How to know the direction of the Linn K20 speaker cable connection?

Hi-Fi Corner
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Not sure I understand your reply Murmur. When you say something isn’t ‘factually incorrect’ … what are you referring to? Anyway, it implies it’s not an opinion or speculation, its based on ‘truth’ and in this case, science/measurements.

I don’t know. I am neither a metallurgist nor do I have any other scientific background, just decades in this nerdy hobby which has created a lot parasites that feed off peoples vanity and insecurities with all sorts of BS that costs insane money. In this instance it costs nothing and that’s good.

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Why do you need science/measurements? Just listen for yourself. It’s like all the people that used to say the LP12 mat couldn’t sound better one way around than the other. All they had to do was listen but, no, it seemed silly to them so it must be hifi foo. Then in early 2000s a magazine showed a difference via graphs, at least proving the sides sound different. Their loss. Not a big loss but some of these tweaks add up.

Furthermore, the opinion of Julian and Roy carries weight with me so I can’t understand why a Naim owner would want to automatically disregard their views without at least trying it out. Maybe you won’t notice any difference which is fine but it seems a cheap shot to make out we have golden ears cos we notice an improvement.

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To be honest, I do believe there is a difference if the cable is graded on a listening test before being spooled for distribution. But I also think the “we test every drum and although we don’t know the reason, we found there is a difference” to also be seriously weak tea.

The reason is, this seems to go against my philosophy of technical curiosity. As a manufacturer, to simply leave it at that because current equipment at that time wasn’t able to measure (or equally likely, it was unclear exactly what to measure). I think that with something like this, the idea that the phenomenon could be left with an unknown root cause is hard to swallow when actually root causing it and learning something new, moving it beyond hypothesis (plenty of manufacturers seem happy to present their non reviewed hypothesis as facts) to peer reviewed accepted fact, could have broader implications for the field of electrical engineering.

If I had a PhD in a related field (I do not) and trusted my ears enough to confirm a non shielded cable was better one way around than another, the not knowing why would drive me insane.

So, not having a scientific basis to back something up doesn’t make it untrue. We know gravity is real - but nailing that down (no pun intended) proves difficult. But it does cast questions on the people who are happy to just “let it go”. The ultimate reason could be useless, or could unlock all sorts of other developments.

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Agree Murmur, the directional thing isn’t Linn and Naim exclusive, but also happens to cheap speaker cables from Mogami and Canare widely adapted by music studios – try yourself and find out.

A good piece from old forum and Julian sounded making sense, also align to Richard’s story of Roy once returned a full drum of Naca5

Posted on: 05 September 2003 by Martin Payne

quote:

Originally posted by Arye_Gur:
He thought that the process of attaching the isolation to the wire, which is a very hot process, causes the cable to be directional sensitive.

Arye,

your memory is good.

quote:

Date: 17-Apr-99 05:33
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

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne at Dial.Pipex.com

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Great one FZ.

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Hi Richard,

It is timely that you have reposted this original text from JV.

Also, it seems that there are follow on postings by @juliushui , one recent specifically here.

IMO, JV was overstating the difficulty of designing audio electronics.

The (scientific) answers were and certainly now are known.

The missing parameter in JVs simplification re cables is the ‘loss’ associated with the ‘Shunt Conductance’ of the dielectric. This is understood by cable manufacturers. Furthermore, any ‘proven’ variability in ‘sound’ re directionality is (at least) potentially due to the different geometric stability when the conductor undergoes the sheathing process.

It is certainly the case for Naim NAC A5 that it is not that consistent throughout its length. These variations mean that two of the three parameters mentioned by JV (Inductance and Capacitance per element of length) will not be consistent along the length of the cable. These variations will introduce distortions, mini ‘reflections’ leading to smearing (of the electrical signal that provides the accuracy of the music wavefront) that the loudspeaker converts into acoustic energy.

BTW, the above suggestion is consistent with your Naim ‘Roy story’, where the new employee at the cable company loaded the machine incorrectly. It is likely that that there are repeated variations in L and C (and also the Shunt Conductance - G) giving ‘patterns’ that will create a balance of distortion looking from one end of the cable compared to the other end - relating to the impedance differences of the terminating units - be that loudspeaker or amplifier.

It is thanks to forum member @Blackbird that I became aware of the work of Alpha Audio and their ‘Megatest speaker cables – 32 cables listened to and measured!’ and also their prior work on interconnect cables - ‘Interlinks don’t do anything! Or do they? 32 rca cables analyzed’.

Alpha Audio are essentially trying to undertake a specific form of Time Domain Reflectometry testing. It is quite difficult to do reliably for audio with all the variabilities of interfaces involved. Also the amount of reflected energy that can come from the loudspeaker and the variations in non-linearity behaviour of amplifier output circuits add further complexity.

For those that don’t know or are not interested in what I am talking about - don’t worry - just use your ears. It can be just as effective and far quicker to find out what ‘sound’ you like.

