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In Reply to: RE: GargOyle... Hows wire direction shaping up for you ?? posted by drlowmu on October 08, 2015 at 11:15:02
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.
Follow Ups:
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.....
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