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
On Monday I am going to send a letter on my letterhead to the University of Virginia to check on your Linkdn claim of an aerospace degree from that institution and I will publish the results here. Best to you sir. For now.
+1  fsonicsmith


Got to give it to you Geoff, you got stamina. You've been laughed off many other tech forums, but on this one you've dug your heals in. Many would say you really are certifiable. 

Cheers George 
georgehifi
On Monday I am going to send a letter on my letterhead to the University of Virginia to check on your Linkdn claim of an aerospace degree from that institution and I will publish the results here. Best to you sir. For now.

+1 fsonicsmith

Got to give it to you Geoff, you got stamina. You’ve been laughed off many other tech forums, but on this one you’ve dug your heals in. Many would say you really are certifiable.

Cheers George

>>>>He who laugh last laughs best, my pointy headed friend. 😛 Wahoo Wa!

Manufacturers of "directional" cables argue that it is the direction of the energy flow that is important (from wall to power amp, from power amp to speakers etc). This way they can market their AC power cables, speaker cables etc. They conveniently ignore the fact that the energy flow takes place in the dielectric surrounding the conductors -- including the surrounding air. Any asymmetry in the crystal structure of the conductors themselves would only impact electron motion and would likely result in undesirable diode behavior.

sfroyen
Manufacturers of "directional" cables argue that it is the direction of the energy flow that is important (from wall to power amp, from power amp to speakers etc). This way they can market their AC power cables, speaker cables etc. They conveniently ignore the fact that the energy flow takes place in the dielectric surrounding the conductors -- including the surrounding air. Any asymmetry in the crystal structure of the conductors themselves would only impact electron motion and would likely result in undesirable diode behavior.

>>>>>>Listen, pal, we got enough trouble with skeptics of skin effect who insist all audio signals must travel BELOW the conductor surface, totally inside the conductor. We don’t need any wild theories about the energy traveling outside the conductor. If that were true we could fake out the energy and make cables entirely out of dielectric and skip the metal. The energy wouldn’t have a clue. And it would be lot cheaper, too, you know, not having the costs of super pure copper, silver or gold to worry about. In fact, you could sell cables made entirely of air.

But seriously, we already know the velocity of photons traveling through copper conductors (circa 70% speed of light in vacuum) and it’s consistent with the photons traveling through the metal conductor itself, NOT through the dielectric and NOT through air, which would be a much higher percentage of the speed of light in a vacuum, no? It's the same situation for audio over copper wires in telephony, too. The velocity over copper wires in the telephone system is consistent with the signal traveling through copper itself. Electrons? They hardly move at all so we can ignore them.
Assuming you are serious :-)

I'm distinguishing between the electron motion, which, of course happens inside the conductor, and the flow of energy that powers, e.g., the speakers. The latter is carried by the electromagnetic field that is generated by the electron motion, but is located outside the conductors. This follows from Maxwell's equations which are valid from DC to any frequency of relevance to EE and breaks down only when describing certain quantum effects (see QED).