to agree that the error is common to all the wires. And it turns out that, for example, in a RIAA corrector, the error of the wire going from the MC head to the transformer will be amplified almost 1000 times! .... But we do not observe such errors. So there is no polarity, semi conductivity or any other ELECTRICAL assymetry in a wire."
3 - @dletch2: "Does not work that way. If the error is simply frequency response, the relationship between the perfect and imperfect signal never changes".


@dletch2, the meaning of what you said is clear: you claim that when a wire is reversed, an "error is simply frequency response" is possible without the occurrence of "ELECTRICAL assymetry".

Now you retract your words, OK, but then again there is the question of amplifying the error by a factor of 1000, which somehow escapes measurement.

Why can't your super-accurate instruments measure it?

Ervin Nyiregyházi in Liszt are....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLk6vqaxU1Y

There is almost no visible Liszt, the performer takes up all the space... Full immersion in music, an amazing person! It reminds me of Oleg Karavaichuk, who could make a symphony out of a waltz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVO956v6wSs

Ostad Elahi a musician god also and one of my favorite...On par with the greatest musician god of the century....Menuhim says after listening him that listening him plays was one of the greatest musical event in his life.... After that who will not look for him?

he's a hypnotist, technically he doesn't seem to play anything special, but eventually you fall into a kind of meditation.


ihcho510 posts
04-26-2021 4:36pm
Obviously, a uniform single core wire cannot be directional.

From the point of view of physics - yes, any wire is ELECTRICALLY symmetric. In any case, no one has yet refuted the example of the absence of an error when it is amplified by 1000 times in RIAA corrector.

However, there is a difference by ear. This is actually the question - what is the component that does not relate to electricity, but is felt subjectively?

Then, what can cable engineers do to make the cables directional?

No one specifically makes the cables directional, they themselves turn out to be so, since the wires have directivity.

mahgister
My point is some ideas of Kozirev are behind the inspiration source for the idea of the research group linked to Anton .... Am i right?

I've heard about Kozyrev and his bold theory, but I don't know if his ideas can be used in audio. In any case, people like him do inspire the research practitioners that I am, so his influence is obvious.


djones51, It is hardly possible to explain anything here, it is possible to tell and discuss. But first we need to close the previous question with the semiconductivity of the wire.
@djones51,
Feel the musical quality in complete silence ??
@dletch2,
I am up to my knees in brown stuff without a shovel :-)
You both want to jump from kindergarten to college. Let's take it in order, although I doubt it will help.

What is there with the semiconductivity of the wire, the question is removed?
fleschler
These samples of Oistrakh and Sofronitsky predate my extensive Oistrakh and more limited Sofronitsky LPs and CDs of them. Thanks so much for such profound playing.

You are welcome!
dletch2
And no, wires do not have "micro diodes" or any other semiconducting properties at a bulk level.

Finally, you recognized that, from the point of view of conventional physics, there can be no direction for a wire. This is an important admission, because as an opponent you put all your strength into refuting it. So we agree, there is no secret door or loophole here because the laws of electrical engineering are simple and unambiguous.

Now we are in the following situation. You, as a representative of conventional physics, claim that NO ONE can hear the difference in sound when the wire is reversed. In the same way, the difference can not be heard when changing the power cable, you recognized this even earlier.

If you are right, then it turns out that a huge number of people can not understand their feelings and are simply biased.

However, if you are wrong and there is a subjective difference, then obviously you should look for it not in conventional electrical engineering and acoustics (we found out that there can be no difference within their framework), but somewhere else. Nevertheless, you persist in suggesting the use of blind tests developed by conventional physics to determine changes in the same conventional framework.

How can such tests give the correct answer in our situation?

djones51
Take this for instance , I don’t need a Nobel Prize in Physics to know it makes no sense.

Nevertheless advanced audiophiles even oriented mains cables, choosing the best sound position of the plug in the socket

Sound position of a plug? Is there a freeze position for my freezer?

thank you for drawing attention to the grammar error, I hope it will be clearer to you now: "choosing the position of the plug in the socket in which the music sounds better" Is the question settled?

