Speaking of verbal diarrhea, here is an excerpt from one the links willemj referred to, this one apparently minutes of an AES meeting on the dodgy subject of wire directionality. This ought to be interesting, right?
“Steve (guest technician) started by making a distinction between things we can measure in wire (resistance, capacitance, inductance), and those things we can’t measure (soundstage, "detail", "directionality", and other things you can "hear"). There is rarely a correlation between what you can measure and what you can hear.”
>>>>Steve was apparently not aware of the HiFi Tuning data that showed directionality measurements of fuses. Or that ANY wire or cable can be measured with a volt ohm meter and shows resistance differences according to direction. Duh! There is rarely a correlation between what you can measure and what you can hear? Oh, please! Give me a break!
“For best electron flow, you want to use a metal that has low resistance. In circular-mil ohms per foot at 20°C., silver leads the way at 9.9, copper is next at 10.4, gold is 14.7, aluminum is 17, nickel is 47, and steel is 74. Although silver is the best conductor, it has several disadvantages: it tarnishes, which then interferes with connection; it is pretty expensive; and it cannot be annealed. Wire is made by repeatedly pushing metal through ever-smaller dies, until it is the size you want. This process is really boring to watch, and now is all done by robots. After going through the dies, the wire is very brittle and easy to break. Copper wire can be heated to 700 and annealed, which lines up the crystalline structure and removes the brittleness, making it very useful for cable purposes.”
>>>>For best electron flow? Are they kidding? The electrons are not (rpt not) flowing. Photons are flowing. Electrons are barely moving. Hel-loo! I submit that annealing will not “line up” the crystal structure that has been irreparably distorted by being drawn through the die. And establishing directionality! I mean come on, that doesn’t even make sense.
“Directionality, or the idea that electricity flows better in one direction through a cable than the other, is a common concept among certain self-identified audiophiles. Belden did a double-blind test for cable directionality in conjunction with an audiophile magazine. The end result was perfectly random. Belden is still happy to manufacture and sell directional cables to enthusiasts. They make up a long length of cable, cut it in segments, identify the ends of the segments so they know how it came off the spool (length A->B, length B->C, length C->D, etc), and then let the customer identify by careful listening which direction is "better". Over thousands of cables sold, the chosen "best" signal flow is random, for segments cut from the same spool!
>>>>Certain self-identified audiophiles? Whoa! Hey, what are they talking about? Huh? Belden did a double blind test for cable directionality with an audiophile magazine? Where is it? What magazine? Talk is cheap!
>>>>How would Belden or anyone know that the thousands of Belden cables sold were random for directionality? I mean, come, on people! Get real! Where’s the data? Belden must be selling their cables to a different set of enthusiasts since almost everyone on this forum reports obviously directionality. This whole AES report is very hard to swallow. Are they lying? Maybe.
your friend and humble scribe,
geoff kait
machina dramatica
