Directional cables - what does that really mean?

but the signal does not go back and forth

Interesting concept. Please define "signal."

Some cables have a gadget, like MIT network boxes, at one end versus another. That would at least seem to have some concrete basis for saying the two ends are functionally different and hence might produce different results one way versus the other.

Beyond that, if the darn thing has arrows on it, I point them downstream as instructed ie pointing from the source to pre-amp or pre-amp to amp. Just because there are arrows on the darn things, but for no concrete reason I could identify.

I've dabbled with a lot of wires over the years and am finicky about sound quality. But that's about the extent to which I worry about such things. Shame on me.

Some said, "define the signal." I define what it's not, how's that? It's not the electrons. AC is what, alternating current? Guess what? It's not the current either.

Geoff - hmm. The information flows in one direction (from source to receiver, as Czarivey kindly sketched out for us), with an alternating flow of electrons (back and forth, or forth and back depending on the phase) as carrier. No carrier, no information - unless I'm sadly mistaken about how things work in this universe.

Mapman and Hevac1 - thank you - preferential grounding and the magical network gadget look like legitimate reasons. Short of that - I am inclined to view with suspicion any cable that is overtly directional. I would also expect such cable be also more sensitive to phase inversion (though I did not check experimentally).

Thank you for chipping in - I learned.

C>

"09-25-15: Hevac1
As far as I know it has to do with shielding to minimize interference from other sources and line voltage noise. The shield is only connected at one end to minimize ground loops from one item to the other also."

Its done to form/polarize the dielectric one way. Thats why they use the arrows. If you go to AQ's website, they do a much better job explaining it than I do.