Interconnects, some have directional indicators, why?

 
stanwal
Ask Pierre S. He spend hours arranging the orientation of his cables. It may as I have forgotten how it sounded like by the time he gets through. Just kidding Pierre

I stepped on one of Pierre's cables at the show and lived to tell about it. 😬

 
timrhu
Who inspects the cable to ensure the crystals are properly aligned and then decides which way is best for optimum signal flow? And after this is determined, who, at the factory ensures the cable has the proper orientation?
Something smells fishy to me here.

the cable manufacturer listens to cables made with the first wire taken off a new large spool of wire to determine which direction sounds best. The rest is easy, no?

😃

Linn K20 / Naim Naca 4 speaker cables are directional due to a burn in process at the factory. If they are connected the other way around they will adapt to that and after a couple of weeks they will sound the same as before. There is a small audible difference.

If this is true also for other cables there is no actual inherit preferred direction in the cables as such but they should always be used in the same directional orientation.

According to van den Hul there is always a burn-in time required every time you move a cable since that upsets the contact between the individual strands. This makes sense and is logical.

So in general I would humbly suggest: Connect the shield at the source end if your using balanced or pseudo balanced interconnects and leave the cables alone. As soon as you move them and/or reverse the direction they will require a new burn-in period.

IMHO this is what people are experiencing as any talk about that crystalline structure in copper or amorphous structures in isolation should to some noticeable extent be inherently asymmetrical does not make any sense at all to me as a physicist. Atoms rearrange themselves all the time when acted upon by physical forces such as mechanical and/or electrical forces and will settle into their lowest possible energy state according to the laws of thermo dynamics after a while...

Atmosphere's quote above perfectly explains how directional wiring would hurt the sound. The current is alternating back and forth, not flowing downstream. His diode analogy is spot on: if the current flows better in one direction, it is restricted in the other; therefore, directional wiring will absolutely make the sound worse. The argument that just grounding one end sounds reasonable... or would, if anyone would explain why the grounded end hooks to the source, rather than the input of the amp or preamp. Of course, no one has mentioned this.