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?
Upgrading crossovers is absolutely well worth the exercise.
This link might be useful when deciding on capacitors: http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html Resistor and inductors don't seem to have been tested, however I find Mundorf 1% metal oxide (MOX) resisters are generally suitable and open air core coils better than those wrapped around iron.
For what it's worth, here's some thoughts. I consider crossover components in two sections; 1. Those in parallel, where the signal passes through the components and then on the speaker. 2. Those is series, where the signal passes through the components and bypass the speaker. I upgrade those in section 1, and generally don't bother changing those in section 2.
Now I am in the process of upgrading my crossovers. I know from
experience there are huge gains to be made from using higher quality
caps, inductors, and resistors. This is strange only in the sense that
these are all specifically designed to measure the same. The whole point
of manufacture is to have them all be electrically identical and
interchangeable.
A worthwhile exercise that can reap real benefits.
Unfortunately there is such a thing as component tolerance, which can range from 1-10%.
The lower the percentage the better. Even better, measure the values of a bunch and select those closest to the desired value.
This conclusion is based on a gross misunderstanding about how electricity and electronics works. It assumes the current flows first in one direction and then the other since it is called "alternating current" . Nothing could be further from the truth. Current is the movement of charge, not electrons as it is usually explained. Unfortunately, if you do a search you will almost always find an explanation that includes an analogy of electrons in a wire to water in a pipe. That is fundamentally wrong which leads to many incorrect conclusions and explanations.
Parris, what is the Romex? in any rate you woun’t listen LZ backwards). If we are about rock music, the directivity of acoustic environment parts will first affect the drive: the more accurately you orient the parts of the room walls, floor and sailing the less loudness you will have to make at the end to achieve nirvana. It is very rough assumption but a good mark to understand the difference.
Thank you @rodman99999 I have been reading a bit of those (and it turns out some of those I have encountered in other lectures on youtube and this reinforces that).
@Millercarbon "manueljenkin, click on the users name, and select Message User from the drop down menu." What happened? Any specific requirement from me?
There will be ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in the sound you are hearing if you reverse the direction of ANY wire. This also includes fuses too.
Have you tried reversing the direction of a cable, if not how do you know there is no difference? It doesn't cost anything, except a little bit of time to reverse the direction.
The greatest problem for the understanding experience here is linked to the Cartesian divide beetween mind and matter...
Most people cannot understand psycho-acoustic phenomenon where music experience is distinguished from sound experience anyway and correlated with it...
And among most of those who understand half of them dismiss musical experience to be a "bias" or an illusion....
Reality is more subtle than our own apes brain...
Then we must educate ourself and training ourself....Experimenting ourself like the OP was proposing for his own discussion... If not experimenting at least thinking and listening the opinion and experience of those who did experiment.......
andy2 Using a single tone sinewave to understand how people perceive music is crazy.
OP Of course, this is crazy, but who here says otherwise?
andy2 "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'"
andy, your quote is about perceiving sounds, not music. Learn the difference.
There will be ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in the sound you are hearing if you reverse the direction of ANY wire. This also includes fuses too.
Anyone claiming otherwise, as usual is the case here on this forum most of the time, is completely delusional and needs serious psychological and auditory help.
I know of a couple of very good doctors in both disciplines if you would like a recommendation :-)
You are right @cleeds — that guys has a lot of knowledge and would add value to the forums if behaved as a normal person. For some reason, he hates audiophiles as a species, and that comes clearly visible in all his posts. Even from back then in late 2019 when posting as AtDavid. And with every subsequent username including this one today. Clearly some mental problems, or perhaps going through a rough patch in his life. We will never know. But you can ask him when he resurfaces again 😂. One thing you can count on 100%, he WILL be back
And...
the "doogiehowser"’s posts are now all deleted. This must be a record:
this time around it only took one day (and "only" 57 posts in this one
day) for this dude to disappear. What a character! Sick
I think it is a record!. I also think the person is not well. That's unfortunate, because the guy seems to have some value to contribute to the group. It's just that he doesn't know how.
I had the distinct impression that doogie was the return appearance of a A'gon poster from before, who had left or, err, been obliged to leave the site. I'm just not sure who. These "revenants" seem to be becoming more frequent.
And... the "doogiehowser"’s posts are now all deleted. This must be a record: this time around it only took one day (and "only" 57 posts in this one day) for this dude to disappear. What a character! Sick
... you did get on the internet, and make a claim, and have
been defending it for 16 long pages, while not making the most basic of
steps to give substance to the claim.