You read it again. You simply dismiss bias by waving your hand.
You're missing the point the only way you can attribute any reported result to what is actually heard is through controlled, blind testing. Anything else is making up the results.

In my opinion, it is you who constantly dismiss the essence of the matter, find fault with grammar and other irrelevant things. We'll get to the bias later, this is undoubtedly a difficult question, but it is not solved by the blunt methods that you suggest.. Now please go up three posts and answer the question I asked dletch2 about the blind test.

dletch2
He attempts to twist everything I say, I think we are up to at least 3, probably 4 things now where he claims I said things I did not.

To each of your similar statements, I responded with direct quotes and comments, to which you had NOTHING to object. Now you decided to accuse me of juggling of facts.

Write down all four cases with accurate quotes and point at where and what exactly I have "twisted". Then we'll see what your words are worth.




dletch2
Let me rephrase it. I did not accuse you. I proved that you did. Yes you did libel.
Go on, dletch2, why did you stop talking halfway? where is your mysterious proof?

Gentlemen materialists, you have not yet answered the question about the reliability of blind tests.

Let me remind you that at the moment we have found out that when the wire is reversed, there are absolutely no changes in the electrical signal occur. Thus, according to the laws of conventional physics, these changes are not present in the acoustic signal and we can not hear them.

Next thing is all known subjective tests including blind tests are designed to detect audible differences in the acoustic signal, but we already know that these differences do not exist.

So what else can we prove with blind tests in our situation?

djones51
Next thing is all known subjective tests including blind tests are designed to detect audible differences in the acoustic signal, but we already know that these differences do not exist
If they don't exist then I guess you have your answer.

I wouldn't ask if I have the answer. Do you find a mistake in my logic?

dletch2
I have accused you quite clearly at least twice of misstating what I said, writing things you claimed I wrote, when that was not the case. I got tired of pointing it out.

Well well well.. Out of the four, there are already two left. I hope you understand that until you show where and how exactly i changed the meaning of your words, the accusation remain nothing more than libel. I'm waiting for proof.
djones51
Unless the so call differences that are heard from the wire direction in his tube amp were done with a CONTROLLED BLIND LISTENING TEST then the result are WORTHLESS.

Well no, standard practice would be have a third party do the blind test before you come to a conclusion. Even if a third party did a blind test and heard a difference it still does not follow that the difference is due to unknown signals and a sixth sense. That isn't how science works.

The purpose of blind testing is to try and find truth without bias. It might not always succeed but it's a tool like any other. It doesn't have to be about selling things.

djones51, your colleague has already switched to a placebo, and you're still offering blind tests. They can't give the right answer, don't you understand the logic?


"Let me remind you that at the moment we have found out that when the wire is reversed, there are absolutely no changes in the electrical signal occur. Thus, according to the laws of conventional physics, these changes are not present in the acoustic signal and we can not hear them.

Next thing is all known subjective tests including blind tests are designed to detect audible differences in the acoustic signal, but we already know that these differences do not exist.

So what else can we prove with blind tests in our situation?"
djones51
I’m sorry I can’t come up with a logical reason why we should believe in a sixth sense or if there are unknown signals in wires. I don’t even know where to criticize the ... I hesitate to say logic? That’s your conclusion isn’t it?
additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.

Yes, you quoted the conclusion, not the logical chain that led to that conclusion and I was not asking you to believe it. I was asking about a possible error in the logic that leads to this conclusion. starting with the audibility of a particular effect according to electrical engineering. Where exactly can there be a possible mistake?


djones51
I've already told you , bias. Your error is ignoring it.
You need to go into politics, they appreciate people who, instead of answering a question, confidently say something out of place with a smart look. It is also obvious that you do not understand electronics and are afraid to express your opinion about it. This is my conclusion.
djones51
If we have to leave out basic science like blind listening tests let's also not delve into psuedo science "sixth sense" and unknown signals.
So, we can't have placebo or imaginary signals or an unknown sixth sense. The answer is, it doesn't exist.

