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

The RAMBLE was calling a spade a spade. WE THAT WAS ME. Used and have used and understood wire direction for 35 years...

You have not... That comment is pretty simple.. Your behind times, WAY BEHIND, like suckin butt behind...

If you'd pay attention I might teach you something.. BUT I know.. you learned or was taught.. BY Smart Guys.. LOL I been fixing YOUR messes for years.. AND yes I worked Aviation also.. There are mechanics in space AND on airplanes.. Once again, I was a rear door man on a 123 provider..

KEEP talkin.. you're just about over your head now. I made a few repairs at 27,000 feet.. AND being shot at.. Thank you very much.  No mechanics WHERE.. Marine too.. YUP... There is no LESS THAN in maintenance.  It's ALL important.. Remember.. you eat because of mechanic, just like the water you drink. Not the other way around.. The world goes around because of not in spite of MECHANIC.. EVERY WAR that was ever won or lost..... You got it.. MECHANICS. Silly Shi$

BTW what do you think a Doctor is? Really that's right a DG Mechanic of people.. Arrogant at best, lack of thought BEFORE spouting off, well that is just, being a __________ fill in the blank.. BUT smart doesn't come to mind.. 

Puff Puff pass.. NO NOT YOU.. BUT YOUR Welcome in any case..

I spoke with the tech at Audience LLC about the directionality of their speaker wires.  I was getting my Conductor SE speaker wire chopped up and re-terminated. He said that their cables do settle in 1 direction of signal flow. If you reverse the setup of the cable the cable will take a few days to settle into the optimum internal state for that direction. I am not sure how they are measuring this nor do I really care.

I was curious as to why Audience has arrows on their cables. So based on the comments of the tech I can understand why they believe the setup path of their wire matters. 

I have flipped this Conductor SE speaker wire around a few times due to necessity. One end is spades and the other banana. I was not able to hear any difference.

Science dont even understand many of the simplest thing which technology in spite of that use for profit and i am now reading idiot who claim there is a no relation between mars rover and wire constitution and property....

Who knows?



😁😁😁😁😁😊

BTW it’s expensive to get into space because of the worthless people on staff.. the 20/80 rule still applies in space.

20% of the people do 80% of the work always at the expense to tax payers.. Designers butting heads instead of listening to a simple.. "That won’t work". EGGO EGO.. Just like saying cabling has no direction.. Hell it don’t. Dumber than a box or rocks... Fella.. I can see you gonna be put on the Eeyore list... Oh Well, I can’t learn from an old wore out master mechanic, I’m too smart..

You related to Audio2Design? He was pretty thick AT FIRST...

Semi-Regard.. that’s a 2 out of 10 on the regard scale.. It’s going down for sure.. Pay attention.. I’ll put you in the corner, with that silly pointed hat, you're so fond of..

https://centralindianaaes.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/indy-aes-2012-seminar-w-notes-v1-0.pdf

This fellow retired from Jensen Transformer maybe he will get some respect but I doubt it. 

I was picking up modified CD player at a Chicago shop.  The designer took a Phillips CD player and modified the power supply and capacitors and received favorable reviews.  After a year he offered an upgraded model and would upgrade the original model for cost.  My wife and I were waiting at the owners home while he was in traffic. His wife let us wait in the listening room and I used the remote for the player.  I was describing how much better the upgrades made in the sq and looking forward to my unit. Unknown that at the bottoms shelf was had the original player and was actually the source to the preamp.   Pretty embarrassing 

I can’t believe there is actually a thread about this.  Who cares? The never ending pursuit for perfect sound doesn’t exist.  All this stuff means nothing. What a waste of time.

There is really only be one reason for an interconnect to be directional and that is when the shielding is connected to one end of the cable.

Thank God GAS passes one direction, you'd be smellin' your own FARTS.. Cable is the same way.. But that gas may have come out of your ears, for all I know. Maybe you do have a gas problem.. I know your full of,  well let's just call it misinformation.. BUT it's actually $hit..

You two stick around, for 10 more minutes and READ. Instead of talk..

