Cable directionality

The cable will have two inner conductors and the shield isn't terminated to the ground connector at the source side of the cable. I've seen this illustrated in some pro audio books when going from ballance (xlr/trs) to unballance (rca/ts) terminals. Hope that helps. Rich

Rich, A lot of cables are terminated with both ends of the shield connected. I have a couple of pairs of Tara Labs that are and have seen others. Recently, I have seen where manufacturers are advertising in their white pages that the shield is connected at one end only. I know with a lot of equipment, the shield is ultimately tied to ground of the unit which in turn is tied to the home grounding scheme. To me, this cable thing seems like an episode of the X-Files.

The shield is typically connected at source end in pro applications. Allegedly helps keep interference away in long cabling situations.
If we coin a word, "directionality", to mean which way does the cable sound better to our ears, then we can do away with manufacturers' marketing hype. However, WHY should a cable sound slightly different depending upon which way it's connected? Unless the shielding on one end counts (electrically)...

Having developed interconnects I think that directionality is of minimal importance when the cables are made, the shielding grounding point is a good one and it is supported by the physics professor that aided me in developing the Argento interconnect. I do not use a grounded shield, I actually use a floating shield because I am aprehensive about using a grounded shield due to the increase in capacitance and inductance that a grounded shield will introduce. Our floating shield extends over the RCA connectors but is separated by heat shrink.

When it comes to the belief that something changes I also disagree but do so respectfully. Static electricity is what changes. The static charge that is held by the dielectrics is what the "break in" is all about. My cables just like all others take time to break in because they need to dissapate their static electricity. Flexing and bending and shipping them do build up static electricty. Leaving them be once connected is the quickest way to break them in. Thankfully the Argento is a flexible but shape maintaining cable, meaning you bend it but it stays in that shape so it takes less time to break in because it doesnt wiggle around like worms near vinegar every time you listen to music.

The belief that the silver or copper "changes" is crap too, how does a metal change when you are only putting a few volts through it. Please explain that to me with some proof. What I really like is the so called Cable cooker that I have seen for sale on the net. It supposedly breaks in cables. Right but when you disconnect your cables they need breaking in again. Intelligent very intelligent, thats like washing your car in the middle of a S#1% storm. It is a good idea, but it just doesnt work in reality.

Orbeck, Tara Labs is using this design with their isolated floating ground shield(ISM). However, this is not the same shield that runs with the cable that is connected to the outer portion of the RCA jack. Tara uses a separate shield that is suppose to lower RFI and EMI interference. It is the one connected to the floating ground station. I checked it with a meter and you will not get a reading from the shield to the outer portion of the RCA plug. Tara runs two RSC conductors through the cable. One as the signal carrier and the other as the ground(or shield.) It is connected at both ends as verified with a VOM. If you look at all the equipment, without fail, the outside of the RCA connector is tied to the units common ground. I know there is a lot of potential for noise here. However, back to the original question, what difference does pointing the direction if the signal is alternating back and forth. Since no signal potential should be on the shield, where does it fit in(as in break in.) I can understand the dialectric issue but what would direction have to do with that? Man, lots of questions here.