What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?
Audio signals are AC. Cables cannot be directional any more than 2 + 2 can equal 5. @djones51, I would not hang your hat on this specific statement (made by Self?). It is simply not true, though perhaps even many engineers believe it. Cables cannot be directional at DC. They can and are directional at AC frequencies, however, at audio frequencies, that directional component would be far below audibility. |
Well that certainly takes my impression of him down a few notches. It is not a difficult concept. Cables are effectively a bunch of capacitors, resistors, and inductors in a series/parallel arrangement, just like any other circuit. The function from input to output is not the same as output to input, at AC frequencies. It is at DC. |
The ear, again, is a bunch of receptor behind band-pass filters effectively. That is the sensor. That says nothing about the processing behind it, whether there is crosstalk, etc.
NO ONE has claimed this in over 100 years. This is not news. Essien has brought exactly 0 to the argument. Heck, if people listened to him, we would be going backwards. He proudly bleats that he has discovered something new. For him maybe. He quotes decades if not 100+ year old references to justify his bleating, meanwhile ignoring decades and decades of deep work into how human hearing works. He is an artist, trying to tell a rocket scientist how propulsion works, using feelings. |
Mahgister, at some point will you communicate the magical connection between direction of a wire and also how the ear works? Nothing that Bekesy or anyone else you mentioned has one iota of relevance to the discussion. You have wrapped up a red herring, a causal fallacy, an appeal to authority all into a few posts. To respond to your post, Ohm's law (not a scientific law by current definition), is not completely incorrect. The fundamental sensor of the ear is a bunch of detectors with effectively bandpass filters in front of them. The result could be considered similar to a Fourier transform. This "law" was put forth 40 years before we even knew what neurons were. Ohms conclusions were grossly simplistic, lacking knowledge of so many aspects of the brain, the ear, the mechanics of the ear, neurons, neural connections, or the brain in general ..... all of which has no relevance to the direction of a wire. This is all a red herring as it speaks nothing to audibility, only that the ear/brain is an imperfect instrument. |
For sure pitch is not reducible to frequencies .... But It is what you affirm to me erroneously in one of your post ... Pitch is by definition reducible to frequencies. Pitch is a definition. That does not mean we can't fool the brain, or distort the auditory system to create a perception of a pitch that does not match the true frequency components. But that is like trying to argue an optical illusion is the real result, not what is actually in the underlying image. |
And nobody with limited financial resources who spent a significant amount of disposable money on something that makes no difference is going to go out of their way to show they wasted money. You are correct, we have serious problems with attitudes and methodologies, starting with the attitude of infallibility, followed by using methodologies that never test that infallibility. Glad you noticed. |
Then why BÉKÉSY feel the urge to denounciate this reduction exactly 50 years ago ? He did not even denounce Ohm, he said it was always obvious Ohm was not the be all and end all. Seebeck showed that 170 years ago. Bekesy was not "denouncing" , he was just making a statement. How about we move the discussion into the 20th century. https://neuro.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/131/2020/12/PDF1.pdf From Wikipedia, essentially why he got the Nobel, "Békésy concluded from these observations that by exciting different locations on the basilar membrane different sound wave frequencies excite different nerve fibers that lead from the cochlea to the brain. He theorized that, due to its placement along the cochlea, each sensory cell (hair cell) responds maximally to a specific frequency of sound (the so-called tonotopy). Békésy later developed a mechanical model of the cochlea, which confirmed the concept of frequency dispersion by the basilar membrane in the mammalian cochlea." You will note nothing in there about what happens after ear, and how far we have progress when you look at the article I linked. |
Don't be fooled by a certain crowd who keeps insisting another crowd listens with instruments. That is just compensation for being unable to win an argument unfairly. There have been many correlations illustrated in audio between measurements and perception. There have been just as many illustrations for lack of correlation. This discussion is about neither, as is almost every discussion in this area. It is about audibility, something that requires no measurement, but does require bias free listening. |
I dont have an opinion about direction but the problem is way more deep than the skeptic would want to admit.... Or you are complicating a ham sandwich. There are two choices. The difference is audible. The difference is not audible. The only way to know is an unbiased listening test. No more. No less. If a person is making the claim the wire is directional, then you test that 1 person, with that 1 wire, and if they cannot tell the difference, then their claim is debunked. --- Don't be confused about what the claim actually is. They are not claiming that wires are directional. They are claiming that they can hear the difference in the direction of wires. --- We are not debunking the directional claim, we are debunking the claim they can hear a difference. If we do this test enough, then we can draw a statistical conclusion that they are not audibly directional, in all likelihood for anyone. However, by measuring the properties in both direction, we can make fairly accurate claims as well. If the difference is -120db below the signal in the audible frequency range, we can be confident it will not be heard. We could be confident at a much smaller difference. But still, most of the claims are made by very specific people, i.e. manufacturers, who claim the difference is obvious and significant. I don't remember ever hearing this before manufacturers started claiming it. So, given their extraordinary claims, we only need to debunk their ability to detect a change. Not everyone on the planet, only their claim, which is that they, as a company, can detect directionality. It is a well bounded case. |