Please don't show you're complete dummies..

Again Semi-Regard.. I'll give you a 6 out of 10 on the regard scale..

The only people I know of who run wires in reverse do so in the basements of churches. Apparently, they hear some pretty dark stuff...

I find the idea of listening to an entire spool of wire a very interesting idea. Always appreciated/enjoyed calculus. The whole idea of what happens when you look at something at its infinite limit. Is it zero, one or infinity.

At some point, at some length, if that wire was polled out all in the same direction during manufacturing process, it becomes a little easier to grasp how directionality becomes something that would be readily identifiable.

Would be very interested in doing that experiment. Also curious how that spool effects the SQ - being that a spool is an inductor?

Look what happens moving speakers a few inches in any direction in your room. Run a 50hz tone through them, walk around and note where the signal drops out, becomes a droning mess or is crystal clear. Move the speakers a few inches, try it again. It makes a difference.

I listen to the radio - a lot. Some days, the signal is so clear I absolutely love listening to the SQ coming out of my tuner. Other days, there is so much static and noise its just an exercise in frustration. And then, if the muting is on, walking around the room will make the signal appear and disappear.

Everything has an impact on how something sounds. And not everything that has an impact on SQ can be measured. Roller blocks under gear for example. What is the measurement there?

Why do certain tubes sound the way they do? Same tube type, different manufacturer, same measurements, different SQ.

It ain’t magic, although it might as well be given how some NEED the measurements on anything in order for it to be real.

Could be, some systems, and the rooms they are in are just not conducive to being able to hear any differences this small - they get lost in the noise of the space. Or, the listener is unable to discern any difference, either because of physical limitations, lack of knowing what to listen for or some other reason. Look at people trying to taste the difference between wines. Some don’t get it at all. Some sommeliers are sooooo good, and have studied so much that they can identify the sub region where a wine came from and when it was produced.

If I go into space, I would like it to be bi-directional.

Well, after reading this thread, I have second thoughts.

Some don’t get it at all. Some sommeliers are sooooo good, and have studied so much that they can identify the sub region where a wine came from and when it was produced.

What is surprizing is not what any humans can or could develop in the mastery of their own powers, sensation/perception, intuition, imagination, thinking concentration etc.... What is surprizing is the way some trust only their religious belief....

Guess which is the name of this new religion?

It is not protestantism, Islam or orthodoxy or buddhism, no, this religion is the new one , the idolatry of technology and the confusion of the map with reality and now worst, the replacing of reality by animated maps....Walking idols like those of Boston dynamics....

It make me sad that some will name "luddite" someone who vouch for science over running technology, and not the opposite....Science is NOT only physics or biology by the way, it is way more complex and vast that this TV simplification....

In the long history of science we are at the borderline where the worker want to be the master.....Technology cannot by itself be the savior....It is a part of the problem when profit run the game ...

Any civilized society must invest most of his eggs in the basket of education.... Where else?

But we are not civilized, we never have been, we are powerful savage manipulated by hubris....

After Shakespeare, Goethe in his Faust and in his general works, take a deep look in the modern hubris at a level never renewed perhaps since....

But who understand Goethe? It is an obsolete poet for most....Few people know that Goethe was also a great scientist...

Like Archimedes who waited more than one millenia to be understood by Newton and Leibnitz...

This new religion i speak about is incompatible with Goethe thinking.....

oldhvymec,

"...AND yes I worked Aviation also.."

Is there any job or any place on Earth, and apparently above it, that you have not done or been to?

djones513,796 posts04-19-2021 8:12pmWe put man on the moon and have now flown a helicopter on Mars and here I sit conversing with idiots that think they can tell if a wire is backwards listening to Pink Floyd.

That is because they are listening to the wire and not to Pink Floyd and equate turning a screw to assemble an actuator to going through a full space qual design and implementation and having something up in space .... and no one ever mentioned cable direction.     But that is nothing. I just read someone claimed the location of an instrument shifted 1/3 of the soundstage due to, wait for it .... wait for it .... copper wire. We have entered the twilight zone.

