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
If there is a difference in sound when you change the direction of wire, I wonder if it would be measurable if all the wire in the complete system were orientated in the correct direction? I'm talking about the wire in the components as well as the power cords, interconnect cables, speaker cables, and wiring inside the speaker.
@invalid
If there is a difference in sound when you change the direction of wire, I wonder if it would be measurable if all the wire in the complete system were orientated in the correct direction?

The difference in SQ is obviously exist but it can't be measured by electrical measurement device. All metals are electrically symmetrical and remain so regardless of the mechanical deformation they receive during the manufacturing process. You can turn them all in any direction you want, and nothing will change in its electrical behavior. That's the whole mystery.
As for linearity, its value is greatly exaggerated. There is absolutely no need to make the linearity of the system with an accuracy of 0.3 db, much less 0.1 db. If it was so important for perception, we would not be able to enjoy listening to cassette recorders, receivers, and so on. By our nature we automatically adapt to changes in the frequency response within a wide range, this is how our perception works. Adaptation to changes takes a few tens of seconds, after that we get used to the new reality and the new frequency response becomes "transparent" for us, it does not interfere and does not help us to perceive music, it just becomes a kind of reference point, relative to which we perceive sounds..

This statement is easy to verify, if you have timbre controls in the system, turn the controls a bit, spend 10 minutes listening calmly and analyzing impressions, make a conclusion.
Very important point to meditate.....

The CORRELATIONS  for example between physical acoustic and psychoacoustic are anything except linear...It is deeply non linear...

Personaly i think that there is an unknown participation of the consciousness to the phenomena that we miss "systematically" in viewing  the object always separated of the subject or in an "external" relation only...


Because everyone measures stuff at the analog output of stuff. It’s like measuring the sperm count trying to diagnose ALL diseases 
thyname
Because everyone measures stuff at the analog output of stuff. It’s like measuring the sperm count trying to diagnose ALL diseases

You are mistaken. We do not have to diagnose all possible diseases of an audio system. On the contrary, to avoid significant complication of the matter we should regard an amp and all its wiring as a black box with just input and output.

The measurement devices allow us to analyze the difference between electric signals of the input and the output with precision that exceed our hearing possibilities quite a lot.

With proper measurement we can be sure that on the output (on the speaker terminals) there are no RF signals or audible signal distortion and all the more that nothing is changed when we reverse a single wire (see article by Douglas Self). After that, we can say with confidence that the acoustic signal will also not have any interference associated with wires and cables coloration and directivity.

As a result we face the paradoxical situation when we hear what is not presented in the signal. IMO there are two possible ways of thinking about it:

1 - Psychoacoustics and medics are wrong about hearing sensibility. But here we contradict thoroughly checked scientific data derived from the best organised subjective tests ever. And we contradict logic, because wires/cables audibility is perseived against the background of relatively loud noises. Why white noise at -50db level does not mask the microsounds that presumably occur at -100db level? There is no logical answer to this.

2 - Simultaneously with an acoustic signal we perceive some still unknown type of information using sixth sense. No matter how crazy it sounds, this is the only logical explanation for the phenomenon so far. And by the way, the many references about inconsistencies in scientific theories of hearing that Mahgister provided us make this assumption not as crazy as it seems at first.

It would be nice if you suggest another logical explanation of the matter for a change.