Is everyone deluded yet?
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Are you experienced?
Have another hit...
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...
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- 555 posts total
Re the experience cited by Bigkidz, if I correctly interpret that the cable was used for a digital interconnection, it would not be at all surprising for the cable to exhibit directional properties in many systems, **even if** its conductors have no intrinsic directional properties whatsoever, and **even if** the cable is symmetrically designed at the two ends. Digital audio signals have significant frequency components extending up to several tens of millions of Hz, and even higher in some cases, that are associated with the very fast transition times between their two voltage states (i.e., the "risetimes" and "falltimes" of the signals). At those frequencies even minor differences in how the connectors are soldered at the two ends, as well as other tiny mechanical asymmetries, can affect signal reflections that occur at RF frequencies as a result of less than perfect matches of "characteristic impedance" between the components, the connectors on the components and on the cable, and the cable itself. And at RF frequencies impedance matches are never 100% perfect. Signal reflections will in turn combine with and affect the characteristics and quality of the original signal waveform. Which in turn may affect timing jitter at the point of D/A conversion, depending on many component and cable-dependent variables, including the arrival times at the DAC of reflections and re-reflections. Which in turn may vary depending on the degree to which the impedance match at each of the cable is less than perfect, and therefore on which end of the cable is connected to which component. The length of the cable, the propagation velocity of the particular cable, and the jitter rejection capability (if any) of the particular DAC are among other variables that factor into all of this, BTW. Not to mention that the Adcom cable that was referred to may not have had a well controlled 75 ohm characteristic impedance to begin with, which would certainly affect susceptibility to reflection effects. Put simply, if the cable was used for a digital interconnection the cited experience says nothing about wire directionality. Regards, -- Al |
- 555 posts total