I have to say all this is a great discussion. My head is vibrating :). @millercarbon you are often snarky and I’ve come to in a perverse way enjoy it much of the time. I have to say your threads are particularly excellent in this discussion. They are really resonating with me, no sarcasm, totally serious. Thanks all for your contributions as well - for the most part. Certainly the usual turds in the punch bowl, but less than normal :). The Audiogon forum, in general, has greatly improved since the biggest turd of them all, whose name will never be repeated again, - he who thought a concrete wall would make the ultimate speakers and that we are all a bunch of idiots for loving this hobby - was finally banished off the island!

"Like Archimedes who waited more than one millenia..."

That is one very patient man.

dletch2,

"We have entered the twilight zone."

You are new one in these woods? Stay a while, it gets even better. I mean, not really better, but entertaining in its own bizarre way.

Douglas Self was right.

All those anomalies people hear are in their heads. I am seriously concerned for them. They should seek immediate medical and/or psychological help asap :-)

The scariest fools in any asylum are those who are more "rational" than the doctors themselves...

All the others are only suffering souls like i am.... 

Great wire is like a  new component it can make or break a system.

@mahgister

I must thank you anton_stepichev very much for Essien article...
This book was the missing link for me .....

Hi, Mahgister! The link to Essien was given by a person in another thread, I can't find who and where. We must both say thanks to him.

I already read many articles from him in the last 2 days and i wait for his book coming in thursday

I wonder how much deeper he reveals the topic in the book, let me know if there is something interesting on the topic of audio please.

It also join to the deep thinking of Ernest Ansermet in musical meaning experience...

Ansermet is a great conductor, though not my favorite. I didn't know he had books about music, either. Our life passes in a rush, where to find time for everything, it is not clear..

I've learned how to get my wires directional.

I hook them up to a 20Kv neon transformer and teach them to Obey.

...one of these daze I've Got to stop huffing contact cleaner....move on to something more 'socially acceptable'.....mabbe bath salts....salvia divinorum ....

Anything that will either make me accept that some sensitive souls can hear the alignment of molecules in wires...

....or to go hunting Nessie in Scotland armed with an ice pick.....

Better, and easier...buy one (or 3! whatta deal!) of this:

 https://www.ototodesign.com/products/nessie-standing-ladle

"You are what you expect to be....but really, not." {old saying}

I'm old....and said it.  So there. ;)

@millercarbon
I do not however think this means there has to be some additional unaccounted for signal there waiting to be discovered. I find it much more likely we simply have vastly underestimated the human sensory potential.

I think this hypothesis has problems.

1 - the characteristic sound of the wire is perceived almost independently of the sound volume of the system, even at the minimum volume, when the speaker cone practically does not move. This point in particular excludes the influence of vibrations, as the only cause that affects perception, which occurs in parallel with hearing. Apparently, there is something else besides the vibrations.

2 - the characteristic sound of the wire is perceived regardless of the level of noise and interference of the signal source, for example, on old shellac records, the level of interference often becomes equal to the level of the useful signal already at 4-5 kHz, everything above this threshold is one continuous interference. The question arises, where in this case can micro-information hide?

@djones
Why is it too far fetched?
You make a claim saying there is only one conclusion, I give an alternate conclusion you say is to far fetched. I fail to see how humans have bias is more far fetched than unknown signals hidden in wire unknown to science?? Let's not assume bias is to far fetched since we know it's a common human condition. You make an extraordinary claim concerning hidden signals, do you have any extraordinary evidence?

The problem is that we both can't prove our point using standard tests. They don't take too much into account, I wrote about it in my last answer to you.

Besides, my question was about something else. If, after all, we agree that there are people who distinguish the sound of one wire from another, what exactly can they hear or feel?

ps - this is from Essien's article:

"Many observers wonder at the listeners' ability to extract recognizable temporal and intonational patterns from the seemingly chaotic acoustic signal... “Richly structured perception on the one hand vs various imperfections in production including a wide range of deviations from target norms as well as large scale intra and inter individual variation on the other.” For Wode, it is a paradox; for Bloothooft (1995) it is a mystery"

@millercarbon
It seems to me it is all down to propagating a field.

