How Electricity Actually Works

electric signal travels through the conductor approximately 5c i.e. 5 speeds of light.

@czarivey 

What is the carrier through the conductor at such a high speed?

 Not electrons...

Not electric charge... 

b

@deludedaudiophile 

My take-away as far as audio goes is that proximity of cabling to each other matters.  This is well known and I don't think it is even arguable at this stage of the game.

Regards,

barts

@builder3 I'd say that there are a lot of affluent people here...seems there is a low positive correlation between detailed technical knowledge and fiscal success.

Thanks for clarifying that. 

It is a problem when you are taught the analogy of plumbing where; water flows through pipes, just as electricity flows through wires , if they are made of copper, in this case. (That was a nice touch in the Cal Tech experiment.) It completely screws up the individuals understanding when learning about electronics in depth, and there have been tons of posts here where knowledge of the true nature of electric current flow would benefit the people posting them and help them understand other posts as well.

That brings up my point. The fields that exist in a stereo system are many, and they do interact with one and other at many different points in the system, think components stacked on one and other, very bad to have the power amp directly on top of the preamp; big transformer, big powerful field. But this would reinforce peoples arguments that separates sound better than integrated, would it not?

But, as Amir points out on his board and YT videos, most of these fields are negligible from a performance and auditory standpoint. Simply beyond the range of human hearing. Probably a good idea to have more MuMetal on the inside of every electric component though, especially an integrated amp.

My question is this: Does this explain why twisting speaker cable seems to be the first rule of improving speaker wire performance? (Oddly enough, sort of like DNA strands.) In other words; if you took those cables that go off into outer space and return and twist them, still maintaining the distance between the two, does that intensify the field between the two parallel wires and help isolate them from outside field interference?

Thanks for all the hard work and sharing it.

I thought I knew something but learned I only believed what I was taught that got the job done but not in anyway how it was actually happening. The field, that makes complete sense as I have read some great books and watched some excellent videos on the the subject. I still believe there is far too much snake oil in the cable industry and will continue to make my own cheap great cables from designs I have learned directly from some dang fine audio engineers or well accepted designs easy enough to find with a simple search.

 I will also look at some of the higher end cables a bit differently now and understand some just want the best they can find(in reality or perceived reality) and will spend what it takes, even if there are minuscule differences to be gained, or not. I have spent $15k on coilovers(shocks and springs combined), $10k on brakes, $5k on a differential.....when 20% of those costs would of netted 95%, or higher of the same results.

Thanks for posting the video, most fun thing I have watched in quite some time:)

Rick