Wait. I gave a specific, logical reason why it is impossible to rely on a blind test in such a situation, and not just stated that "we have to leave out basic science like blind listening tests". I expected you to criticize the logic, not just say, "The answer is, it doesn't exist."
djones51
Until you acknowledge the fact that humans are easily fooled and have biases you'll never convince anyone outside those who already agree with your flawed methodology.


I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I know perfectly well that it's impossible. Read again the question of the topic, it is not about convincing those who do not hear, but about how you can explain audio anomalies to those who hear them and successfully use the knowledge in their systems.

For me and for many others, the direction of the wire is as commonplace as its absence is for you. Despite this, I believe that the ability to reason in educated, unbiased people should be the same.

I hope you have an imagination, assume that you have been dealing with the direction of the wire for many years, show it to friends and acquaintances, discover interesting patterns related to the direction, these patterns are successfully used by other people in their audio projects. All doubts about the reality of the phenomenon and many similar anomalous effects in audio have long disappeared. The only question left is, why do we hear (feel) something that isn't in the signal?

Naturally, I still don't know what it is, but logically, it can't be related to electricity, thus it can't be measured by electrical appliances and evaluated by blind tests.

So the question is: are there any errors in my logical chain (that I have already posted several times) if there is no doubt that when the wire is reversed, not only is it audible, but its sertain direction is fundamentally important for a more natural reproduction (perception) of music?
djones51
It's rather amusing that you consider bias as trivial but hearing unknown signals with a sixth sense is meaningful.

Not hearing, but feeling. In my opinion, this is the only possible explanation if you definitely feel changes where they can not be according to the physics (changing a power cable, reverse a wire or fuse) . This is just logic and apparently you can't say anything sensible about this.
Dletch2
The op asked a question. He received an answer. Unfortunately he did not like that answer. He is looking for an answer that will not now, nor ever be correct.
Neither you nor djones51 answered the question, you just expressed your humble opinion about the audibility of the wires (bias and placebo = BS). You are not asked to talk about these rather trivial things, but you are plugging your ears and repeating your bias mantra non-stop in every post.

I want to remind you that you accused me of libel and said that you proved it. I am waiting for your proof, or do you not care about your reputation?
Interestingly, the changes in the sound associated with the replacement and orientation of the wires can be recorded and played back. After digitizing, the difference will not be heard as clearly as in live, but the nature of several consecutive changes will already be recognizable and based on the recordings, you can track how much you have progressed in setting up your system or, conversely, how much you have been led away somewhere. The recording allows you to repeatedly return to the evaluation of the results and eliminates the influence of momentary deviations in perception related to mood, health, fatigue, etc.

Serious changes in the recording system, when you orient every wire, including the mains wiring in the room and select every detail of the system by ear, lead to a fairly noticeable difference in sound. For example, the violin, the most sensitive instrument to recording and playback errors, becomes more flexible, begins to SING more expressively, and the intelligibility of the individual instruments in the group improves. Here I can give a lot of examples, for instance, Grappelli's violin in its usual form sounds sharp, Django's guitar is lost in its background.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-zSlE5ZgOA
The 78 record gives us a completely different impression - the violin sings and at the same time does not obscure the guitar, which, as it turns out, can also sing if it is in the brilliant hands of Django.
https://www.backtomusic.ru/19652
The frequency response in the recordings is quite different and this is the first thing that catches your ears. If you listen to the recording for at least 30 seconds, this difference ceases to interfere with the evaluation of the musical properties of the recordings.

When tuning up a system for digitization, almost always subjectively positive changes in the sound occur against the background of deterioration in technical characteristics caused by the rejection of the negative feedback, the use of imperfect homemade radio components (capacitors, resistors and coils), ancient triodes, and so on. As a result, we have a completely illogical situation: the most important moments for the perception of music are improved, while the technical characteristics of the system are deteriorated.