This hypothesis also has drawbacks. The wire is heard equally well both as an acoustic cable and as an IC, especially the difference is clearly noticeable in tube amps. A tube is controlled by grid voltage, there is no current in the circuit of tube grid, which means there is no field.

Also, this hypothesis does not explain the audibility of power cables that emit nothing but 60 hertz harmonics.

I believe, we may feel the electromagnetic field of the conductors in some situations, but there must be something else besides that. Otherwise, the puzzle doesn't add up.

Hi ted_denney and tablejockey.
Were the tests in which differences were perceived run on a blind ABX basis?  Were they repeated with multiple subjects?  Were there independent witnesses present?

If not, the experiences have zero relevance or value.


Have you ever been listening to your rig and think 'Damn. This sounds really good, much better than yesterday?'  Course you have, we all have.
Most of us just say 'Zeek, I must be in a good mood'. Or 'shouldn't have had that extra glass of wine'.  And just enjoy the temporary experience.

But some say 'My hearing and my recollection of previous auditory experiences is so 100% perfect that the only cause of the change must be that something has changed in the rig.  But nothing has changed.  So these guys invent stuff to explain their subjective perception.  Oh, that speaker cable is hanging a half-inch lower.  Perhaps someone came in at night and turned a fuse around.  The temperature is a degree warmer: must listen at 66.5 degrees.  Must be because I vacuumed the carpet this morning.  etc etc.

Seems to me this is all down to their ability to propagate this field

Propagate or propaganda?

I’m 59 and took electronics in 1979-1980 while working as an electrical apprentice . The majority of my time has been in the industrial power systems and process/ machine controls. Conductors have free electrons, gold has more than silver, which has more than copper, which has more than aluminum. Current flow , measured in amperes is as simple as free electrons moving through a conductor when voltage is applied to load. AC alternating current,  changes direction every 180 degrees. DC direct current, flows in one direction. I’m not sure I understand everything in this string of post but I do understand electricity and in no way am I disputing what anyone hears with their own ears . 

Changes direction every 180 degrees??

@mahgister, your messages can be broken down into quotation, such a lively language. Above all you are a man of letters, need to write books, that's your calling. I see this clearly despite my poor English.

@perkri
I find the idea of listening to an entire spool of wire a very interesting idea. Always appreciated/enjoyed calculus. The whole idea of what happens when you look at something at its infinite limit. Is it zero, one or infinity.

Would be very interested in doing that experiment. Also curious how that spool effects the SQ - being that a spool is an inductor?

As far as I can get it, Ted_denney doesn't listen to the whole spool. He cuts a piece of wire from it, determines its direction, and then marks the entire spool. Then he can use the wire from the spool in his cables according to his idea of how the strands should be directed in cables. It is just more convenient way to work.

As for the spool, the way a wire behaves when you turn it into a spiral is very complicated, it's not just a combination of LCR in different proportions. For example, it matters which way the spiral is twisted relative to the direction of the wire (clockwise or wise versa). There are lots of interesting things about audio inductors and transformers, but we're talking about wire here.

Sine wave =360 degrees, single phase AC. Current changes direction at 180 degrees. 

anton_stepichev OP what have you read of Essien to this day? Which articles?

I think that perhaps in Essien experiences with string internal variable force of tension is the beginning of an answer.... If pitch is not reducible to frequency because of this mechanical invariant linked to tension perhaps a string like a cable react differently affecting the sound result when the orientation of his constituants fiber are twisted in one direction or the other....

I will begin the book tomorrow if i am lucky....I have 9 articles of Essien  +a chapter of the book.....

@oldhvymec
James B of Ampzilla did it 50 years ago.. He KNEW cable and wire sounded different one way than the other... Why do you think he literally WELDED the power cable in place the RIGHT DIRECTION on his then and STILL famous NO feed back amps...