Maybe someone already explained this, but I simply didn’t have the time to look through the whole thread. Due to manufacturing tolerances, a cable isn’t electrically the same from both directions. They did. I don't think the question is about whether it has a directional component, but whether it would be remotely audible. It is not. The lengths of the cables in home audio are very short. Transmission line effects, even worse case don't come into play and would be similar enough to not create a difference. Add in impedance goes way up at audio frequencies. From a simple two port model, the differences, again, are so small, so not matter. Obviously we could make an intentionally directional cable. That would be a bad idea. |
Please note - the direction of current travel in a uniformly sectioned copper wire would have absolutely zero effect on the accuracy of the signal transmitted. Where is the logical evidence to the contrary? Neither copper nor the dielectric is truly uniform, so there goes that out the window. You still can't hear any direction, but lets stick to facts. |
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! Does not work that way. If the error is simply frequency response, the relationship between the perfect and imperfect signal never changes. That would be true for most things dependent on the cable with the exception of noise.
Again, see my last comment. A microscopic error on the edge of perception multiplied by such a caos will become egregious. But we do not observe such errors. No chaos multiplier. We can observe asymmetry, just not easily at audio frequencies as the variation in the two port transfer function compared to the source/load impedance is not large enough at low frequencies. At high frequencies it is. This is simple fact. No point in ignoring it. None of which matters to the audibility of cable direction. Unless you purposely went out of your way to create a cable that is directional, you will never hear the change in direction (shielding aside). I could certainly see someone who does not understand how cables (or electronics) work, doing something foolish, like
Self proved that there are no audible errors in the signal, even in more complex cases than just a single wire. Technically I believe he proved he couldn't find any. He also said that wires can't be directional because the signals are AC. He was wrong on AC, so I am not sure how much faith I can put in his other findings. |
I would believe whatever differences there are would show up most in cases where there is an impedance mismatch which is much more likely with zero feedback amps, but that should not really matter if one has addressed impedance matching between amps and speakers properly, which is the right way to do it for best results, so in that case impedance matching issues due to a zero feedback amp is a moot point. This would be virtually impossible, since impedance is variable with frequency across the audio band, impedance of speakers are not complex, and not controlled anywhere within the speaker itself. Given the mechanical nature, it may not even be a practical goal. |
No. You hear the same thing because the differences in direction are too small. AC has nothing to do with it. |
@anton_stepichev, you really need to get your facts straight! I never wrote this quote that you are assigning to me. In fact, when I do a search on those exact words on this forum, the only person who has posted them is YOU. As you used the words, "STATEMENT", that implies you were directly quoting me. You were not directly quoting, and if you think you were paraphrasing me, you are not.
THIS IS THE EXACT WORDS I USED!!! There is nothing to explain in this. This is electronics and signals 101. Anything I have written is only muddy to you because you do not understand it. I can't help you on that. We are obviously not working at the same levels. This is not an advocacy for expensive power cables, but there are many ways the harmonics in the AC to get into the signal. Whether they do or not is a different question. The most obvious one is via the power supply, especially in a low feedback amplifier. Primary power supply harmonic is 120Hz, but with all the linear supplies, there are harmonics at many multiples of that frequency, certainly up to several KHz. Those big transformers audiophiles love get rid much of the really high frequencies. |
The time-frequency uncertainty principle states that the product of the temporal and frequency extents of a signal cannot be smaller than 1/(4?). We study human ability to simultaneously judge the frequency and the timing of a sound. Our subjects often exceeded the uncertainty limit, sometimes by more than tenfold, mostly through remarkable timing acuity. Our results establish a lower bound for the nonlinearity and complexity of the algorithms employed by our brains in parsing transient sounds, rule out simple “linear filter” models of early auditory processing, and highlight timing acuity as a central feature in auditory object processing. (Emphasis added.)» Mahgister, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you understand that this does not mean that humans have "magical" properties. It only means that our auditory system is not purely tone based, which again, has not been overly debated in over a century. Pitch is still tone, as it is a definition and it is continuous, it does not involve attack and decay. Instruments can time two waves of the same frequency to way better than 1/4 wavelength. Say you have two A/D recording the same sound, at 44.1KHz, 20KHz bandwidth limited. They are asynchronous, i.e. there is no synchronization of there A/D. In software I can resample and align those two recordings to an accuracy of sub-microseconds determinant on the SNR/THD. So much for 1/4 wavelength. |
On the same points you have to explane your EXACT statement, that you made not long ago:Dletch2Does not work that way. If the error is simply frequency response, the relationship between the perfect and imperfect signal never changes... No I don't have to explain it. YOU have to learn to understand it. You are not paying me for a university level education. Anton, In your direct quote, there is nothing like a logical analysis of the possible occurrence of audible distortions in the signal circuit when changing the power cable. I have to repeat, in order for your words to be at least somewhat similar to the evidence, you must provide: I don't have to provide anything, because 1, I never claimed a power cable would make any changes, and 2, see above, it is not my responsibility to educate you with the knowledge you lack. However, for those that are interested ....
