What do we hear when we change the direction of a wire?


Douglas Self wrote a devastating article about audio anomalies back in 1988. With all the necessary knowledge and measuring tools, he did not detect any supposedly audible changes in the electrical signal. Self and his colleagues were sure that they had proved the absence of anomalies in audio, but over the past 30 years, audio anomalies have not disappeared anywhere, at the same time the authority of science in the field of audio has increasingly become questioned. It's hard to believe, but science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is! (see article by A.J.Essien).

For your information: to make sure that no potentially audible changes in the electrical signal occur when we apply any "audio magic" to our gear, no super equipment is needed. The smallest step-change in amplitude that can be detected by ear is about 0.3dB for a pure tone. In more realistic situations it is 0.5 to 1.0dB'". This is about a 10% change. (Harris J.D.). At medium volume, the voltage amplitude at the output of the amplifier is approximately 10 volts, which means that the smallest audible difference in sound will be noticeable when the output voltage changes to 1 volt. Such an error is impossible not to notice even using a conventional voltmeter, but Self and his colleagues performed much more accurate measurements, including ones made directly on the music signal using Baxandall subtraction technique - they found no error even at this highest level.

As a result, we are faced with an apparently unsolvable problem: those of us who do not hear the sound of wires, relying on the authority of scientists, claim that audio anomalies are BS. However, people who confidently perceive this component of sound are forced to make another, the only possible conclusion in this situation: the electrical and acoustic signals contain some additional signal(s) that are still unknown to science, and which we perceive with a certain sixth sense.

If there are no electrical changes in the signal, then there are no acoustic changes, respectively, hearing does not participate in the perception of anomalies. What other options can there be?

Regards.
anton_stepichev
We should be good for at least a few more pages of impractical commentary. Meanwhile, those who want to actually learn what does or does not work in establishing a better system will do my Imbalanced System Test.  :) 


a speaker and amplifier company that does not sell wire.....yet they spend time and $ to listen and mark the various spools......

carry on....
Despite not science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is  (RE: "science still cannot clearly answer the question of what electricity is and what sound is!), I must point out that you must mean, "Science, as determined by the what we choose to measure and by what equipment is available to us, might not always correlate with sounds we perceive".   
djones513,824 posts
04-23-2021 4:18pm

I haven't seen any measurements by Self so I can't comment on measurements I haven't seen.

This is very strange to me. Are you applying to be invited to a measurement session? Self is an authoritative audio engineer, he wrote a detailed description of the experiments conducted, gave data from psychoacoustics, there are links, if you want, you can check everything. Isn't all this enough to be shure?

The question is rhetorical, you don't have to answer. I want to thank you and apologize for bothering you so much.

Regards
This is very strange to me. Are you applying to be invited to a measurement session? Self is an authoritative audio engineer, he wrote a detailed description of the experiments conducted, gave data from psychoacoustics, there are links, if you want, you can check everything. Isn't all this enough to be shure?
Self said audible differences in the direction of wire is nonsense. If there were any measurable differences it was irrelevant. Since he is an authoritated audio engineer and I'm not I'll defer to his opinion.