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Directionality of wire

I am a fan of Chris Sommovigo's Black Cat and Airwave interconnects. I hope he does not mind me quoting him or naming him on this subject, but Chris does not mark directionality of his IC's. I recently wrote him on the subject and he responded that absent shunting off to ground/dialectric designs, the idea of wire directionality is a complete myth. Same with resistors and fuses. My hunch is that 95% of IC "manufacturers", particularly the one man operations of under $500 IC's mark directionality because they think it lends the appearance of technical sophistication and legitimacy. But even among the "big boys", the myth gets thrown around like so much accepted common knowledge. Thoughts? Someone care to educate me on how a simple IC or PC or speaker cable or fuse without a special shunting scheme can possibly have directionality? It was this comment by Stephen Mejias (then of Audioquest and in the context of Herb Reichert's review of the AQ Niagra 1000) that prompts my question;

Thank you for the excellent question. AudioQuest provided an NRG-10 AC cable for the evaluation. Like all AudioQuest cables, our AC cables use solid conductors that are carefully controlled for low-noise directionality. We see this as a benefit for all applications -- one that becomes especially important when discussing our Niagara units. Because our AC cables use conductors that have been properly controlled for low-noise directionality, they complement the Niagara System’s patented Ground-Noise Dissipation Technology. Other AC cables would work, but may or may not allow the Niagara to reach its full potential. If you'd like more information on our use of directionality to minimize the harmful effects of high-frequency noise, please visit http://www.audioquest.com/directionality-its-all-about-noise/ or the Niagara 1000's owner's manual (available on our website).

Thanks again.

Stephen Mejias
AudioQuest


Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-15-audioquest-niagara-1000-hifiman-he1000-v2-p...


128x128fsonicsmith
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geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
fsonicsmith
What is one to do with unmarked cables, there are 4 possible combinations of orientation if my rudimentary math skills are correct and I don’t know that four combinations can be remembered well from an auditory-brain standpoint?

>>>>All you need to do is try reversing one IC or speaker cable at a time and listen at each step for an improvement or a degradation. Same for fuses, try reversing them one at a time and judge whether the sound got better or worse. This method eliminates the worry about auditory memory. It only takes a few seconds to reverse a cable. If you’re unsure whether there’s an improvement or not keep moving to the next cable or the next fuse and come back to it later.

footnote: since all wire is directional we also have some other problems. The wire in transformers is directional, all internal wiring in components is directional, all wire in capacitors, resistors, yup, directional. All internal speaker wiring and crossovers, you guessed it, directional. All power cords are directional as well as house AC wiring, not to mention tonearm wire, internal cartridge wiring, headphone cables, did I miss anything?
terry9
2,342 posts
 
@jea48 

Hello Jea.

To answer your question: I was having a lot of trouble with my system about 20 years ago, when I moved into a new neighbourhood, perfect in every way but RF. I tried a shotgun approach, which worked, but I don't remember isolating this particular variable and testing it by itself. But the theory is sound, which is why it was one of the things in that shotgun.

terry9
2,342 posts
 
I should add that a shotgun approach is also useful in that a number of measures, individually inaudible, can sum to a clear improvement.
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