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I wasn't posting, but wanted to say on this subject - in the early 1980s, when my Mentor Bob Fulton introduced wire specific for audio, I always was able to determine by ear, directionality with his Fulton Brown ( about 10 AWG, copper stranded, silver plated ) speaker wire.
I don't like your suggestion of using a switch system, as IT has it's losses. I just simply listen to it " both ways connected ", between the amp and speaker crossover.
HOW are you coming on your listening evaluations ??
Jeff Medwin
Follow Ups:
I shared this in my SET thread. But I found it useful to copy it here as well.
Today a client came and brought his Benchmark 1 DAC to listen to it on our system. We plugged it into an Arcam Delta 70.2 transport.
He wanted to listen to several SPDIF cables on his DAC. So we A-B-A-B "ied" him. Subjectively he preferred some, hated others. When we stopped at the one he preferred the most, my colleague changed its direction without telling him what he was doing. I was listening too and I liked the "B" direction instead of "A", but instead of saying it, I waited for the client to share his opinion first. He told us he liked "this new cable" (B) even more than the previous one and described us what he heard. Then we told him about the direction thing.
Many clients (including me) who were once skeptics, came out non-skeptics and never changed their minds.
As far as I could make out, the S/PDIF input on the Benchmark 1 DAC is for a wire connection, not an optical connection. Can you just clarify that, since a follow-up posting here seemed to be assuming you were speaking of an optical cable?
Chris
It is metal wire, not optical fiber. I'm very skeptical that fiber wires could have directions, but who knows? We might listen to some one day.
"It is metal wire, not optical fiber. I'm very skeptical that fiber wires could have directions, but who knows? We might listen to some one day."
However, it becomes increasingly suspicious that now, apparently, even with a digital signal being sent through a wire, there are claims that the direction of the wire affects the sound. I am not too familiar with the S/PDIF transmission protocols, and maybe someone more knowledgeable could explain how it operates. But I would suppose that, unless there is some fault in the system, it should be capable of error-free transmission of the digital code?
It does, on the face of it, seem to reinforce the idea that the "directionality" of the cable is entirely in the imagination of the listener.
Chris
Not imagination at all.
The cable was drawn through dies in a certain direction when made, and the wire has a physical stress or "bias" of a small nature, placed upon it, such that humans can easily detect directionality.
Jeff Medwin
But you do believe a metal wire carrying an audio signal further encoded my PCM is directional?
So, the Glass has direction too? It was long ago but it was part of our E.E. and C.S.E curriculum at school that we had to learn about splice the fibre cable and terminate them with the machines. We measured dB dropped from poorly terminated cables after everyone made their own.
If proper terminations are made, the amount of light entering and exiting the cable loss (dB drop) across the the cable is the same on both ends no matter how we measured it. But if one end was not done right, you have more loss at that end. But as far as the glass goes, there is NO Directional Lossssssssssssss.....
It could have been a co-axial based SPDIF . If fibre patches were directional , I am sure it would show up when you start plugging into a DWM or running 100GBPS links but it doesn't and a lot of fibres I just polish on my shirt sleeve before plugging in :)
Al
Yep. The owner of major brand told me this 12 years ago.....
Once you've got your wires round the right way , treat yourself to an audio grounding box . Especially useful for amps with 2-prong mains leads . If you don't use one of these boxes (full of coal and broken glass) , your system can only be lo-fi to mid-fi
Al
If a piece of wire has direction, then you are suggestion a piece of metal has directional. So, how's the grounding the chassis working for you?
Just curious how you ground the chassis and the wires? Upside down? Left to Right? Down side up? or Right to Left?
How about these screws and washers? If a wire truly has direction, it's just showing that it's made to be inferior to a regular non-directional wire because you need to obey it's direction or it won't sound as good the wrong way at all. The other regular non-directional (or bi-directional / multi-directional) wire is just superior that it sounds the same as your directional wire in any direction you used.
what about the miles of random wire direction that leads up to a household....right up to the outlet? I guess you could fix that by changing the direction of a wire, but what happens when you use a different outlet or socket in a randomly wired power strip/conditioner?
Why do most people think of electricity as going from a-b and analogous to water down a pipe.?
Think of it as a static volume between 2 points with a 3D volume. When a new PC is inserted into the system it takes time to establish that volume again to balance and settle.
If a wire with incorrect direction is inserted then the volume is decreased, correctly inserted then volume is expanded.
And please don't forget which way electrons flow and not current.
No mention will be made of spin theory as that's just mind blowing.
Cheers
Smart
"Think of it as a static volume between 2 points with a 3D volume. When a new PC is inserted into the system it takes time to establish that volume again to balance and settle.
If a wire with incorrect direction is inserted then the volume is decreased, correctly inserted then volume is expanded."The theory of electrical conduction in metals is quite complicated, but it is rather well understood. I think you will find that what you are saying forms no part whatsoever of the conduction mechanism.
Chris
Edits: 10/10/15
Forgot to say I'm a big believer in direction AND power cords?.......
And Jeff and Dennis' work too.
"believer in" = faith = religionGood for you....I know trust your ears.
