How are cables directional?

The best one is the directional ethernet cable, lol.

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But that’s the logical layer. The signal (as a whole) indeed has a direction, but on the physical level electrons travel in a different direction for a negative or positive signal. AC being either 50% of the time. The cable is the physical medium, so in the context of it’s directionality we need to consider the electrons, not the signal as a concept.

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@garyi is the wise man of the village. :wink:

In the process of transmitting the signal/musical code, energy (wattage) travels from a power station, through the electricity grid, through the hifi components and cables, and ends up as heat when the speaker drivers move the air molecules in the room.

The whole issue is however complicated by heterodynamicallyredundant electrons, often incorrectly referred to as “slow” electrons.

These just seem to go against the flow no matter what direction is facilitated and if they are present in quantitatively significant amounts can totally negate the directionality of cables.

These seem to have greater significance in streaming setups over CD setups and is often postulated as to why some people prefer CD over the technically better HD presentation.

After looking into this over an extended period it appears that one can attenuate the effect of heterodynamicallyredundant electrons by a passive negatively regulated femto clock between the router and “streamer” although a simple optical fibre connection seems to give about 90% of this improvement.

It seems that many of the tweaks we hear giving improvements in streaming are actually related to the directionality effect of heterodynamicallyredundant electrons which as yet there does not seem to be a way to accurately measure.

It’s really such a fascinating hobby on the frontier of scientific measurement and empirical audible evidence.

.sjb

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Shurely shome mishtake.

Anyway, sounds good tonight.

Must have my cables plugged in backwards!

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Sounds good here too

Perhaps we’ve both found another way to reduce the effect of heterodynamicallyredundant electrons?

.sjb

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Cheers

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image

.sjb

No, I didn’t. I interpreted the comment I quoted as saying that the skin effect was not frequency-dependent. The equation(s) show that it is. I was simply correcting what I saw as a mistake.

Mark

Not forgetting all the dynamicallyredundant electrons, identifying as something other than hetero…

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Hi
James Randi offered $1,000,000 if anyone could hear a difference between expensive & not so expensive speaker cables. Nobody has ever claimed the prize.
Not sure it’s still going now.
Even Michael Fremer was asked I think & turned it down.
With Michael Fremer in mind he said he could tell the difference between digital & analogue recordings, then MOFI dropped the bombshell.
Just saying.

Thanks
Mark

Whilst you are correct that skin depth is frequency dependant, it is absolutely not relevant at mains frequency, and not even at 20KHz with any cables I’ve ever come across for audio.
image

With copper wire taking resistivity to be 1.678 ohm centimetres and permeability 0.999991, at 50Hz the skin depth is 9.22mm, so each core of the conductor would need to exceed 18.44mm diameter (267mm2) for any skin effect!
At 20KHz it is 0.461mm so only any skin effect if over 0.922mm in diameter = 3mm2 cross section area, and that means each strand if multistranded, and I’m not aware of any stranded cables with such thick strands, so only solid core of over 3mm2.

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Didn’t know so many had a PhD in electronics engineering :+1:

What were the conditions attached? Was it 100/100, on a one-time play of brief clips of music he chose with a room as system he chose? If not, perhaps the great man’s estate will send a cheque to Roy George now?

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I think this is likely where this idea originated, way back when. If so it would make sense that listeners who didn’t know about the mechanical difference might have heard a difference using the cable in one direction and extrapolated the idea to all cables.

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I’m only on here reading this as some 2nd hand NACA5 turned up yesterday and having plumbed it in, I’m wishing I had made this purchase ages ago. (replacing Chord clearway) It made sense of my system in a way that I no longer want to leave the house, while I adjust to this goodness.

Would it have sounded different if I’d bought it new? Will change as it gets used to its new context?

Can anyone tell me why water running from a hot tap sounds different when it turns from cold to hot?

Can you tell this is my first post from a mac rather than a PC?

Maybe…

No…

No…

:thinking: :open_mouth: :crazy_face:

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