Speaker Cable Direction?

why i don't quoted your post before?!?

 

My interconnects are all directional BECAUSE they have a shield connected at only one end and this end should come from the source of the signal.

Same with Speaker cables if they have a single ended shield that end it's connected to should be at the amp.

simple as that

 

"I'ts not nit-picking, it's being accurate. By the way, a lot of cable mfrs will tell you the best insulation is air; most of the sound quality problems from wires come from the plastic insulation acting as dielectric."


That makes absolutely no sense. Insulation causing problems because it acts as a dielectric...that's the whole point of insulation! And last I looked at my table of dielectric constants, air is a dielectric as well. You need some kind of dielectric to prevent from shorting when wires touch (air has a nasty habbit of not staying in between two pieces of wire!).

Brad

 

My wires didn't come with directions or a map. Help me I'm lost

 

"air" dielectric refers to something that approximates no dielectric, such as cotton or teflon tubing that doesn't hug the wire. This has proven to be a very important design feature in my experience with cables. Problems with dielectric smearing signals is also related to the improvement in sound associated with "breaking in" cables. Air dielectric designs typically do not improve much with "break-in".

 

+2. You can also have air dielectric (teflon tubes) surrounded by a shield.

 

...and the shield should only be connected at one end on a quasi-balanced cable design. These types are directional. A simple, two conductor coax or a twin lead speaker wire is not directional. In some situations, it can even be beneficial to lift one end of a balanced cable connection. So some cables, in some applications are best fitted in one direction only. There is never a "one answer covers all situations".
-Bill

 

That is freakne halarious. I can't beleive the lengths companies go to shovel out the sh?t to get people to buy their stuff. thx for the laugh.

 

Yes, agreed on that part.

 

The point of insulation is to prevent electrical short circuits. The best dielectric with respect to sound quality is a vacuum, followed by air, then cotton.

 

BTW, not only does the rubber, plastic, expanded foam, etc serving as insulation cause problems with smearing of sound because they act as a dielectric, but the plastic that those IEC connectors that everyone is so fond of for use with ultra-trick power cords also cause sound quality problems because of the plastic (dielectric) they are made of. Best sound quality is when the power wire is hard-wired to the component.

BTW, gold terminations also mess up the sound....eutectic brass, tin, and silver all sound better. Also, connecting bare wire sounds better than spades, banana plugs, etc.

 

Absolutely correct.

 

+3; this is the basis for the TARA and Audioquest designs, for example.

 

I learned that electrons flow from negative to positive, and the earth's magnetic flux flows North to South.

Wire should therefore follow the same principle, right? Maybe turn the amp towards the South too?

I'm just kidding. I felt the need to be a goof ball. Sorry.

 

Electrons should oscillate back and forth through each conductor - that is how the whole system works.

I raised this directionality question over at the NAIM forum and somebody posted this quotation -apparently from the late (great) Julian Vereker (NAIM Audio's founder)
I guess what ought to be done is to have the left and right channels identically wired to preserve symmetry.
This is a cut & paste
-----------
"Date: April 17, 1999 05:33 AM
Author: julian vereker
Subject: direction

Here follows a cut & paste from an earlier post of mine. "I can't tell
you why cables sound different one way round to the other, but I do
know when the 'directionality' happens in manufacture.

It doesn't seem to matter how the bundle (of copper) is drawn, single
direction or mixed direction, but as soon as the insulation is
extruded onto the bundle, the directionality is established. This
means that one can mark the insulation and it will always be the right
way round.

I suspect that the hot plastic insulation anneals the copper in some
way, and this affects the crystaline structure.

But all our attempts, over many years, have failed to find any
measurement to show the directionality or indeed whether one cable
will sound better than another (other than the obvious - resistance,
capacitance and inductance)

Maybe someone out there knows?"

I am not sure about being an ex Physicist, I would have thought 'Once
a Physicist always a Physicist'. However one thing that is often
missed by the 'profesionals' is that audio electronics design is the
most difficult discipline of all - one has to design for 10 octaves
and 130dB at the same time - a huge envelope, and much larger than any
other area of electronics endeavor.

julian"

 

http://www.audioholics.com/educatio...n-audio-cable-vendor-is-selling-you-snake-oil

Well, it made the snake oil list!

Brad

 

maybe he didn't have access to an electron microscope at the time...

 

"Forget uni-directional speaker wire, the signal to the speaker is alternating current and as such "vibrates" through the wire rather than travel linearly along it. If a speaker wire has a directional arrow on it, ask the salesman "why" and "how" it works."

http://www.eastwoodhifi.com.au/tweaks.htm

 

probably had his eye on a brand naim

 

Hi notec,

"Does direction matter?"

First I'd ask if you hear differences in the sound of different cables?
Then I'd ask if you hear a difference in a given cable between the time it is brand new and after it has been playing music for say, 50 hours?

If you answer yes to these questions, my suggestion is this:
Install and burn in your favorite cable. When it has burned in (or if it already has), reverse its direction. Do you hear a difference?

This being the Internet, it is not difficult to find support (factual or otherwise) for any side of any particular argument. Ultimately, none of this matters because you will either hear a difference or you won't. And in this case, listening to your system in your room, you are the only person that counts.

I'd be interested in your experience if you try this.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Barry, I'd be very interested in seeing support (preferably factual) for the belief that cables are directional.

 

There isn't any...

 

wait... if electricity is non directional, why are we being charged by the power company?

or worse, if all they do is take our Dark and charge us for it...

 

It's true though, you're not actually getting any electrons from your power company. They're just jiggling them around a bit for you.