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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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koestner
671 posts
 
The way I see it is we're all looking at this in a classical way, but when dealing with EM fields that propagate at the speed of light in their respective mediums, it's more like relativistic effects. We think the signal is traveling down the wire like a tire tube in a lazy river. When in reality it's at the speaker the same time as it exits the transistor output. The changing direction of the DC signal 20-20,000 times per second is painfully slow compared to the instantaneous  speed of the forming and collapsing field. So it may be better to think of having your speaker directly connected to the transistor's output instead of picturing this "wave" making its way down the wire. We all lay out this "fire hose" cable to make the trip easier for the signal, when it's really at your speaker the moment your source reads it.

OK, so after reading this a few times I see it makes little sense, but I'm sending it anyway. Let's just keep in mind that in our houses the speed of light is the closest thing to "instant".


randy-11
1,913 posts
 
it makes little sense
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almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Stfoth, for what it's worth I spent a bit more than three decades designing and managing design of high tech electronics for use in military aircraft, and in my experience the issue of wire directionality was never even mentioned, much less addressed in some manner.

Regards,
-- Al

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