No feedback, YES! Until you get a tube amp with no feedback, you just don't know what tube sound is. It was Hiroyasu Kondo who first noticed the degradation of sound when using feedback. A Japanese audiophile who was mocked for his "crazy" ideas for years until he became famous for sound of his silver cables and vintage triode amps.

I am keeping tabs on threads these days....this one goes under "totally useless". That’s being kind. Gaslighting people is even worse than useless.

@dletch
I just read someone claimed the location of an instrument shifted 1/3 of the soundstage due to, wait for it .... wait for it .... copper wire. We have entered the twilight zone.

Such an experiment is conducted to subjectively evaluate the "loudness" of the wire. First, the sound stage shift is detected, then the balance is restored using the volume control and the difference is measured. On a transparent system, the difference in "loudness" between some type of wires in such an experiment can reach several DB.
Sure it is twilight zone for most people.

Essien also claims Ohm is flawed and Helmholz is just as wrong. Better toss those Resonators.

Today, we know that Ohm's acoustical law (1843) is irredeemably flawed; and Helmholtz's resonance (or place) theory (1877) is just as wrong.

If you have the same wire on both sides, there is no need for balance control, assuming the wires are manufactured with any sort of consistency.  I was mistaken though, they blamed it on the wire being stranded. Obviously it is not a stranded wire issue, but something simple that was missed. Back to the twilight zone.

My only thought for this topic is so what?

If someone sold you directional wire, especially expensive directional wire and forgot to tell you which way is the right way, I’d find another more competent vendor. Or maybe it just really does not matter? There is always something else one can find to obsess over.  Or if playing with wires is simply what floats ones boat, more power to you.

I am keeping tabs on threads these days....this one goes under "totally useless". That’s being kind. Gaslighting people is even worse than useless.

Coming from Albert Einstein this remark will be a sign, but how could you decide for all  of us,what is useless, useful, or simply interesting  or anything between the two extremes?

 The tentation to insult people is too much attractive to the alternative, like reading an article or a book?

 i suggest to you to read Essien article suggested by Anton  then your time will be valued coming in this thread you dare to despise in the name of all....I just buy it 50 bucks....

Then FOR MY own account of usefullness among all threads it is a very useful one.... Reading a book is more useful than readin insulting posts...

 Sorry....

I’m deciding for me M not others obviously and merely stating my opinion like everyone else including you. If it bothers you, I can’t help that.

If someone sold you directional wire, especially expensive directional wire and forgot to tell you which way is the right way, I’d find another more competent vendor.

a directional cable DONT NEED to be expansive...

Dont confuse a subject matter with marketing...

Or maybe it just really does not matter? There is always something else one can find to obsess about.

There are many neighbours mocking year genetic experiments obsession with peas when Gregor Mendel was living...

Dont be a complaining neighbour even if Anton is not Gregor....


 We must try to contribute to a thread.... Positively....

Calling out a bunch of gaslighting when observed is a very positive thing IMHO. It’s the gaslighting that is negative.

Essien also claims Ohm is flawed and Helmholz is just as wrong. Better toss those Resonators.

Have you read anything?

Essien only demonstrate in his own way what is a well known fact in psychoacoustic...

Pitch is not reducible to frequency...

 Read wiki if you are not able to read a book....

«Pitch may be quantified as a frequency, but pitch is not a purely objective physical property; it is a subjective psychoacoustical attribute of sound.» Wiki

Calling out a bunch of gaslighting when observed is a very positive thing IMHO. It’s the gaslighting that is negative.

You dont even understand your own sophism here ? spitting that....

I understand it perfectly.   I said it.  Maybe its you who needs to work on it? Or just accept an opinion that differs from yours.

In a discussion , only child spite their opinion like fact....

 Anyway i only defend a thread  thanks to the OP where i discover a great book andfood for my thoughts...

I like discussions not stupid opinions throwing like between to sides in war...

 Thinking need discussions... Not arguing in circle...

What are you talking about?   I said its my OPINION.   IS your's opinion or fact?