Re: Fw: cable directionality physics

[Greg House <ghunicycle@yahoo.com>]

--- Jimmy Fowler <jimfowler@prodigy.net> wrote:
> Honestly, the audiophile community hasn't provided
> sufficient data to back their claims.

Agreed. They've provided a lot of subjective
pseudo-scientific babble and bizarre theories (skin
effect, etc) which can't be proven (or can't be proven
at audio frequencies). I could possibly believe that
there might be something in some of these cases, but
any valid subjective claims get mixed in with the 
more outlandish unsubstantiatable claims and
discredited.

> "We" cable makers & users & listeners, are satisfied
> with a less rigorous (yet valid) scientific
methodology:

As a skeptical consumer, when presented with no
objective evidence of a dubious audio claim, I'm
satisfied to believe someone is attempting to sell me
snake oil. 

For my subjective story, I have some Monster tt patch
cords in my studio I got in a package of used
equipment. I don't hear any difference between them
and the other patchcords I have. If anything, I don't
like them as much because they're physically stiff.
They also seem to fail more often then my other patch
cords (but I don't know their history, so that might
not be a fair point of evaluation).

And as someone who has a limited equipment budget, I'm
generally satisfied with buying good quality cable
(Canare, Mogami) and good connectors (Neutrik) and
making my own. They're less expensive this way, and
easier to repair if they break. 

> We listen to a conductor one way vs. another
> repeatedly and chart our
> results... one way being preferred over another...
> hence validating the
> existence of a difference and the need to pay some
> attention to it when making cable.

All this manual work to validate the directionality of
a cable would certainly explain why they cost so much.
Given the absence of anything you can measure with a
machine, it would appear this is the only way to do
it. 

> The difference IS pretty damn small.

Kind of like how you sometimes think you hear a
difference when you twist an EQ knob, only to later
discover that the EQ was bypassed? That's
embarrassing, but it happens.

> A larger difference for directionality in cables
> deals with the shield being
> attached at one end, to bleed off interference
> picked up by the shield to
> the chassis ground of the equipment with a lower
> ground potential... 

That's the only time I think a cable would really be 
directional. If the shield is isolated from the signal
conductors and attached at one end, you have the
opportunity to send it to the device with a more
direct ground and potentially decrease your noise
floor a few db while reducing the possibility of
ground loops between equipment. Win-win. (provided you
have enough wires in the cable to carry all the
signals you need without needing to use the shield to
do double duty carrying a signal ground).

Greg

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