Directionality of wire

Geoffkait 8-19-2017
Huh? Not sure what you guys are arguing about.

Jim and I are not arguing, Geoff.  We're having what I would consider to be an intelligent discussion of sincere and intelligent questions.  That despite the fact that our opinions on the matter do not particularly coincide.

Almarg 8-18-2017
Yet it is also true, as we are saying, that the cable configuration he recommends would negate the intrinsic directionality he is attributing to the wire itself.

Jea48 8-18-2017
But do we really know that?

It seems to me that it is a necessary consequence of what I stated earlier:

Almarg 8-18-2017
If the two conductors in a symmetrically designed cable are run in opposite directions (relative to what came off of the spool), then no matter which way the cable is connected the two conductors will **both** always be in the allegedly "correct" direction for half of each cycle, and the allegedly "incorrect" direction for the other half of each cycle. That follows from what I said in an earlier post in this thread:

Almarg 8-14-2017
When "the current" is traveling away from the component in one of the two conductors it is traveling toward the component in the other of the two conductors.

And it is **always** traveling through the input circuit of the component in one direction or the other, aside from the brief instant during each cycle at which the applied voltage crosses zero, and the direction changes.

(To add context, I had put quotation marks around "the current" to distinguish it from the electromagnetic energy of "the signal," that being conducted via the dielectric).

It would be a different story, as Geoff indicated, if the cable were constructed with both conductors in the same direction.  In that situation, **if** the conductors are in fact intrinsically directional to an audibly significant degree, in a given application, then reversing the cable would make a difference.

Jea48 8-19-2017
Al,
Question.
Does the hot/signal conductor, of an IC, hold any more importance carrying the audio signal from the source to the load than the ground/return conductor?
If yes please explain.
If not please explain.

I would put it that in the case of an unbalanced line-level analog interconnect the hot/signal conductor may actually be **less** important than the ground/return conductor.  For a couple of reasons:

(a)The resistance, inductance, perhaps skin effect, and perhaps other characteristics of the ground/return conductor may affect the amplitude and spectral characteristics of ground loop-related high frequency noise and/or low frequency hum.

(b)Those characteristics of the ground/return conductor may also affect the extent to which a small fraction of the current in the hot/signal conductor may follow a return path other than that ground/return conductor.  Such as the AC power wiring (as in a ground loop), or possibly even the ground/return conductor of the cable for the other channel. 

However, while those two factors can certainly be expected to have sonic consequences in some applications, and while they can create slight inequalities in the current being conducted in the two wires, I'm not sure how or if they might have a relation to directionality.

Best regards,
-- Al
  

@geoffkait 
Excerpts from your last post.

Obviously Bob thinks wire per se is very directional. He actually said extremely directional. The only question is if he’s right the way he places the directional wires in the cable - one wire in one direction and the other wire in the opposite direction. Why would he *intentionally* construct a cable to be non-optimal knowing wire is very directional? He wouldn’t.

I am beginning to think Bob didn't mention to test  the final product for directionality, there in what sounds best to the listener in his audio system, in the thread per say because to Bob it was a given.  

This post is from Greg R. He is discussing the directionality of the completed interconnected cable he made.

Re: maybe rcrump... I don't know, but... Greg R. 09:52:26 09/30/00 (2)

In Reply to: Re: maybe rcrump... I don't know, but... posted by rcrump on September 30, 2000 at 06:45:41:

Thanks, I agree with your view on this.
I just reversed the ICs and the image height did seem a bit lower. Most everything else also sounded worse, and it seems like I had lost some smoothness and the overnight break-in period.
This may have been due to:
#1)the wire direction makes a difference, or
#2)the way the cable was broken in overnight in one direction.
I think both #1 and #2.
I don't know exactly why they sound a tiny bit better in one direction, but one thing I do know for sure. I am very thankful for all the good advise, as these IC's sound very clean and vivid, with a dynamic smooth sound. I feel alot closer to the music. One of the things I like the most is the way drum whacks and rim shots are propelled at me. It's so unrestrained and vivid, it actually makes me blink, or cringe! Not bad for $30 IC's! I would recommend people to pause and think about this, before laying down some big bucks for some factory made IC's.
I'm already looking forward to my next project, the "Bus Mechanic" speaker wire. ;~) Best Wishes, Greg R.

~ ~ ~

geoffkait said:

As I’ve stated previously, both wires should actualy be in the same direction, not opposite directions.

What proof can you provide? Actual experimentation building an IC and listening for the differences? You of all people should know that is the final test. What the listener hears.

Again, what Bob said he found from his listening tests designing his ICs.

If you run the signal and return wires in the same direction you will end up with hot spots in the stage, normally at or close to the speakers, low image height and have a gaping hole in the middle of the stage...Keep in mind I am referring to the sound of the stage (reflections) not the individual instruments spread across the stage....Interconnects or speaker wires that have pianos wandering all over the stage normally have their signal and return going in the same direction....

In another post Bob said:

Re: Is stranded core directional also? rcrump 03:59:51 10/02/00 (2)

In Reply to: Re: Is stranded core directional also? posted by steve b on October 01, 2000 at 18:05:36:

Steve, I don't want to speculate why wire is directional, but it is as poor Greg has found in a later post....I spent about three months playing with such things before I released my commercial interconnects and speaker wire and went about as crazy as Greg is going right now and can't tell you how much wire I trashed as I forgot to mark it with some masking take as I took it off the spool....Directionality in wire will be measured some day as it appears to be an FM distortion and wandering pianos (small phase changes with frequency) will be a thing of the past. Until then use your ears to discern directionality of wire. Stranded wire likely suffers from a lack of focus compared to solid core as some of the strands go one way and some the other, but this is pure speculation on my part.....Just enjoy the ride!

