What do the arrows mean on my cable?

juanmanuelfangioii

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@roxy54 - gotta love it when a new keyboard tough guy, here for not even 90 days, wields the big stick

568 posts in less than 3 months is pretty darned impressive though...

Oh yes, he’s up there on his ivory tower always telling us what bad boys we are.

+1 @whart 

Analog audio is alternating current, the electrons are pushed and pulled down the cable for each wave of the signal.  There is no overall direction, the push-pull is EXACTLY symmetrical so there are EXACTLY as many electrons travelling in one direction as the other averaged over time.  This is the case for low level interconnects like RCA and also for speaker wiring.  as @whart succinctly explains, the arrow indication on some interconnects is to identify the grounded end of a cable, where only one end of a separate shield is grounded, not the current flow direction of the signal itself.

It is also necessary to pay attention to @whart's point about safety:  All equipment that is not Class II double insulated MUST be connected to the AC mains supply ground to ensure safety from electric shock, this in turn can lead to multiple grounded connections in a system, in turn setting up the conditions for a hum loop.

From time to time I have lifted the ground wire on amplifiers to treat this, which is NOT THE RIGHT WAY to deal with this.  Unless you understand electricity and the insulation Class of all your equipment you should never disconnect the ground from anything connected to the AC mains supply.

The best way to completely prevent ground loops is with transformer isolation.  You can isolate on the signal side with exotic and very expensive signal transformers, like Tamura, Hashimoto, Sowter, UTC, Lundahl and so on, or you can isolate the AC mains to the equipment (each one separately) with a common-or-garden AC isolation transformer.

In top recording studios both these methods are employed, along with balanced signal wiring.  It is not trivially easy to do this right in a complex system.  Unless you have actual hum, I would leave this topic well alone and use 'ordinary' cables grounded at both ends for interconnects.

Analog audio is alternating current, the electrons are pushed and pulled down the cable for each wave of the signal. There is no overall direction, the push-pull is EXACTLY symmetrical so there are EXACTLY as many electrons travelling in one direction as the other averaged over time.

That’s a myth.

The electrons do not carry the signal. The electrons really don’t move back and forth either. They vibrate in place and hardly move at all.

The signal does not travel back and forth in the conductor from the source to the load. It travels down the wire in on direction >>>> from the source to the load in the form of an electromagnetic wave at near the speed of light, in a vacuum.

Speed of electricity - Wikipedia

Laws of Physics

The laws I want to talk about are the basic laws of electricity. I am not referring to circuit theory laws as described by Kirchhoff or Ohm, but to the laws governing the electric and magnetic fields. These fields are fundamental to all electrical activity, whether the phenomenon is lightning, ESD, radar, antennas, sunlight, power generation, analog or digital circuitry. These laws are often called Maxwell’s equations.

Utility power is electromagnetic wave energy where the wavelength is near 10 million meters. Lenses can direct light energy; waveguides can direct radar energy; and copper conductors can direct the energy at power frequencies. Thus, we direct energy flow at different frequencies by using different materials. We have learned how to control where we want the field energy to go.

 

If we accept the idea that fields carry energy in space, it must be true at all frequencies. That is the law. If it is true for light, it must also be true for 60Hz power and at DC. For utility power, the energy travels in the space between conductors, not in the conductors. This is not the picture presented by circuit diagrams, where energy seems to be carried by conductors. In digital circuits, the signals and energy travel in the spaces between traces or between traces and conducting surfaces.

Buildings have halls and walls. People move in the halls, not the walls. Circuits have traces and spaces. Signals and energy move in the spaces, not in the traces.

 

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Electricty Misconceptions Spread By K6 Textbooks

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