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cable directivity and digital nasties

Posted by farfetched (A) on January 27, 2011 at 15:58:23

My own thinking on the old problem of "digital sound" is that it is largely a function of the non-mechanical nature of digital. Instead of being able to calculate a smooth transmission of sound from groove to speaker, digital sources begin with a kind of non-analogue "black box" that, for want of a better description, simply "chatters away" and forces the user to figure out how to make it part of a smooth sounding musical chain. It is kind of like trying to compensate for a microphonic tube, humming transformer, or overly sensitive turntable: all you want is for things to quiet down, so you can get a smooth signal chain going.

But digital never lets up. Sometimes, you just have to throw your hands up and realize, there is no "smoothing" out digital, because, quite simply, it is *not analogue*. The best you can do, is realize what exactly the problem is with the digital chatter and noise that plague our digital front ends, and then try to tackle it head on the best you can.

One aspect of digital sound that has always struck me, is that it is always "in your face," it never lets up -- just like the aforementioned chatter box (some of us are married to one too!). So, how to make it so that the digital "black box" mellows out, stops "yammering" in the signal chain and instead becomes part of a smoother overall chain of music transmission?

I was experimenting, and I think I may be on to something. Several months ago, I reversed the directionality on my speaker cables. A lot of people do not believe in cable directionality, but to me it is just common sense. I noticed, that with the directional arrows on my harmonic tech pro-11's pointing *away* from the speakers, that I was getting a more coherent, smoother sound. It was as if the system had "simmered down" a notch, and relaxed.

My thinking is, that by slightly "stifling" the music chain somewhat, this reversing of cable directionality in fact counterbalances the "chatter box" quality of digital replay. In order to test this out, I noticed that when playing back vinyl, the system sounded *too* laid back with the directionality reversed.

I experimented as well with reversing the directionality of interconnects, but found that too much of a good thing tended to "shut in" the music too much; after all, we are talking about counterbalancing a chattering, not a yelling!

Anyway, this might be something to experiment with. Using the reversability of cable directionality to offset the non-smooth digital chatter that seems to never know when enough is enough!

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Schiit Audio

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