Directionality of wire

@shadorne 

"I don’t deny truth. However, before attaching strong beliefs to unsubstantiated claims I require something more solid than conjecture. This is why man-made global warming remains a remote and infinitesimally small possibility to me as nobody has successfully proven the main hypothesis is true in our atmosphere (which we know for certainty is influenced by other natural factors to a much larger degree than claims for man-made effects)"

"This is not paranoia it is actually just being reasonable and independent of thought rather than being a sheep and blindly believing everything one is told."  

I think I will just leave that lay.

@geoffkait 

no crystals.

"Well, actually, ironically enough, that expression caveat emptor does NOT apply to fuses as much as people think..."

"Hmmm, are they getting ready to release a new fuse?"

Like I said, caveat emptor.

@terry9

I think you may be conflagrating "scientific research" with "empirical experimenting". Strictly speaking, it isn’t really necessary for us to ’establish facts’ or ’principles’ or in some way necessarily advance the cause of science in order to justify an experiment. We are hobbyists first. More often than not, we only need to enlighten ourselves, to address the unknown issues that are immediately in front of us, not the ones that define a specific school of scientific thought.

So if, say, we don’t know something...something even quite simple, like "How do I know if I really need room treatments??", or "Are the effects of insulation audible in audio wires??" and we have just no real clue as to what the possible answer might be, then likely as not, a simple, even rudimentary experiment might be in order. You know, the simpler the better. Like taking a bunch of sheets or towels or dirty socks or whatever and trying to systematically place them around the listening room to get a feel for not only whether or not you could benefit from absorption, but also where the most important problem spots in your room might actually be. Or deciding to take an old couple of pairs of Monster Cable IC’s you have lying around and take the time to strip away all the insulation on one pair and leave the other pair untouched (your control group) and swap them in and out of your system and compare them. I know because I myself found it necessary at some point to run both experiments.

It’s odd, but I think this is really a widespread problem in this hobby in particular...and in fact, it’s likely a problem for us virtually nowhere else in our lives. If we get our car stuck in some sand, we think to toss some gravel or other debris in front of the mired tire in order to get some traction. It’s just that we’re not having to do this while also trying to visualize how electrons might be moving through a lattice. Unfortunately, in this hobby many folks seem to be walking around with their minds already blown when it comes to how expansive most of the concepts are. And it’s particularly because of the newness of that state of expanded awareness that seems to readily interfere with our normal ability or inclination to reduce problems down to their simplest terms in order to get a better grip on them. It’s also odd to me in a similar way, that I think that people as a matter of course, can ’switch on’ this expanded frame of mind whenever they happen to be occupying themselves with the hobby and then switch it off when they’ve disengaged the subject matter...never once it having occurred to them to try switching it ’off’ once in a while when they are trying to come to grips with something new in the hobby.

And please don’t anyone get the idea that this has escaped the attention of manufacturers and marketers.

stfoth
Geoff--Perhaps this has been adequately and succinctly discussed elsewhere, but, assuming all cables are inherently directional with sound differences from one way to the other, what might be some reasons someone, with a good trained ear with a highly resolving setup and with no skin in the game, wouldn’t be able to hear a difference?

--I’m not trying to bait you. I may be a skeptic, but I’m genuinely interested.

>>>>>Of course you would expect a better chance of success when all the variables are under control. So, the question is how many VARIABLES are involved in what might appear to be a simple and straightforward test of fuse or cable directionality? You mentioned THREE, well, actually FOUR variables already, making my job easier 😀 - a trained ear, system set up and resolution (actually two different things, since there can be errors somewhere in the system unbeknownst to the tester, e.g., out of phase, out of absolute polarity, etc.), and motivation of the tester (does he have an axe to grind, is he a manufacturer?). By the way, who determines whether a particular system is resolving enough, the tester? The last time I checked all audiophiles thought their systems were highly resolving. 😛

I would add to the list of variables, (1) whether the tester followed instructions correctly, (2) whether the tester’s hearing is impaired for some known or unknown reason, (3) whether the tester is "psyched out" by the pressure of having to get results and or publish them on this site or a victim of the dreaded reverse expectation bias 😁, and (4) the recordings used for the test - for example, many CDs are in reverse absolute polarity or aggressively compressed. I suppose you can add time of day and weather conditions and things of that nature to the list of variables. Probably others, too. With so many variables involved, you can see why I say, in the context of so many positive results, it’s probably best to just throw out the negative results. They are outliers.

Stfoth 8-2-2017
Perhaps this has been adequately and succinctly discussed elsewhere, but, assuming all cables are inherently directional with sound differences from one way to the other, what might be some reasons someone, with a good trained ear with a highly resolving setup and with no skin in the game, wouldn’t be able to hear a difference?

If we assume as your question posits that all cables are inherently directional, IMO the key to obtaining an answer would be obtaining an understanding of **why** such an effect may occur.  And as I said in an earlier post, IMO the least implausible explanation I have seen is the one stated by Audioquest.

I doubt that any of us are in a position to say conclusively one way or the other whether the effect claimed by Audioquest is likely to be great enough in degree to be audibly significant in some or many systems.  But let's assume that it is.  The explanation revolves around electrical noise.  Sensitivity to electrical noise that may be present will be highly dependent on the specific designs of the components, cables, and system that are involved, on how AC power is distributed to the various components, on how the components and cables are physically arranged, and on the noise environment at the particular location.  And it will be highly dependent on the spectral composition (frequency distribution) as well as the amplitudes of whatever noise may be present.

As I said in one of my previous posts in this thread, noise effects tend to have little if any predictability, and tend to be highly system and even location dependent.

It should be noted, finally, that none of these factors have any particular correlation with the sonic quality or musical resolution of the system, or with the hearing acuity of the particular listener.

Regards,
-- Al
    

@ivan_nosnibor 

Ivan, I was simply pointing out the difficulty of conducting a valid experiment. There are too many ways for the mind to trick a putative experimenter. The scientific method is capable of controlling these to a large extent.

Should one choose to ignore the scientific method, alternative explanations of any 'result' are obvious. As I tried to point out, I don't care if people wrap their cables in thousand dollar bills, it's their money. But I put no credence in any 'result' which offers neither theoretical justification nor valid experiment.