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
Post removed 
Oh boy! DLetch2 or Audio2Design or…. is back. I have a feeling with this hot dog Bob. Let’s see…. 200 posts in two days since “joining”? That will be the indicator.

How many gmails you have to create just to join Audiogon forums over and over and over?
djones51
I optimized some flac files on a windows 10 computer and couldn't tell any difference if anything the original flac sounded better than the optimized file but that's not listening blind so take it with a grain of salt.

Tastes may differ, and this is normal, the main thing here is that you can feel the difference. If you do such experiments often enough, you will eventually get rid of your grains of salt.




Change in sound, with wire direction,  depends upon the design of the cable!

To verify that a difference exists, in your cable, you need an old Tuner with a meter.  Don't laugh, this is a very sensitive test instrument, just follow the steps below:

1) Tune into a strong station as evidenced by the meter reading, disconnect whatever you were using as an antenna cable.

2) Disconnect the cable (under test) from your equipment, then connect one end (Hot to Hot) ~ (Ground to Ground) and view & record the meter reading, with the other end open.

3) Reverse the Cable ends under test, in (2) above & repeat; i.e. connect one end (Hot to Hot) ~ (Ground to Ground) and view & record the meter reading.

4) If  there is no difference, (in Meter readings 2 Vs 3 above) you could not be able to hear any difference in sound quality  by connecting your cable in either direction.

5) If you experience a difference, however, you would likely be able to hear that as a subtle difference in clarity of sound from your system.  In this case, place the end that shows the lowest meter reading towards the source of the signal in your system.  This will minimize signal pick up in your cable, which gets amplified in subsequent stages of amplification.   

6) All readings you get are dependent upon the original signal strength & cable ground isolation & are to be used for comparison between ends only.