For those who want to dig a bit deeper, please join in (and perhaps) comment on my thread about English Premier or International HiFi (most recent information from here).

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Shunyata apparently do the same thing. They have a few ‘golden ears’ they bring in when new wire spool is delivered, who listen to the spool in either direction using headphones.

Listening to an entire spool is never going to be good, but its just the difference between each way they look for.

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The Linn K20 directionality is completely counter intuitive. With most wire the wording of the company logo runs in the signal direction. But its the other way around with Linn.

Make you wonder how much Linn speaker wire out there is hooked up the wrong way.

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Probably as much as there is of less confusing speaker cable; a lot.

Luckily the night and day difference is a matter of hyperbole.

I had some decent custom install cable (still have about 80m left on the drum) that was directional. Struck me as bonkers because in many many situations, the direction you snake it through conduit is made for you. Obeying the arrows on the cable is simply a luxury you don’t have. So often it can only snake through one way and that determines where your drum goes.

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Hi agisthos

I just took a look at the Shunyata webpages - they seem to get a lot of (HiFi magazine) awards?

I have yet to find any information to support your specific suggestion that they (Shunyata) use a ‘Golden Ears’ method for ‘cable direction’ selection.

However, I could casually observe that the geometry and materials used in the various grades of Shunyata loudspeaker cable might likely produce comparable characteristic impedances (with relatively low resistive and dielectric losses) to many of the other cables (that I have personally measured) from other manufacturers.

YMMV.

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Its not on their website. I read it in an interview, or possibly a magazine industry feature on them, many years ago.

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Hi agisthos,

I think you and I are in luck! I just found a 39:25 min long YouTube video (from 2 years ago) with the title 'Interview Shunyata Research - About Equipment Grouding and Conditioning’, where Jaap Veenstra of Alpha Audio talks with Grant Samuelson of Shunyata Research.

Within the very early part of that interview, Grant Samuelson makes various statements about the work of technical and company founder - Caelin Gabriel.

It is perhaps unfortunate that the explanation given by Grant Samuelson for what the full expansion of the DARPA organisation name is incorrect!

Some of what is discussed from an acoustics perspective seems plausible. I would even agree with the discussion about needing to have the accuracy of the acoustic pressure wave reaching the listener as accurate as possible. Perhaps representatives from Naim would also agree with that sentiment? My understanding of the discrete regulator (DR) development by Naim was to improve the bandwidth of the power regulation in their products - which would deliver improvements to the acoustic wavefront accuracy.

During the video there is discussion about Shunyata Research having some product and product concepts developed via interaction and feedback with music studios and other industry luminaries.

Unfortunately (also in the same video) it seems to me that there are other statements made by the participant from Shunyata Research in that interview which are not correct from a technical perspective.

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A-Level HiFi, Module 2: Cable Directionality

Some people think cables sound better one way than the other. Some don’t. Some get very exercised by this issue. Some don’t. One may freely choose from these options:

  1. If you don’t think cables can possibly be directional, fit them any way you like. It doesn’t matter because there can’t be a difference. There’s no point trying the cable either way round to see if you hear a difference, because there isn’t one.

(Variation: deliberately fit the cable opposite to the manufacturer’s instructions. That’ll show ‘em.)

  1. If you think cables are directional, fit them as per the manufacturer. You might want to try swapping them around, but the manufacturer has probably done the hard work for you. There may be better things to spend an afternoon doing than on your knees, faffing with cables.

  2. If you think cables might be directional, and if you can be bothered, try them either way round and see what you think.

Note for scholarship-level students: under no circumstances waste time trying to argue with people on an internet forum about this issue if their view is different to yours.

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Never were truer words ever spoken in jest. :+1:

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I’ve always used the writing on the cable for direction if there isn’t anything writen on the cable

                         _____________________________>>>

                      Also use the writing for correct phase
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Hi @Richard.Dane ,

My apologies for raising this -

I suggest that the perceived ‘directionality’ of cable comes about from the connection of the three specific pieces of equipment (amplifier - cable - loudspeaker). The audible perceived directionality comes not from the cable itself (after sheathing) but from the variations in geometry along the length in combination with the connected equipment.

When the reported ‘listening test(s)’ to establish directionality were/are undertaken the preferred direction of cable was/is simply the result of the impact of the variation in copper conductor separation on all four electrical parameters (R, L, C and G, i.e. complex characteristic impedance) at the interfaces between equipment and the implied specific dynamics of the test amplifier(s) and test loudspeaker(s).

However, I have an additional thought as follows…

JV and RG knew perfectly well what they had in the NAC A5 cable:- a cyclical hourglass variation in conductor separation along the length to achieve the very specific peaking in Zo at a specific frequency in the audio band. The postings in the public domain might be a straightforward ‘misdirection’ to distract competitors and bind loyal customers to not spending their HiFi budgets on other companies cables!

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