A question I've been asking myself for years - how can this be, if the technical (electrical) characteristics determine everything?

wolf_garcia
I just made another REL cord for a new sub and noticed the Canare wire I used isn't labeled for directionality...should I undo the carefully shrink wrapped and Speakon festooned masterpiece I assembled? Uh...no.

I don't think it makes sense to redo the cable if it's going to be used in a subwoofer. Usually in complex systems with multi-band speakers and subwoofers, the directivity of the individual wires is not as important as in simple tube amplifiers used with two-band speakers.  The sub itself badly affects the playback of acoustical music to a much greater extent than a cable - in exchange for a better bass, you get worse plasticity of acoustic instruments and some other artifacts in middle range.

So my opinion is if the system is configured to listen to classical music, it is better to just get rid of the subwoofer along with its cables, and if you listen to electronical music, then the direction of sub's wire will not matter much.

But no one can say with certainty how important the direction of a single wire is in your system and specifically for you. This should be tried.
I received an interesting email yesterday:

Hello Anton!
I wanted to ask your opinion on something, because you are one of the few living people I know who understands this phenomenon.

I am talking about the subtle (not so subtle) loss of musical clarity when a digital file is transferred and copied. I was long aware of this phenomenon, but mostly I ignored it, there was nothing to be done, I relied on the internet heavily for music, and did not record anything.

Recently I found a software tool written by a French audiophile, it promises to ’optimize’ the file and restore the sound. There are serious limitations, each optimization takes 2 minutes, only one file can be done at a time. Sadly the tool is only available for Windows, like you I am now using Mac. I wish such a tool existed for Mac, it would be cool to try, but sadly because I don’t know what the tool is even doing - there is no way to search for a replica. http://www.junilabs.com/fr/products/audioplayer.html

And yet, it works! Comparing the normal, copied many times file with the file which has been optimized once, the differences are clear and fundamental - musical losses are restored.

I would like your opinion on the matter, and if you have any advice on how to prevent ’going crazy’ from such esoteric phenomenon. At some point the listener must face reality and ask if they are listening to music or the effect of tweaks.


I don’t have Windows too, but I have a laptop with Linux and Wine that are used to run Windows programs under Linux. I installed the player and optimized some mp3 files. It definitely works!
I would say that optimized files sound more airy and openly. It’s like you’re turning a wire in the right direction. This is very strange, I have never seen a computer program that makes a file sound more natural and it is free and easy to compare.

After all this is the perfect example how two equal digital files can sound different. Specially for biased naysayers.


cleeds, I can't comment on that either. The guy is going to ask the author a few more questions by mail. I'll let you know if he says anything interesting.
djones51
I optimized some flac files on a windows 10 computer and couldn't tell any difference if anything the original flac sounded better than the optimized file but that's not listening blind so take it with a grain of salt.

Tastes may differ, and this is normal, the main thing here is that you can feel the difference. If you do such experiments often enough, you will eventually get rid of your grains of salt.




    @eagleeye7
    To verify that a difference exists, in your cable, you need an old Tuner with a meter. Don't laugh, this is a very sensitive test instrument, just follow the steps below:

First of all, I have to thank you for such an interesting example! No laughing at all, because I definitely know that the direction of the wire used as the radio antenna is just as important as the direction of the wire in the signal chain. This can be easily checked on any receiver, or better on an old tube radio, where the difference is more obvious. You can even see it on the TV if you use an old-style aerial antenna instead of a modern digital cable signal. The difference here will be noticed not only by ear, but also by eye, in case you care the difference between the image of old movies and modern digital ones.

But unfortunately this example can not prove the wire direction audibility in signal chain. The antenna picks up the RF signal, the meter also responds to the fluctuations of RF signal together with the level of rectified audible signal. There are a lot of extraneous interference in the RF signal, which change both in time and from the slightest deviation of the antenna from the initial position, this is the weak point of the receiver meter based proof.