As I've explained to you under your previous usernames, this is a hobbyist's group, not a scientific forum. No one is obligated to submit to your demands that they provide "proof" tailored to your specification. So please give it a rest.
However, this thread from what I can tell is not at all a matter of
physics, or electrical transmission, but one of psychology. Convincing
yourself you heard a difference without doing the truly hard work of
both isolating the changes you made, and removing your knowledge of the
change a listening test demonstrates that your perceived sonic
differences are no more than feelings, but do not evidence an actual
physical change, or an actual change in what you heard (as opposed to
what you thought you heard). That is a matter of psychology, not
physics.
Yes, bias)) You have copied the meaning of the very first answer on this topic.
It is rather pointless to engage in a discussion such as this without
some adequate effort to recreate the experiment and control for
manufacturing variance and visual listening.
Then make some adequate effort and check the capabilities of the player, the directivity of a wire or whatever. Some people have already done this and are discussing the topic on the point. You are welcome.
However, this thread from what I can tell is not at all a matter of physics, or electrical transmission, but one of psychology.
It seems that people cannot put their brain around a new science called Neurophysiological psycho-acoustic...
They cannot refrain themselves to put delusion in the side of "psychology" AKA "illusion" versus physical acoustic AKA reality... This is a recipe inherited from a gross materialistic conditioning....
For example the perception of "musical timbre" is to this day an OPEN problem in neuro-acoustic....
Some science are out of reach of simplistic mind or even from some engineers ....
@dogiehoes --- or should I say "atdavid"? What took you so long to come back here this time around? And "only" 42 posts in one single day since "joining"? I am disappointed. You know you can do better. Light it up here! Many threads that need your attention and expertise. You need to reply to all of them
@doogiehowser That you have feelings that these cells exist is about as relevant that
people believe the earth is flat, or that fairies exist. These anomalies
all disappear when someone shines a light on them. Why is that?
I don't believe it, but I came to this logically. There is nothing in an acoustic signal that it would be impossible to measure or set up an experiment, all other things being equal. Hearing is also thoroughly studied.
From the standpoint of acoustics and electrics, there should be no such anomalies as an audible "reverse polarity of the wire". Physics also states that a digital copy should always sound the same as the original. And so on and so forth.
There are too many inconsistencies between physics and music. Hence the conclusions: 1-ordinary physics is not enough to describe the sound of music. 2-Hearing (perception of acoustic vibrations) is not all that we feel while listening to music.
Music is not a single tone sinewave. Every piece of musical instrument can produce a range of frequency from the lowest to highest. A drum sound can extend all the way up to upper treble frequency.
Using a single tone sinewave to understand how people perceive music is crazy.
Maximum frequency that I hear now is 12500 Hz, and my father, at 88, hears only up to 6500hz!! At the same time, he freely orients himself in musical subtleties, distinguishes the directions of wires, and opinions about what sounds better or worse coincide with us.
There are many examples that natural musical values and audio anomalies are situated in middle range. We may cut LF and HF off accustically or electrically and still feel magic in music.
In addition to hearing we almost certanly have some sensitive "cells", which Millercarbon told about. I only think that the cells detect not acoustic vibrations but something else.
"If it sounds good and measures good, it IS good".
You at least want to make sure if it measures good. But does not mean that if something measures good, it will sound good. At the end you have to listen.
One, really low bass is non-directional. We sense almost nothing but volume .
Another one, really high ultra-sonic frequencies. We cannot hear these at all! At least not on a hearing test playing only these frequencies, we hear nothing.
I think in both circumstances what is happening is our brains assemble it all into an auditory model of the world around us.
I think that pretty much sums it up. Something is happening that we can't yet explain and maybe never will. We may not hear it in the traditional use of the word but we sense it. Our brains react to it.
Which brings me back to the idea that those who make all of their audiophile decisions based on measurements and refuse to believe anything that they can't explain with physics and our severely limited understanding of how the brain works are barking up the proverbial wrong tree.
Two aspects of human hearing that may or may not shed light on this.
One, really low bass is non-directional. We sense almost nothing but volume. It is for all intents and purposes mono. Yet mono always sounds like it is coming from right between the speakers. Low bass is not mono like that. It is more like what out of phase mono sounds like, coming from nowhere and everywhere. Yet when playing music it never sounds like this either. It always sounds like it is coming from some definite location.
