Directional speaker cables - switching direction

Mike, thanks for your comment.

Getting back to speaker cables, it occurs to me that what I said about connector-related impedance discontinuities in relation to digital cables may have some applicability to speaker cables as well. Speaker cables will to some degree act as antennas, picking up Radio Frequency Interference from various sources, such as nearby cables, power cords, digital components, switching power supplies, light dimmers, fluorescent lights, possibly wifi and even radio stations. That RFI will presumably be at frequencies that are too high, and at amplitudes that are too low, for the speakers to reproduce it and for our ears to hear it. However if the amplifier uses feedback, and if (as I would expect to often be the case) the amplifier's output impedance at RF frequencies is significant, some of that RF energy will be introduced into the feedback loop. Non-linearities and intermodulation effects within the amp may then result in that energy affecting sonics at audible frequencies.

And the magnitude and frequency characteristics of the RFI that is injected into the feedback loop can be expected to vary to some degree depending on the differing impedance discontinuities and mismatches at the two ends of the cable.

The magnitude and frequency characteristics of the RFI that is injected into the feedback loop might even differ significantly depending on the exact physical placement of the spade lug or other termination on the binding post, and/or its positioning relative to nearby metallic surfaces on the amp. As I said early in this thread, when hard to explain and/or seemingly implausible phenomena are being addressed, multiple back and forth comparisons are called for, to be sure that the observation is being attributed to the right variable, as well as to verify that perceived differences are perceived consistently.

Best regards,
-- Al

Jea48, not sure why you asked the last question, the one about flipping solid core silver, since silver or any metal solid or stranded conductor should exhibit directionality since they are crystal structures. Which brings me to this rather disturbing situation: if copper and silver cables are directional, then aren't all wires Nd fuses directional as well? If that last statement is TRUE then we have a big problem. Mathematically, unless someone tracked the wire as it came off the spool as Crump suggests, there is a 50% probability that any wire or conductor or fuse in the system is installed backwards. This holds TRUE for any internal wiring, capacitor, resistor, crossover network, speaker wiring, transformer, inductor or fuse. If you see what I mean.

By the way, there is probably no doubt about wire directionality being produced by the final die since cable manufacturers have been marking the wire as it comes off the spool for decades in order to be able to correctly mark the cables with ARROWS. Think of it like porcupine quills. Wouldn't it be easier to stroke a porcupine's back going in the direction of the quills instead of the opposite direction?

Actually the differences in wire directionality have been measured. These measurements appear on the data sheets on the Hi Fi Tuning fuses web site. Also provided are differences between cryo'd and non cryo'd fuses (wire). Hel-loo!

Al, what difference does it make if the speed of the electromagnetic wave is variable? For the purpose of argument let's say the speed vary between half the speed of light (or about ninety thousand miles per second) and say 3/4 speed of light (or about 135,000 miles per second). Are you suggesting that a difference of a foot or two in cable lengths would be audible due to difference in time it takes the signal to travel the length of the cables? Now, the dielectric material could affect the sound, but that's a different issue.