The original AA thread.
https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=cables&m=12332


The final test for any piece of audio equipment is the listening, voicing test, as you well know. You can use test equipment and bench test all you want but the final test is done with the ears. In the end that is the most important test. At ARC the final test is the Warren Test. If Warren doesn't like how a piece of equipment sounds it doesn't leave the factory. It goes back out on the bench and somebody has to then find out why.

 

Here is an excerpt from an interview with John Curl several years ago.

While mylars are fairly efficient from a size and cost point of view, we realized they have problems with dielectric absorption. I didn’t believe it at first. I was working with Noel Lee and a company called Symmetry. We designed this crossover and I specified these one microfarad Mylar caps. Noel kept saying he could 'hear the caps' and I thought he was crazy. Its performance was better than aluminum or tantalum electrolytics, and I couldn’t measure anything wrong with my Sound Technology distortion analyzer. So what was I to complain about? Finally I stopped measuring and started listening, and I realized that the capacitor did have a fundamental flaw. This is were the ear has it all over test equipment. The test equipment is almost always brought on line to actually measure problems the ear hears. So we’re always working in reverse. If we do hear something and we can’t measure it then we try to find ways to measure what we hear. In the end we invariably find a measurement that matches what the ear hears and it becomes very obvious to everybody.

Years ago, there was a time when people used to think you could have a two- or four-foot path difference between loudspeaker components; like the Klipschorn, for example. Everyone said this time difference was inaudible, and it didn’t really matter because Bell Labs' research, Ohm’s law of acoustics, Helmholtz and all these other people believed that the ear was completely insensitive to phase. So it didn’t matter how you built the speaker as long as it sort of averaged out sort of okay in the room. You could take five microphones and measure them all together, if that measured out okay within a few DB’s then heck with it. Well, that really isn’t true and of course when stereo came along all of a sudden you had these big Klipschorns and they wouldn’t image for anything. At least that was my personal experience. I owned them and I was a believer too. Then I started measuring them and I said 'oh my goodness, this is a  problem.' The late Richard Heyser tried to tell people that a two foot path difference might be audible. People were going crazy and saying this was impossible and it was a big controversy. Now, of course, no fool would design a speaker with a two- or four-foot path difference. John Dunlavy was very outspoken on the Internet this week, criticizing a loudspeaker that wasn’t completely phase aligned to within one inch. See how we change. I don’t disagree with John Dunlavy, although I do think he is overstating his case in this particular one. But, there was a time when we didn’t. The same thing happens with capacitors. There was a time when we didn’t know better and we just used any old capacitor as long as it had the right values.

Pages 15/18 - 17/18
http://www.parasound.com/pdfs/JCinterview.pdf

~ ~ ~

On another audio forum, which I will not mention its' name, there is a thread running where the OP asked a question about interconnect break-in. He had recently bought a new pair of ICs and was not happy with the way they sounded new out of the box.

To date the majority of posts, reponses, from others on the thread say break-in, burn-in, settle-in, what ever you want to call it, is a myth. There is no such thing as cable break-in no mater if the cable is new or has "X" amount of listening to music time on it. It's all just a sales pitch by the cables manufactures so you won't try to return the cables. 

.

Jea48 8-19-2017
Al,
Question.
Does the hot/signal conductor, of an IC, hold any more importance carrying the audio signal from the source to the load than the ground/return conductor?
If yes please explain.
If not please explain.

almarg: 8/19/17
I would put it that in the case of an unbalanced line-level analog interconnect the hot/signal conductor may actually be **less** important than the ground/return conductor. For a couple of reasons:

(a)The resistance, inductance, perhaps skin effect, and perhaps other characteristics of the ground/return conductor may affect the amplitude and spectral characteristics of ground loop-related high frequency noise and/or low frequency hum.

(b)Those characteristics of the ground/return conductor may also affect the extent to which a small fraction of the current in the hot/signal conductor may follow a return path other than that ground/return conductor. Such as the AC power wiring (as in a ground loop), or possibly even the ground/return conductor of the cable for the other channel.

jea48 response:
Al, that might be the reason why I have read many DIY cable builders say they increase the equivalent wire gauge size of the ground/return wire in their DIY ICs

almarg: 8/19/17
However, while those two factors can certainly be expected to have sonic consequences in some applications, and while they can create slight inequalities in the current being conducted in the two wires, I’m not sure how or if they might have a relation to directionality.

Best regards,
-- Al

jea48:
And there is the rub. The why. Bob Crump found it existed by experimenting and listening, the same way, imo, any designer of audio equipment does. Design it, built it, listen to it. If it doesn’t sound right measure it if possible. Tweak it, listen to it, and so on.

Bob admitted in the thread he couldn’t explain why he could hear directionality in solid core wire. He had theories. He admitted he couldn’t bench test what he was hearing with any test equipment know to him at the time, year 2000. To date it seems it still can not be measured, tested, with any available test equipment.

Jim

.

Ta-da!

This has been pointed out before and glossed over so maybe having some well respected names put to it will give some pause. 

However, it won't deter them.

All the best,
Nonoise

It’s a shame Bob didn’t live long enough to see the HiFi Tuning data sheets on fuse directionality. Everyone talks about wire directionality but no one does anything about it. If only Bob and Curl had experimented with fuse direction back then they would have known the answer.

Question to self: can’t anyone measure the resistance (conductivity) of a cable or wire or fuse in both directions? Duh! Why don’t they? They’d rather fight than switch. The pathological skeptics seem to be getting up a full head of steam. Think I'll take cover. 

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