Edits: 10/10/15
I am so tired of that misconception.
You think in only DC but this is AC.
Electron flow is a matter of inches in AC.
So the foot or so of the LAST wire
is very important, not the past mile.
That is why the power cords are
make a big difference in sound.
That is why a few inches of hook-up wire
can be very important in good sonics.
Also the higher the frequency the smaller
the length of wire being very noticeable.
DanL
"Electron flow is a matter of inches in AC.
So the foot or so of the LAST wire
is very important, not the past mile."
Hmmm...something not quite right there, I think. You then have to ask why are those electrons near the amplifier moving back and forth like that. It is because of the electrons further back "upstream" moving back and forth...and so on, all the way back to the power station, substation, or whatever.
It would be easier perhaps to analyse it if one had a specific statement as to what the alleged deficiency was in the "unsuitable" power cord. But it would, I think, be generally fallacious to say that such a deficient section of wire would have less effect if it were a bit further "upstream," more distant from the amplifier. Just because the electrons sloshing back and forth in that particular bit of wire aren't the ones that slosh through the power transformer in the amplifier doesn't make the section of wire they are in any less important.
Chris
Think ...
Why do Bybee Purifiers work so well ???
Why do OCC wires works so well ???
Why do upgraded power cables work so well ???
They organize the electron flow.
Reducing "turbulence" of electron flow.
DanL
Dan,
I would not worry about ascribing a REASON to why something works. You see, the reason could be incomplete, incorrect, etc.
What IS important is that perceptive people, with GOOD hi fi systems CAN hear differences. If we can hear it, and apply it to our advantage, ......THAT, is all that matters !!!
Who cares WHY ?? Not I. I just wanna hear it as good as possible, and KNOW to do the things that give me a "higher high " when listening to my audio system, for my enjoyment.
"Esse Est Percepi ", which ( if I recall it from my classroom at Penn State, Oliver Mook's class, of 50 years ago, without double checking anything ), roughly translates into " To Be, Is To Be Perceived ".
Cheers, and keep on doing your fabulous posts !!
Jeff Medwin
OK. You don't about the physics and don't care. But also remember to find out if others can hear the difference. Does that matter to you?
Jeff,
I tend to repeat the same things you just wrote. I know this phenomenon exists, but why should I bother trying to prove it at some groups of people? I am no scientist, neither doing a research. I am always trying push my system to a better state. I have better things than trying to explain stuff to people and I only do it for kindness and politeness.
In the other thread I shared my thoughts. I'm wasn't trying to apply my knowledge to somebody. Finally, it's the reader's choice what and whom to believe.
Regards,
Alexander.
Alexander,
I LOVE your posts. Most of the time, I think you are "Right On" target.
Jeff Medwin
"They organize the electron flow.
Reducing "turbulence" of electron flow.DanL"
We can give this a bit more context, and make it a bit more quantitative.
I imagine that you are thinking that the electrons in the wire are going to start swirling around and their motion could become turbulent, as they rush back and forth along the wire, carrying the current? In fact, if a 1 mm diameter wire is carrying a current of 1 amp, the drift velocity of the electrons will be about one tenth of a millimetre per second. So if that wire were a power cable, then with the 60Hz AC current, the net amplitude of the back and forth motion of the electrons, in order to carry that current, would probably be less than one micro-metre.
So when you spoke earlier of "the electron flow being a matter of inches in AC," and the "last foot" of wire mattering the most, you should perhaps have spoken of the "last micro-metre" of wire mattering the most? If you stuck to your own argument, but with the actual figures for the amplitude of the electron drift amplitude, you would have to say that the power cord was completely irrelevant to the discussion, since the electrons move back and forth by only a micro-metre or so. But that, I think, highlights the fact that you cannot point to any one particular segment of the wire from the power station to your amplifier and claim that that particular segment is the important one. I think your model of how electricity is transferred, and what are the dominant effects, is somewhat flawed.
By the way, by contrast to that net drift velocity of order 1/10 of a millimetre per second, the actual typical velocity of the individual electrons in the conductor, in random motion, will be of order 1000 miles per second or so. So the net drift velocity resulting from the conduction of the current is completely insignificant in comparison to the velocity of the random motion of the electrons.
Chris
Edits: 10/09/15 10/09/15 10/09/15 10/09/15 10/10/15
Thanks for clearing that up with facts instead of faith.
Can I throw this into the discussion.
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/audio/part6/page2.html
"In fact, we can now reveal that it is the electromagnetic fields that surround metal wires that actually carry the signal energy. Here we can examine three standard cases, starting with one that looks like the 'house to house' system we looked at earlier. In each case it turns out to be the product of that carries the power and the electrons are almost irrelevant except as a convenient place to 'pin' or 'control' the fields. The wires (more precisely, the electrons inside the wires) act to guide the fields, but it is the fields that do the real work! "
"In each case it turns out to be the product of that carries the power and the electrons are almost irrelevant except as a convenient place to 'pin' or 'control' the fields"
It seems to me he is setting up a straw man and then knocking him down. No one would ever have suggested that the energy transfer was mediated by the mechanical kinetic energy associated with the drift velocity of the electrons, and indeed, as he observes, that is a really tiny quantity.