Another one, really high ultra-sonic frequencies. We cannot hear these at all! At least not on a hearing test playing only these frequencies, we hear nothing. But all instruments have higher harmonic overtones extending well up into the ultra-sonic range. When these are reproduced it lends a wealth of detail including depth of image that improves not only treble but midrange and bass as well.
These might seem to be very different, the extreme low bass on the one hand and the beyond treble on the other. But I think they are very much the same. I think in both circumstances what is happening is our brains assemble it all into an auditory model of the world around us.
How this all happens is anyone's guess. It sure does seem pretty obvious though that it does indeed happen.
The cells in the ear that detect these ultra-sonic frequencies, by the way, are three times as many in number as detect the sounds we can hear. So good luck figuring out how to measure for that.
In a broad sense, the topic is devoted to audio anomalies that cannot be explained from the point of view of ordinary physics.
got it
There is a lot to audio that you can not measure at all,
I don't disagree with the overall idea of that, just with the finality of it. I think it would be more accurate to say that there are many aspects of how we hear that we haven't figured out how to correlate to measurements. Not that we can't, just that we haven't figured how to do it. Maybe never will.
That's what amazes me about the camp here and elsewhere that say basically "if you can't explain it I can't hear it." In effect, "if I don't understand it then it doesn't exist," Even though we've barely scratched the surface of how our brains work and how it interprets what we call our senses, these guys have managed to precisely quantify how we hear. The insane idea that everything they need to know can be explained by an expensive audio analyzer. The insane idea that they are capable of looking at electronic measurements and predicting with 100% certainty whether or not a given change is audible with the assumption they are measuring everything that matters, which is highly doubtful
On the one hand we have snake oil salesman with devices like magic digital clocks that will transform the sound of a symphony hall even when the battery is dead (yes, he made that claim) and the "scientists" who refuse to believe anything they can't explain with measurements. I'm sure the answer is somewhere in the middle. Well, more toward the measurement side, but not at either extreme. I'm going to go listen to a record now even though the measurements tell me it can't possibly sound as good as the digital copy.
@herman I actually have no idea what the file debate is about, no idea how we got from wire directionality to checksums as I didn’t trudge through the whole thread. sorry
In a broad sense, the topic is devoted to audio anomalies that cannot be explained from the point of view of ordinary physics. Such anomalies include differences in the sound when a short piece of wire is reversed in the signal circuit, the audibility of wires in the AC power supply circuit, the difference in the sound of identical copies of digital files when they are played from the same disk, as well as the possibility of creating an exact digital copy of the file, the sound of which will differ from the original sound.
As far as I know, there is no measurement out there that can tell the difference in sound from a paper driver, ceramic, aluminum, or magnesium drivers. But you can clearly hear the difference with different driver materials.
There is a lot to audio that you can not measure at all, chief among them being a better set of speakers with better drivers in them, you can hear way more information in a top quality speaker than you can in a lesser quality one with lower quality drivers and the difference is obvious but they may measure almost exactly the same.
if you start with a flawed premise you often end up with a flawed conclusion.
That is certainly true.
My point was, perhaps it was obvious, the thread started with a declaration that the human ear/brain isn’t able to resolve changes below .3 dB, which is in my mind ludicrous. Perhaps in a lab with test tones, but not listening to music. We hear too many subtle changes in our systems to believe that. It reminds me of the declarations on the grossly mislabeled "Audio Science Review" where they use measurements to tell you what you can and can’t hear. He often states something to the effect that "these measured differences are inaudible." It is impossible for him to actually determine that so it is therefore a non-scientific conclusion.
The whole idea that we can use electrical measurements to definitively quantify what we hear is ludicrous. Just because there is some correlation and we can measure some parameters doesn’t mean we can quantify hearing any more than we can measure and quantify what we see, taste, smell, or touch.
Thank you for the interesting information, I take off my hat! Yes, I have to admit that the checksum is not a proof of the similarity of the files, although the probability of the match is extremely low and this is definitely not our case
yea, just when I see "indisputable proof" it kind of sets of my BS sensors. I agree the chances that 2 audio files returning the same checksum and not being identical are so low they can be ignored.. I actually have no idea what the file debate is about, no idea how we got from wire directionality to checksums as I didn’t trudge through the whole thread. sorry
@andy2 I think your understanding of what is "the same" and what is "different" is too simplistic. You’re showing off of your "computer skills" seems a little too obvious.
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