As a small starting list, none of which communicates audibility, but does not negate that these effects are real and detectable. |
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. |
And so, I wondered - if human beings are not only able to recognise human voices quicker and better than computers, but also the nuance of mood in each voice heard, is this a reasonable step to believing that there are indeed some things in sound that computers are not able to measure? Cables do not transmit sound. The transmit electrical energy, or voltage potentials depending on whether a load is connected or not. |
This would explain the flying pig. |
Is equivalent to saying that the conditions of experience are always the same for all users and for all time... And saying that tools could measure what "goes down a wire with great accuracy" but humans could not, to justify the impossibility or the value of a perceptive experience, is equivalent to the saying that human is ONLY an imperfect deluded measuring tool.... Which is dumb to say the least....Because it is human perceiving consciousness that correlate all POSSIBLE measuring tools....It is human perceiving consciousness that could change the conditions of the experience and create new dimensions or new experience through new parameters and creating new measuring tools to explore new dimensions with new parameters....It is ONLY consiousness that could give meaning and interpret the tool.... Let me rephrase it for you so you understand my point ... 1+1 = 2 1.001 + 1 = 2.001 Now whether you perceive it as 2.002 or not, really does not matter. It is 2.001. What you perceive is your current interpretation of reality. Reality did not change because your perception did. Tomorrow you may perceive it as 1.999. It will however, still be 2.001. We are talking electrical signals, which means we are essentially talking numbers. We can measure the number and know it is right. Today you may perceive the number differently from yesterday and tomorrow you may perceive it different again, but it did not change. That is point one. Point 2. The human eye has a central resolution of about 6 million photosites, give or take. If I more an object 0.01mm, no matter the resolution of the human eye, you will never be able to detect that, let alone measure it with any reliability. An instrument with a few thousand photosites could be created to both identify the movement of 0.01mm and how far. Give it 6 million photosites and it will measure to 0.01mm in 2 dimensions and detect movement in both. Now, that instrument may not be able to identify let alone be able to appreciate the Mona Lisa, but a similar one could tell you if there was a subtle change in the color of even the smallest element of the Mona Lisa based on a reference, and if you moved the painting 0.01mm. It has no idea what a picture is, what it represents, etc. That in no way at all negates its ability to compare, with vastly greater detail than any human can, a change from a reference. That is what analyzing an electrical signal does. It allows us to determine a change, from a reference, in vastly greater detail than any human can. It is not even close. We have enough body of evidence to be confident that identified changes may or may not be audible. There is a grey area, and normally engineers will be very clear about this and even state that that something is in the range where it may be audible. Thermal modulation of a fuse in a speaker line would be a good example. It is in the range of audibility, and even though no one has shown they can pick out reliably a properly sized (not grossly undersize) fuse, it is accepted it could be audible. However, when the identified difference is far away from any evidence of audibility, then we confidently say no, you won't hear a difference --until proven otherwise--. Proof is not some conjecture on an audio site. It is a properly implemented test to eliminate bias. Contrary to the ignorant opinions on thes forums, these tests actually do matter, at least if you care about audio reproduction. If we can't ascertain what is truly audible and matters, then how can we ever hope to move the science of reproduction forward. If you can't build on past work, then you are just continually recreating the wheel. |
The dogma is you think complexities exist that don't at least not at a signal level. |
but only a slight reading of Anton site demonstrate some dedication and knowledge.... Science does not give out participation awards The first one were Essien ....He is not a crook by all means but a very honest researcher... And he knows what he speak about, i cannot argue with you in electrical matter but you will not sell me fish for a piece of red meat in other fields... It is cute that you think the depth of my knowledge is electronics. Essien knows what he made up. This is not a Ghostbusters movie. Real scientists either prove and peer review or find themselves in a 3rd rate college teaching those that could not get in anywhere else. |
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. 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. |