It's not my field, but I think I could track down a good reference book on the theory of electrical conductivity in metals. I'd be happy to try to find it, if you are interested.
One has to keep in mind some very different regimes when discussing electrical energy transfer down wires. For DC, I would recommend that you try the calculation of the Poynting flux, which your reference speaks of. I think you would find that it just reproduced the ohmic power dissipation, due to resistive losses in the wire. It's a nice calculation, and an equivalent way of seeing the same thing you see in a standard calculation using a model for the electronic conduction in the metal. For the microscopic details of the conduction in the metal, you would need the standard theory, involving conduction bands, Fermi levels, etc. Interestingly, the classical theory, as in the Drude model, has substantial deficiencies, and quantum mechanics is really needed to get a satisfactory model that matches the experimental data, such as temperature dependence and so on.
By the time you get to high enough frequencies (or long enough stretches of conductor), you would be approaching the regime where the theory of transmission lines would become appropriate. Now, it becomes more like a discussion of electromagnetic waves.
But for low frequencies such as in audio amplifiers, and even more so for the 60Hz frequency involved in the mains power cable, electromagnetic waves are pretty much irrelevant, I think. It is really just a situation where there are slowly-varying currents and voltages, and the steady-state DC model, with a sort of adiabatic time dependence, is quite sufficient.
The mechanisms involved in the electrical conductivity in metals are quite subtle, and it is a beautiful and very well-studied subject. There is nothing in the standard picture described in the physics literature that is going to be challenged by phenomena encountered in a home stereo system, I think. Scientists working in that field are involved in much more subtle investigations than that.
Chris
Thanks
"Think ...
Why do Bybee Purifiers work so well ???
Why do OCC wires works so well ???
Why do upgraded power cables work so well ???
They organize the electron flow.
Reducing "turbulence" of electron flow."
If you could present some equations demonstrating the way in which the electron flow could be "organised," or the "turbulence" could be reduced, it might be possible to discuss this more seriously. Can you define "turbulence" in this context? It sounds as if you are talking about a real, physical phenomenon. How do you measure it? How do you know that there is "turbulence"? Or are you just using scientific-sounding words with no science to back them up?
In the absence of such an explanation, it seems more probable to me that they "work so well" because the purchaser has expended a lot of money on these "upgrades," and is determined to justify to himself that this was money well spent.
Chris
No, current returns to it's source. So in the case of AC power, that's the nearest transformer. Either pole or pad mount, but consider the other houses and/or business often connected to the secondary of that transformer.
This is also why if you are really concerned about your AC power quality, you should install an isolation transformer. That was/is the minimum standard for commercial technical facilities when UPS was not required.
FWEIW, I spent my power budget on a house wide AV systems isolation transformer and UPS units. For me that is much more bang for the buck than any overpriced power cord.
> > current returns to it's source
Again you are thinking DC.
It is like thinking in 2 dimensions
in 3 dimensional space.
> > you should install an isolation transformer
Transformers don't isolate completely.
Most you get is eliminated DC from
your unit's power transformer.
> > if you are really concerned about your AC power quality
If the power company produces unstable AC
then all the users have bad AC.
I am saying that the closer the factor
the more easy it is to hear a difference.
A good power cable is more audible
than an upgraded pole transformer.
DanL
You are saying current does not return to it's source? Show me where that was proven wrong? Current is current in this respect. Doesn't matter if it's AC/DC/RF/audio. That's the problem with many of these audiophile wire theories. They fail to recognize that audio is still in fact electrical energy when going through wire.
I am not talking about a new pole transformer either. That would accomplish nothing because the dirty household equipment would still be on the secondary. I am talking about dedicated isolation transformers for AV gear and only that gear.
Yes they do eliminate DC offset. But a good EI isolation transformer will also limit fast spikes and HF noise.
This is an old and well practiced technique in communications facilities. However today with UPS systems prevalent, the output transformer serves the same purpose.
Toroids of course are higher bandwidth so there use as power conditioner isolation transformers is questionable. And I realize they are still used by some audiophile vendors
But then many of the audiophile power conditioner manufactures lack an engineering background and don't understand that. They probably think a limited bandwidth power transformer will result in limited audio response!
"I am talking about dedicated isolation transformers for AV gear and only that gear."
Are you sure you aren't referring to a constant voltage transformer? In the traditional meaning of the word, an isolation transformer is a 1:1 transformer intended to isolate the secondary from earth. It does virtually nothing to isolate line voltage irregularities on its primary from the secondary.
--------------------------
Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
A large EI isolation transformer will suppress fast rise time spikes. Basic frequency response problem used to our advantage. The same goes for HF noise on the line.
CV transformers (Sola's) typically produce bad AC waveform distortion. They make a model that is under 5% but still, these are not recommended for powering analog audio gear.
"The same goes for HF noise on the line."
I understand the frequency response issue. However, like most filters, the response of an iron-core transformer includes a recurring passband. Most ham operators can tell you how well line transformers pass RF. :)
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Buy Chinese. Bury freedom.
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