re[2]: Cables have direction/direction my ass

[Dean Stiglitz <deknow@deknow.com>]

i'm no electronics whiz, but correct me if i'm wrong here:

when a guitar string is vibrating (oscilating), the "signal" (electrical 
current) swings back and forth between positive and negative...the 
positive and negative may not be exact mirror images of each other, but 
very, very close.  the result at the end of the chain is a speaker 
diaphram oscillating inward and outward in correspondence to the vibrating 
string (save for any fx or processing in between).  there is never a flow 
of current leaving the guitar pickup that is not compensated for by an 
equal, opposite current (at least when averaged over time)....the speaker 
cone does not walk across the floor.

the illustration would be more like holding a streched out slinky in both 
hands...moving one hand will cause a "wave" that goes to the other hand, 
and then bounces back to the source...as opposed to having a ball of 
string in one hand and feeding it to the other hand.

since the flow of electrons is bidirectional, and the negative current 
affects the sound just as much as the positive current, i can't imagine 
any reason that an electrical cable would have a directional bias...if 
it's more effecient, distortion free, or magical in one direction, when 
the flow of electrons is reversed (when the string goes to the other side 
of the pickup), it would follow that the extra directional "magic" would 
not be applied.  if you reversed the cable, the benifits of the 
directional cable would still apply to the signal in an equal way (as the 
neg part of the waveform is not discarded, but vibrates the air in the 
opposite direction).

i could imagine that there might be differances in cable direction with a 
dc current (is spidf a dc current...i think so...that might explain the 
audiophile analysis provided).

deknow