Wires definitely has preferable direction, but each attempt to explain it by means of difference in electricity signal is easily challenged if you know the ropes of radio engineering. I still cant imagine how wire direction can be explained withing physics.

With respect.
eagleeye7
Try it, if You find no directional difference, or that difference is masked by the items you mention, then IMHO, one would not be able to hear directionality in that particular Cable under test with the meter based evaluation.

I can’t try it right now, have no appropriate tuner.

Anyway I do not argue with the efficacy of your method, it certainly deserves attention. I only noticed that it is impossible to locate the exact reason of the directivity with its help. We can’t directly hear the RF signals, and even if we could, speakers can’t play them back. So we need to look for the real reason not in the RF area, that’s what I meant.

But may be we can somehow feel the RF right from the wires and other parts? Probably.. But here we are already going beyond conventional science.
@invalid
If there is a difference in sound when you change the direction of wire, I wonder if it would be measurable if all the wire in the complete system were orientated in the correct direction?

The difference in SQ is obviously exist but it can't be measured by electrical measurement device. All metals are electrically symmetrical and remain so regardless of the mechanical deformation they receive during the manufacturing process. You can turn them all in any direction you want, and nothing will change in its electrical behavior. That's the whole mystery.
@mijostyn
The .3 dB limit of human hearing is right on. I spend hours adjusting frequency response in 0.1 dB steps and in direct comparison 0.3 dB is the limit of my hearing's ability to detect changes and this is switching back and forth between different curves.
If you really want to improve the performance of your system and learn what you are doing in the process get one of these and get down with it.
https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton-Audio-OmniMic-V2-Acoustic-Measurement-System-390-792

You will not find anything useful with the microphone, because when you reverse the wire, there is no change in the electrical signal at the speaker terminals.

As for linearity, its value is greatly exaggerated. There is absolutely no need to make the linearity of the system with an accuracy of 0.3 db, much less 0.1 db. If it was so important for perception, we would not be able to enjoy listening to cassette recorders, receivers, and so on. By our nature we automatically adapt to changes in the frequency response within a wide range, this is how our perception works. Adaptation to changes takes a few tens of seconds, after that we get used to the new reality and the new frequency response becomes "transparent" for us, it does not interfere and does not help us to perceive music, it just becomes a kind of reference point, relative to which we perceive sounds..

This statement is easy to verify, if you have timbre controls in the system, turn the controls a bit, spend 10 minutes listening calmly and analyzing impressions, make a conclusion.

And do not forget that the linearity of our hearing changes depending on the volume - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness. Why do you set up a system with an accuracy of 0.1 db if with a small enough change in system volume, the linearity of your hearing changes by several DB? Isn't it stupid?


eagleeye
I believe, that when a Cable exhibits Directionality to RF signals, that it would also exhibit Directionality to audio signals, & Vice Versa!.

No doubt. I would add the digital cables Directionality here.

The method that I outlined provides Documentation that a specific Cable Design exhibits or does not exhibit such Directionality to RF Signals.

I think because of relative complexity of the method in comparison with this simple schematics, it probably lack the sensibility, otherwise it would be obvious, that each wire has directivity together with certain unique coloraition.

Think about all of the harmonics & sub harmonics of the 60 HZ line frequency that is all around audio equipment. It's likely that some cables pick up this noise, which is then further amplified in downstream amplification stages & may well be heard, with some Cable designs.

Then there is the host of digital signals & their sub harmonics that proliferate in this digital world we live in today, that may have to be dealt with. Yes, it boggles the mind & Audio Needs all the help it can MUSTER TO PROVIDE THAT ULTIMATE SOUND QUALITY that all here strive for.

Note that some here go as far as isolating & raising speaker wires off of the ground, with sworn improvements in sound quality.

I know the fenomenon and some similar ones, for instance the difference in SQ arising from different methods of mounting radio components of the amplifier - a modern one when radio components lying on a circuit board and outdated point to point wiring where the components do not touch the board and each other. The point-to-point sounds more openly and naturally.

