The lattice structure of solidus wire, ie, electron orbital locked frozen crystalline wire, it can and mostly will be directional, depending on the method of creation.How do you square this with the cable carrying an AC signal?
Showing 14 responses by atmasphere
@jea48 so-- if the electrons flow easier one way then the other (a reasonable interpretation of the first paragraph), what happens? Do they not all make it back on the return cycle? Obviously the answer is ’No.’, as an excess of electrons would occur at the receiving end, which would mean that there would be a negative DC voltage generated. Since that doesn’t happen, we can assume with a great degree of accuracy that the electrons are in fact flowing either way with equal ease. Interconnect cables are not diodes. The reason they might be directional has to do with how the shield is arranged. Usually you want the shield grounded at the source only. While its not as good as balanced operation for low noise, its better than just a regular shield with single conductor inside. So I think we can consider the quote from herman to be debunked. |
Crystal orientation in OFC and in Ohno Continuous Casting manufacturing predicts that there is directionality in metals that may influence the sound quality.I don't dispute that but such does not suggest directionality. Every cables have directions. The signal behaves differently with wire directions. One direction is cleaner, natural, and more focus than another direction. I test it and use it every day. Every audio companies should know this fact.Directions, yes, but this is not influenced by the **wire** somehow conducting better in one direction than another, its caused by the way the cable is constructed- and this only applies to certain single-ended cables which might have the shield connection at one end only. Even then, its not the cable that sounds different, it would be caused by the equipment (amps and preamp) reacting to the change in the noise floor. Some equipment is better grounded than others and this will lead to cable qualities manifesting in different ways in different systems. |
There is the widely accepted version of directionality: In most audio-grade shielded interconnects, as compared to standard coax, negative has its own internal conductor and the metal shield is attached to ground at only one end, thus defining the cable’s directionality. Many cable manufacturers end their exploration of directionality there, going only as far as to mark their cables for directionality based on the relationship of shield to ground, but altogether neglecting conductor directionality. Because we believe in directing noise to where it can do the least harm, we, too, believe in the advantages of controlling for the attachment of the shield. In fact, long before we controlled for conductor directionality, AudioQuest interconnects were also controlled for direction based on the relationship of shield to ground.The above quote is from Audioquest and shows how its the shield connection that is causing the directionality, despite their awareness of how the crystals initially align in their wire. We've built amps with Audioquest wire before. At the time of installation, Audioquest made no mention whatsoever about directionality. The idea that a wire can be directional has many of the same problems as that of a fuse being directional. In both cases one is faced with the same problem: if the wire or fuse is directional then it conducts better in one direction that another, ergo its acting like a diode. If that is the case then we will see a DC voltage (either positive or negative depending on which way the 'diode' is connected) at the output of the wire or fuse and since no such voltage appears, we can only assume that in fact the wire or fuse is not in fact a diode. Generally when things act like diodes that aren't supposed to, its where there is a connection and not somewhere in the middle of a conductor. Crystal radios work on this principle. Special solders (known as 'eutectic') are used to minimize diode effects in the solderjoint (and also to prevent cold solderjoints which are sort of the same thing). I have to assume that Geoff used the quote above to make the point of the shield being the driver behind directionality in cables. If that is not the case and somehow Audioquest was trying to make a point about wire being direction and nothing else than this paragraph isn't their best marketing. But that isn't how it reads to me. |
Uh, I don’t think so. That was kind of the whole point of the Audioquest dude’s article on wire directionality. You know, the article you apparently mis-read. Besides, if a shield was connected at both ends of the cable you couldn’t really blame cable directionality on the shield, could you? Please don’t try to tell me it has something to do with the contact the male RCA connector makes with the female end.You misread or did not read the question to which I was responding. He was asking specifically about cables that are not marked with arrows. My answer was correct. Nor did I misread the Audioquest quote FWIW. While it does mention directionality of conductors, the quote is careful to also mention that they hook them up in such a way that the shield is only connected at the 'correct' end of the cable. Hence the only conclusion that can be drawn remains that the shield is the important bit since the manufacturer took the guesswork out of the 'directionality' of the wire. |
Sorry to report, atmasphere, the dude from Audioquest was actually referring to folks like you who insist that any directionality in the sound is due to the shield and who keep insisting there is not such thing as wire directionality whether it be fuses, cables, interconnects what have you. Mr. Low, in fact, is quite outspoken in this regard. Maybe you better read the article again.Please refer to my original post regarding this ridiculous topic, in which I was careful to include this text: The above quote is from Audioquest and shows how its the shield connection that is causing the directionality, despite their awareness of how the crystals initially align in their wire.And also: If that is not the case and somehow Audioquest was trying to make a point about wire being directional and ***nothing else*** than this paragraph isn't their best marketing.Emphasis added. Again, if a wire really has directionality (a **wire** mind you, not a cable) in an AC circuit it will be demonstrating diode characteristics, which will induce a DC voltage at the output. Since this does not happen, again (since I am repeating myself) we know that in fact whether the crystals in a wire have a particular orientation is moot; the wire itself has no directionality whatsoever. I am sure this is why no instruction accompanied the hookup wire we obtained from Audioquest. Something smells fishy to me here.You are correct. Its an obvious hoax. |
