The term “Direction” or “Directivity” originated among audiophiles and music lovers in the 1970s. It was then that people first started talking about the fact that audio cables and wires that are symmetrical from the physics point of view are actually not symmetrical at all and somehow change the sound of the audio system when changing the direction of their inclusion. Up until the mid-2000s, it was believed that directivity was a feature of only electrical conductors and most people were confident that the direction of the conductors matters just in signal circuits. Nevertheless advanced audiophiles even oriented mains cables, choosing the best sound position of the plug in the socket. They were considered crazy by almost everybody. The orientation of the conductors in the amplifiers and explanations of the reasons for choosing a particular direction were rather haphazard for many years, in 2005, the orientation of the conductors in the signal circuits and power supply circuits of the amplifiers was finally systematized.
Systematization of directions, along with the selection of components according to special criteria and the use of an extreme simple design allowed you to create an unusual Testing Audio System (TAS), which made it possible to determine the musical properties of individual radio components and wires with unattainable accuracy. It quickly became clear that the direction of the preferred sound of the components almost never coincides with their long side. Even for wires that have an unusually large length-to-thickness ratio, the best sound has always been achieved by touching certain points on the side surfaces. To describe this state of affairs, the term Vector Directivity was introduced.
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.
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.
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- 798 posts total
- 798 posts total