But it can't be be related to RF unless we somehow feel the RF directly from environment. Speakers can't reproduce RF signals, and the indirect influence of RF in well designed amps is much less than we can hear.
thyname
Because everyone measures stuff at the analog output of stuff. It’s like measuring the sperm count trying to diagnose ALL diseases

You are mistaken. We do not have to diagnose all possible diseases of an audio system. On the contrary, to avoid significant complication of the matter we should regard an amp and all its wiring as a black box with just input and output.

The measurement devices allow us to analyze the difference between electric signals of the input and the output with precision that exceed our hearing possibilities quite a lot.

With proper measurement we can be sure that on the output (on the speaker terminals) there are no RF signals or audible signal distortion and all the more that nothing is changed when we reverse a single wire (see article by Douglas Self). After that, we can say with confidence that the acoustic signal will also not have any interference associated with wires and cables coloration and directivity.

As a result we face the paradoxical situation when we hear what is not presented in the signal. IMO there are two possible ways of thinking about it:

1 - Psychoacoustics and medics are wrong about hearing sensibility. But here we contradict thoroughly checked scientific data derived from the best organised subjective tests ever. And we contradict logic, because wires/cables audibility is perseived against the background of relatively loud noises. Why white noise at -50db level does not mask the microsounds that presumably occur at -100db level? There is no logical answer to this.

2 - Simultaneously with an acoustic signal we perceive some still unknown type of information using sixth sense. No matter how crazy it sounds, this is the only logical explanation for the phenomenon so far. And by the way, the many references about inconsistencies in scientific theories of hearing that Mahgister provided us make this assumption not as crazy as it seems at first.

It would be nice if you suggest another logical explanation of the matter for a change.
     
@manueljenkin1,

It's a pity that Eric Juaneda from Junilabs ignores the questions. My friend asked him to explain the principles of file optimization or just say something about this interesting thing. He didn't answer.
In the meantime, I became convinced that there must be some non-physical explanation for the change in sound that we feel. It is strange but the only thing the optimization program does is load the file into memory, wait for a while, and write it back to the hard disk. At least that's what the programmer told me when he de-compiled the file and analyzed the code. Why this changes the sound of the file is unclear.

I've done some research on how people feel about the difference in optimized files. There is no repeatability here, some prefer original files, some - optimized, some non-audiophiles do not even feel the difference at all.

However, here we certainly have another confirmation that digital audio is far from perfection and audiophiles feel the difference in the sound of files with the same checksum. And there going to be some more then just conventional physics to explain this phenomenon.

@manueljenkin, I see you are a pro in digital, a lot of special information, thanks. I wonder how it can help us. You know, no matter how complicated the situation in hardware and software are, if we going to play two files with similar checksum on the same computer, they should sound identical. But in our case they don’t.

So may be they are somehow not identical? Can you check the sameness of the files? Your opinion is quite interesting.
@manueljenkin
06-24-2021 3:25am
The data content is 100% identical if you’re considering digital bits (threshold levels), including the hash values. The sound change is very likely to be from the intrinsic noise / charge distribution patterns inside each storage cell (which can be influenced by the conditions in which the write action happened).
I can't quite understand it. IMO if the noise and charge distribution somehow affect the integrity of the file, then this should affect the checksum. Conversely, no matter what noise and interference may occur on our hard disk or anywhere else, if the checksums of the files are equal in the end, then any previous interference does not matter, since they do not affect the final result.

To find out that there is no negative impact of noise and charge, you can simply copy the file about ten times, and if the checksum of the last copy does not change, you can be sure that the hard disk, software or anything else on this computer does not cause digital errors. Therefore, copies of files on this computer should sound exactly the same.
But this is not the case. For example, the file will sound different if you copy it to a second hard drive or USB flash drive and play it from there. At the same time, if we copy the file back to the hard disk and check its integrity, we will not find any errors. All this looks more than strange for a theoretically perfect digital sound, doesn't it?
@manueljenkin

Wait. I know about thresholds, error correction and about various difficulties of reading from damaged storage media cells. All this should not concern us, since when copying and reading a file in a working computer, after all the background correction operations we get either an identical copy or a read/write error. We have no errors while copying and playing back files, therefore the noises, the charges etc. are within normal limits. Moreover, even if we hypothetically assume that some latent digital error occurs, it is not clear where exactly it occurs so that it cannot be detected. Do you have any ideas on this?