AC current is not flowing through the fuse. Energy is, in the form of an electromagnetic wave.That energy cannot exist without the current flow. You are correct in that electromagnetism is always there but it can’t exist without current! This link might help sort things out for you: http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/SeatExpts/resource/rhr/rhr.htm Since the satellite delay is known to be 240 ms that means the velocity of the audio signal (voice) through free space is 186,000 miles per second. The speed of light. Now what is the only thing that can travel at the speed of light in free space?Electrons flow back and forth in a wire. Its useful to examine the way this occurs by using the model of ball bearings in a hose. When you push one ball bearing into one end, instantaneously one leaves the hose at the other end. Electrons work the same way as they are easily exchanged in their respective orbits of adjacent atoms (in a material we call a ’conductor’). Obviously you didn’t learn this when going to the two week NASA school. Ralph doesn’t believe in the wire diretionality[sic]. All wire directions in his set up are mixed up. A fuse direction is not significant in an improper set up. Also, the reason he doesn’t believe wire directionality is because he has never heard the difference. I can’t say why he hasn’t heard the difference in his long career in an audio industry.You are conflating two different issues. First, I don’t go by belief but actual knowledge and there is a difference between the two. Try believing that a bullet fired from a gun pointed at you can’t hurt you and see where that gets you. More to the point: copper crystals in a wire have an alignment. But this alignment cannot affect whether the wire actually conducts differently in one direction as opposed to another on a practical basis. You might be able to measure the diode effect over a very long stretch of wire but in the shorter wires used in actual audio applications its moot and does not affect even the tiny signals emerging from a low output moving coil cartridge (which BTW are relatively high current while being low voltage) with the distances involved in audio applications. If we approach this from an electro-magnetism point of view we find the that the conclusion is the same. The funny thing here is that a lot of this stuff are the things that they teach you first when you go to engineering classes, not the last! But I don’t doubt that when people turn cable around they hear a difference!! There can be a number of things influencing that and until you’ve ruled them out you can’t point at atomic structure as the cause. The method of shielding is going to be a bigger effect, and perhaps as much effect might come from how happy the connectors are themselves as they are seated in each other! We’ve found plenty of machining differences in connectors that came from the same batch- differences not only in the dimensions but also in the quality and thickness of the plating! So just like the fuses, if you put enough current through a cable you can measure the voltage drop at the connectors, and by rotating the RCA connections you can determine the best connection and when you get that, it sounds better. Connectors play a pretty big role. I’ve heard bad connectors make or break the sound of a component, for example when an adapter connector is used to go from balanced to single-ended. Usually its sounds better to have the proper connectors on the cable to start with. The problem is there really isn’t a good way to test this in most audiophile’s systems. We did it because we got tired of hearing cables sound different when they were exactly the same cable that we had just been using with the same equipment- why did they sometimes sound better when reseated and other times sound worse?? I found it **really** irritating that we could easily hear differences in power cables, especially when the power cable manufactures often came up with explanations for this that were obviously bogus! So I took a Digital Voltmeter and simply measured the voltage drop from one end of the cable to the other and Voila! - the difference was revealed and stupidly easy to measure. So instead of making up bizarre stories about quantum, crystals, smoking mirrors and the like, instead maybe its a good idea to ***AT LEAST TRY*** to see if you can sort out a method of correlating a measurement against what you can also hear. Usually you can if you sit down and think about it. FWIW, for all the obvious BS proposed on this thread, I don’t find it nearly as upsetting and disappointing as when you find an obvious "objectivist’ that proclaims something like there ’can’t be any effect from a power cord’ and then can’t be bothered to at least back up his statements with some sort of measurements! So in closing just to be clear, here at Atma-Sphere: We do hear differences in interconnect cable directions. We can measure why this is so easily enough. With RCAs one of the biggest effects are rotation of the connectors so they seat properly and the way the cable is shielded. We do hear differences in fuse direction and can measure why this is so (and have shown that simply rotating the fuse in the holder can have the same effect). Fuses aren’t directional. We hear differences in power cables and can measure why this is so, just by measuring the AC voltage drop across the cable. In the above cases we can do this with a standard 3 1/2 digit DVM. Its not hard. ***You just have to do it!!*** None of this is rocket science and none of it has anything to do with quantum. It just takes a bit of thinking about how to figure out how to do the measurement. I’m not saying that we know how to do all measurements of things that we are able to hear that don’t seem to be in the specs, but the things I just listed we can. |
My post relates to the proposition that the electromagnetic wave that is the audio signal **in** copper wire or any conductor is comprised of photons, as are all electromagnetic waves.For a given value of 'in' I suppose increases or decreases the number of words in your mouth, apparently. Emphasis added. |
@jea48 “There it was, right in front of me in black and white! The current does not flow around a loop setting up a magnetic field as I had, along with countless other engineers, been taught in high school and university. It is the other way round. The electric current is but an artifact of a more fundamental entity.”You can work that either way you want to- put the em field somehow in place and the current will flow in the wire, or put the current through the wire and the em field will be generated. Either way its a red herring and has nothing to do with directionality nor suggests a means for directionality. |
we’re talking about metals that are 99.999999% pure in the case of copper.This is a common myth! No copper produced for audiophile or other uses is better than 99.99%. Anyone telling you anything else is lying. The fact is that while copper can be made pretty pure (in which case its state looks more silvery than copper colored) but the simple process of extrusion with an insulation insures that 99.99% is the best you get. If you want proof just look at the color of the wire. Further, oxygen-free copper was not developed for audiophiles. It was developed for alternators and generators for their brushes, because oxygen-free copper is more flexible. Once oxygen-free copper has been in the field for a few weeks, its purity is about the same as regular copper. IOW the '6 nines' copper thing is a marketing myth. Anyone tells you they have that turn the other way and run as hard as you can. |