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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
anton_stepichev OP
150 posts
 
@dletch2
Meanwhile you put forward a second assumption that in a short piece of wire the frequency response can change when the wire is reversed. And It follows from the content that these changes in the frequency response go without the presence of signs of electrical asymmetry of the wire. According to Ohm’s Law, this cannot be.

Again, Anton, you are assigning words to me that I never said. There can only be a change in frequency response if the wire is not symmetrical. No Ohm's law violations required.


These are exact quotes from the discussion you entered in halfway through:

1 - @cmichaelo: "Due to manufacturing tolerances, a cable isn’t electrically the same from both directions."
2 - @anton_stepichev: "Let’s assume that the speaker wire has an error, but it is microscopic, on the verge of perception and measurement. Then, we will have to agree that the error is common to all the wires. And it turns out that, for example, in a RIAA corrector, the error of the wire going from the MC head to the transformer will be amplified almost 1000 times! .... But we do not observe such errors. So there is no polarity, semi conductivity or any other ELECTRICAL assymetry in a wire."
3 - @dletch2: "Does not work that way. If the error is simply frequency response, the relationship between the perfect and imperfect signal never changes".


@dletch2, the meaning of what you said is clear: you claim that when a wire is reversed, an "error is simply frequency response" is possible without the occurrence of "ELECTRICAL assymetry".

Now you retract your words, OK, but then again there is the question of amplifying the error by a factor of 1000, which somehow escapes measurement.

Why can't your super-accurate instruments measure it?

anton_stepichev OP
150 posts
 
mahgister
By the way one of my most beloved composer with Bach and Bruckner is Scriabin

They say that Vladimir Sofronitsky was the most interesting performer of Scriabin's miniatures, and I think so too. Here are a couple of examples - https://www.backtomusic.ru/19684 track 8 and 9.

No less ingeniously did David Oistrakh on his Stradivarius - https://www.backtomusic.ru/19612 tracks 3 and 4. Nocturne just mesmerizes me.

These are all 78 pre-war records.
kevn's avatar
kevn
163 posts
 
djones51/ dletch2 - I think I have finally figured out where the dogma lies, and it is silly for us to go on about it. You both believe that all the complexities of timbre can be measured definitively in their passage as signals through a cable, and simultaneously believe that the recorded complexities of timbre for voice recognition cannot be fully deciphered in a cable through measurements  (obviously) for more accurate analysis by computer as compared to the human ear.  

You follow logic that is not possible to engage rationally : ) Perhaps best to leave it as that.

In friendship - kevin
djones51
4,947 posts
 
Timbre is simply part of the audio signal. You haven’t figured anything out other than misinterpreting what I said. You confuse the signal and if it can be measured with computer software being able to decipher the signal. Where voice recognition software is not yet at the ability of the human ear doesn’t mean this will always be so. You’re saying because computers can’t mimic human ears then the signal can’t be measured, makes no sense. If the complexities of timbre, whatever that means,  wasn’t in the signal you wouldn’t be able to tell an oboe from a piano. So I agree we’ll leave it as that until you figure out what timbre is and an audio signal is.
ihcho's avatar
ihcho
612 posts
 
Obviously, a uniform single core wire cannot be directional.
Then, what can cable engineers do to make the cables directional?
If a technology indeed exists to make cable sound directional, would the extra cost be justifiable?

By the way, I have a few cables with directional sign, but I cannot hear any difference on my system. Maybe the direction is there because the cable company put it since customers want it. Or, my ears are not refined enough to tell the difference. Or, my components are not precise enough to reveal the difference. Anyway, even though I cannot tell the difference, I follow the direction of the cable direction. 
There are many different kinds of science exist these days, and many people often resort to science to defend their arguments, and my favorite one is political science.

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