Another question - can you explain how the file sound optimizer can affect the noise, charge or any other ANALOG properties of a HDD for the better?
@manueljenkin

The transistors and other analog components in the amplifier and the dac (dac also has lots of gates) can be easily influenced by noise in the data, clock and especially ground lines and here we are looking at the output in a continuous spectrum and not merely threshold conditions. No simple way to correct these errors, actually no simple way to fully characterize and analyse these errors even. Arbitrary signal generation and fidelity is a very complex area.

You tend to complicate things, and with this approach it is almost impossible to understand the problem, because, as you correctly noted, we have a lot of areas in the computer where we can suspect problems. However, you forget that we can logically exclude the vast majority of these suspicions.

daс can be easily influenced by noise in the data, clock and especially ground lines

When we compare the sound of two identical files recorded on the same medium, when the player switches from one file to another, none of the above interference in the computer changes, that is, these interferences do not prevent us from making the correct conclusion about the sound of the compared files,  all other thing being equal.

On the other hand, we can easily make sure that the intended noises do not affect the sound the way we hear it in our audio examples. To do this, it is enough during listening, for example, to insert and remove a USB flash drive from the computer, connect/disconnect the PSU in the laptop, start background hi-res video playback via Internet or any power consuming software, etc. If desired, you can come up with a lot of actions that will simulate serious changes in the level of noise and interference of the computer and conduct a simple but effective study of how your DAC reacts to heavy changes in the level and spectrum of interference emitted by it. Have you conducted such experiments?

To go into exact details of the modes in which the write environment affects the access noise profile, it'll require a deeper understanding into the actual physical characterization of the floating gate cells used (and most of this is proprietary and not visible to general consumers, includes me)

Here again, it is enough to simply analyze the situation, and not go into deep technical details. What do we have - the program loads a file into memory, presumably does something with it (in fact, nothing physically happens with the data) and writes the file back to disk. At the same time:
- This program does not work "at low level", that is, it cannot select a certain "low-noise" place on the disk and write the improved copy of the file to this place, since the physical location of files and folders on the disk is completely determined by OS.
- There is no code in the program that would analyze the disk surface for noise or anything else.
- Suppose different cells of the disk "sound" differently, then it is still unclear how the program, when repeatedly overwriting a file, makes similar changes in the sound (improvements or deterioration-it does not matter) for each copy.  In theory, we should get an unpredictable result with each rewrite - either an improvement or a deterioration or non at all, and as a result, something indefinite in the end.

In my opinion, it is quite enough to stop clogging your head with noises and charges and start thinking of something else.
@manueljenkin Yes, and noticed a lot of improvements. I have tried a lot of system level tweaks, even went to the extent of taking a custom minimal commandline linux distro for audio (again sounded better than the familiar gui systems), and have also explored custom tools in windows that optimize a lot of the internal system processes.... Everything from even changing the buffer size changes the sound. (Includes all types of buffer, either in dac or in system).

I agree, simple structures, schemes and programs sound better to me either.

In my experience the more lower noise system gets (lower system activity), any further improvement is far easier to hear than with a stock system configuration... ... My friend has successfully done AB-X on other computer audio tweaks I mentioned in earlier paragraph, his network streamers and signal regenerators. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my approach.