From the point of view of physics - yes, any wire is ELECTRICALLY symmetric. From a point of physics, you are absolutely wrong. Every manufactured wire is inherently asymmetric because no wire lacks manufacturing imperfections. 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. What are you talking about? Linear amplification, as I stated before, does not amplify the relative error. If there was 0.1% distortion before amplification, and you amplify it by 1000, there is still 0.1% distortion. The frequency response before amplification will still be the same after amplification. The SNR will be the same before and after. In all cases, if anything is added, it is due to a defect in the amplification. No offence, but it is obvious you don’t have the technical background to make the statements you are making. Perhaps it would be better to ask questions and learn more. 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? WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE! That is the only difference. The sound is exactly the same. However, because you know what it is, that influences your subjective opinion. That is why tests for actual sound quality must be done blind. -- Side note, directional arrows are generally on ICs as the connection of the shield definitely matters. If it is on anything else, it is to make a certain group of people more susceptible to a high price. |
Yup. 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. He would blame language. I blame it on a flawed understanding and/or lack of knowledge that does not allow one to understand the technical nuance in an answer. Yet another dumpster fire with someone who refuses to test their own bias, and justifies that by claiming blind tests are flawed, without being able to provide any evidence of this being the case. Nevertheless, you persist in suggesting the use of blind tests developed by conventional physics to determine changes in the same conventional framework. This post requires no comment. |
No mahgister, really it is not stupid, arrogant, or otherwise. It is like me trying to tell a PhD biologist how a complex biological process works because I read some articles on the web written by people who are no where near the level of that PhD biologist. That is where we are at in this conversation. I dismiss things out of hand, because that is the appropriate response. It is like discussing calculus with someone who has not mastered basic arithmetic or functions. And no, wires do not have "micro diodes" or any other semiconducting properties at a bulk level, and even if they did, a semiconductor will always require exceeding a band gap voltage before any conduction occurs, and the differential voltage between any two close points on a wire is asymptotically 0V. No voltage, no conduction across a band gap. Don’t even try to argue a 3 port device because again, no differential voltage means no effective voltage field. Dielectrics can have non-linear effects, but you don’t just get to say "aha". Those effects have to be quantified w.r.t. the signal level (exceedingly small), and in this case the differential levels would need to quantified which would be almost non existent at audio frequencies. I don’t have to look in a book or quote to write this. See my 2nd paragraph above.
If one does not accept one's limitations w.r.t. knowledge, and yet still speaks with authority on a non subjective topic, one must be responsible for how they will be viewed. |
The whole basis of this thread is cables have a sound that is directional. There is only one thing missing. PROOF. I think you can agree with me here Mahgister that this is a case where unbiased, somewhat scientifically valid testing must occur to validate the claim. Otherwise it is just a lot of hot air. This thread is pointless as the whole basis is purely presumption. |
at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned Audioholics on Youtube has 150,000 followers There are probably 10x the posts on ASR as there are here, and way way more useful information for actual audiophiles. People actually refer to ASR. Many of the consumer audio companies sell as much stuff as the whole high end market. |
You have made this claim in what, 3 threads now in response to me. I have asked you now 3 times, to provide any valid evidence, since you claim there is abundant data, research, and studies that show blind tests have faults and errors. If there is so much abundant data, the give us links. Otherwise I will ask you nicely to stop posting this nonsense if you are not going to back it up. |
anton_stepichev OP98 posts 04-29-2021 5:49amdletch2 Let me rephrase it. I did not accuse you. I proved that you did. Yes you did libel. |
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? We understand perfectly well, that you cannot get the answer you want. The answers you have been given are correct, they are just not the ones you want. Truth will set you free. |
If someone wants to test a theory by jumping off a building to see if they will really die, do we praise their curiosity and be polite and civil? NO. The only difference here is the outcome is not going to cause death. It does not make the pursuit any less flawed. We know jumping off a building will kill you. Everyone accepts it because it is painfully obvious. For a portion of the population with the knowledge and experience we know (not think), know, that wire direction in this case will be inaudible. We also know that blind testing must be used. Not think. Know. If someone claimed to make a perpetual motion machine, do we blindly accept their claim, or do we first explain to them why that is impossible, and then, after they show their experiment, point out all the flaws? This is what we have done, but the person is still claiming their perpetual motion machine works while refusing to validating their work, effectively saying, "trust me". This is not respectful behavior. |
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. Most people of normal functioning will make the leap that if you cannot identify an audible difference, then the audible difference does not exist. If that is not obvious, then there is no point in continuing. It is called placebo effect. You convince yourself there should be a change, so you find one (in your head). But there is no change. |