Nothing wrong, of course, if you are just looking for a better sound. The problem is it will not help us understand the reasons for what is happening, and I would like to understand it. The influence of noise is just your assumption, so far you have not given a single description of the experiment confirming the specific influence of noise and not any other causes that occur during the tweaks. At the same time, in the previous message, I gave proof that the work of the program is in no way related to changes in noise or other analog properties of the media. You have not refuted or confirmed the correctness of this proof, instead you wrote:

I am looking deeper into the intrinsics of the drives (the physical manifestation) since it has an impact that is uncorrelated from the rest of your guesses (doesn’t do defragging, cannot check optimal areas in disk if there was ever one since it is out of control of even the OS, it’s the controller that handles it).

Please explain, hypothetically, what can be found in the filling of the HDD so that it indicates the influence of noise (or whatever) on the sound of the file processed by the program?
@manueljenkin
The influence of noise is just your assumption". Yes, I arrived at this guess after all other guesses of - files being different, defragging, and other causes you listed were found to be not true... ...Regarding the explanations, I have mentioned it multiple times.

Can you just answer my previous question:

@anton_stepichev Please explain, hypothetically, what can be found in the filling of the HDD so that it indicates the influence of noise (or whatever) on the sound of the file processed by the program?

Keep in mind that:

- nothing physically happens with the file
- There is no code in the program that would analyze the disk surface for noise or anything else or put data in the certain place on the HDD.
- the program, when repeatedly overwriting a file, makes similar changes in the sound.


@Andy2, we have two IDENTICAL digital audio files that sound differently whatever order or how many times you play them. Do you really mean that one copy of the file by some miracle is always knocks down a DAC's clock, and the second does not?
@andy2
BUT if everything is the same: same file, same source, same equipment, then I guess it's hard to see how the sound could be different.

Yes, if you play copies of files from the same HDD, everything is PHYSICALLY the same, all the things being equal.

If you really want to down that path ... to the nth degree then anything is possible.

A preliminary logical analysis of a task is not at all an n-th degree, but the first thing anyone should do before starting to delve into technical details.

The preliminary analysis tells us that there is no physical or material cause-and-effect relationship in the situation with optimizing the sound of audio files (as well as with changing the direction of wires and some other things). Therefore the cause, the effect or both are beyond the scope of conventional physics, isn't it obvious?
If you're talking about different file optimization, then sure it would have effects on the sound
I'm talking about exact digital copies of files that sound different after optimization with the Junilabs player http://www.junilabs.com/fr/products/audioplayer.html.




@endy2, You're talking nonsense. If everything were as you write, each digital copy would sound different in the same way that optimized and non-optimized files differ.
Andy2, there are no contradictions, I’m trying to explain to you a simple thing that is understandable even to a schoolboy. This is getting ridiculous, by God.

You wrote:
Of course if optimized then it may sound different. During playback, the audio file has to be "decompressed" or if you will "processed" by the CPU. Therefore it will have its own digital interference signature which will affect the DAC clock.

OK. Imagine that we have an original file (A), an optimized file (B) that is PHYSICALLY identical to A, and an ordinary digital copy of the file (C) that is PHYSICALLY identical to A, all located on the same disk. Then:

By the sound: A ≈ C ≠ B.
In the digit: A = C = B

At the same time, you claim that A sounds different from B because A is not physically equal to B since the files have "its own digital interference signature". This in itself is nonsense, but let’s assume that it is.

Then answer the question:

Why then is the sound A ≈ C? In other words, how can normal copying differ from optimization if in both cases we always have files with the same checksum at the output?

Keep in mind that if we do re-optimization (B1, B2, B3...) and re-copying (C1, C2, C3...), we have:

By sound: A ≈ C ≈ C1 ≈ C3 ≈ Cn ≠ B ≠ B1 ≠ B2 ≠ B3 ≠ Bn

In digit: A = C = C1 = C2 = C3 = Cn = B = B1 = B2 = B3 = Bn

So answer the question please, then we’ll see who is schizophrenic and who is just stupid.
Could you explain how Is identical to A, if B is an optimized version of A? Seems like an contradictory statement.

B = A because they have the same checksum. This is an absolutely indisputable proof of their similarity no matter what you call these files and no matter how you created them.