Scott you are moving the target. Normal mechanical light switches often spark when engaged and clear the crud. Not the same as loose screws or even aluminum wire.
You can tap your microphones however you like. Servicing bad connections that became active after tapping has shown some to be in the wall plates. You must have a really heavy tap!
Back to resistors. Nice experiment on excess 1/f noise, sorry no directionality.
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0022-3727/8/10/003/pdf
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0022-3727/8/10/003/pdf
Sorry, I can't see how can you say that without comparison to the original signal... can't be a form of distortion that reduce harmonic content?
It seems an interesting think to further analyse.
How exactly I could determine such frequencies?
This is not a problem in my case.. I use sockets for such tests, no soldering involved, a variable less.
Thanks SY, I hope to find time during Christmas vacation to do some tests and measurements.
Probably I'll start recording the two vaweforms and, if it's still audible in the recorded tracks, analyze them to find how signal changes.
Thanks for the answer Chris but, in practice, what I should measure, at least for starting?
Obviously resistors are not directional, they will work according specs either way.
And until they work according specs the result will be as designed, by definition.
If are the parasitics/noise/linearity of resitors being directional it would make little of no difference to the final result, particularly if it's digital circuitry.
What I'm talking about is a faint effect, not a big one, and it will make little or no difference in a visual representation, maybe some lines a tiny little bit more or less defined or small luminance and/or color differences and probably easily masked by the out device, nowaday digital.
Also in the typical industrial design resistors, as Marce already pointed out, are placed randomly regarding direction so the total effect will be pretty much null.
Only when you take it in account for each and every resistor in the signal path it will possibly be clearly audible and still probably a faint difference.
I call it an EXTREME optimization, by fanatics, for fanatics.
Or simply, in most cases, since the effect is faint, tends to null with randomly oriented resitors and have no impact on stability or working conditions, it can be safely ignored (from an engineering point of view) and so no one considered further investigation necessary...
I'm pretty confident in what I hear but you can (and I would say must) obiously don't trust my ears and my discerning abilities, simply trust yours, there is only a condition... trying yourself with an open mind.
As you probably already know, experimenter bias works both ways.. it can also sometimes making you dismiss a difference because you don't trust it's possible. 😉
Never said it... I just would like to see people actually trying before dismissing what other people claims, even what seems pretty impossible.
I used to be an hard skeptic and dismiss too all that sort of things: power cables, cables direction, resistors direction, (bipolar) capacitors direction and so on...
But one day I've started trying first and my world of convictions simply changed.
Obviously not all you read is true, but only actually trying you can find out that most of them are just illusions and that some of those silly things are real.
Said that I would love having the abilities to measure and owning the correct instrumentation to do it but I have so little spare time...
Bought an ESI Juli@ two years ago for starting some measuring activities and never managed to find time. 🙁
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Hi,
How does one go about determining the "preferred" direction of such a resistor ?
Moreover, what could possibly be the cause of this said directionality ?
Cheers, 😉
How does one go about determining the "preferred" direction of such a resistor ?
Moreover, what could possibly be the cause of this said directionality ?
Cheers, 😉
Same goes for wires I assume, contrary to JC, Crump, and company? So at the highest level you guys disagree, just like a survey of enough fora on resistors will find those that love or hate any one of the contenders.
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So far the only method I've found is listening carefully, swapping direction as fast as it is possibile to retain as much auditory memory as possible.
To avoid differences in soldering and to gain time the use of sockets is advisable.
There are a number of parameters that changes but the most obvious is how bass notes are rendered.
The preferred direction is the one with softer/rounder bass.
I can say the softer/rounder direction is the right one because the same guidelines can be used for capacitors and cables.
Since sometimes capacitors can be omitted I had the opportunity to compare the signal with a control (the signal without the capacitor), the more faithfull signal is the softer bass one.
Sadly I don't have any solid idea about it, the only thing that could make some sense is that in all those parts there is possibly a direction in some production steps, for resistors the conductive element is possibly sprayed to ceramic following a direction, for wires they're drawn in a direction.
But I'm just guessing here.
Hi,
That doesn't make any sense at all to me.
Coupling caps are note symmetrical so, yes, there's a preferred direction.
But how do you determine the preferred direction of their lead out wires ?
Again, random construction.
Cables, especially multi stranded ones can be directional by their construction but you have no control over the bunched strands.
Solid core could be directional by manufacture but then you'd have to listen to a single strand and frankly the difference isn't earthshattering provided the build quality is high.
A difference I find fade quickly once that piece of wire has been in use for awhile anyhow.
All in all, enough to drive you nuts because you just don't have any information about the manufacturing process.
Same goes for resistors, if its the lead out wires causing the directionality than again who says both ends were pointing in the same "direction" during manufacture ?
Not to mention the fact that most of these components work within an AC current loop anyway.......
@Scott:
Whilst I have no doubt passive components don't all sound alike. Directional resistors is a bridge too far to me. Especially since I know damn well how they're made. Same goes for wires.
Which, anecdotally reminds me of a so called high-end cable manufacturer in Europe who thought they'd have tackled the "problem" by pushing the silver metal through the die as opposed to drawing it. As if the crystal gave a damn.....
Not to mention the plethora of other stuff in the signal path that could, god forbid, be directional.
Bottom line, once you start to fret over such stuff there's a good chance something else is not quite right with your audio system.
Not to say none of this is impossible but it rather begs the question: is this all worthwhile pursuing?
Life's too short not the spin that fav record and enjoy it right ?
Cheers, 😉
That doesn't make any sense at all to me.
Coupling caps are note symmetrical so, yes, there's a preferred direction.
But how do you determine the preferred direction of their lead out wires ?
Again, random construction.
Cables, especially multi stranded ones can be directional by their construction but you have no control over the bunched strands.
Solid core could be directional by manufacture but then you'd have to listen to a single strand and frankly the difference isn't earthshattering provided the build quality is high.
A difference I find fade quickly once that piece of wire has been in use for awhile anyhow.
All in all, enough to drive you nuts because you just don't have any information about the manufacturing process.
Same goes for resistors, if its the lead out wires causing the directionality than again who says both ends were pointing in the same "direction" during manufacture ?
Not to mention the fact that most of these components work within an AC current loop anyway.......
@Scott:
Whilst I have no doubt passive components don't all sound alike. Directional resistors is a bridge too far to me. Especially since I know damn well how they're made. Same goes for wires.
Which, anecdotally reminds me of a so called high-end cable manufacturer in Europe who thought they'd have tackled the "problem" by pushing the silver metal through the die as opposed to drawing it. As if the crystal gave a damn.....
Not to mention the plethora of other stuff in the signal path that could, god forbid, be directional.
Bottom line, once you start to fret over such stuff there's a good chance something else is not quite right with your audio system.
Not to say none of this is impossible but it rather begs the question: is this all worthwhile pursuing?
Life's too short not the spin that fav record and enjoy it right ?
Cheers, 😉
Yup, you got that right. Resistors, capacitors I don't give a **** .
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Hi Dario,
Interestingly, live music is generally more dynamic and more "sharp". Softer, rounder suggests to me that the rise times have been blunted. You may have been chasing the road to distortion.
-Chris
Interestingly, live music is generally more dynamic and more "sharp". Softer, rounder suggests to me that the rise times have been blunted. You may have been chasing the road to distortion.
If there is no detectable difference, wouldn't you stop looking at the issues? By definition, it doesn't matter.
-Chris
One problem with swapping components round in situ. especially if being soldered is there are just to many variables (same with changing connectors round), the miniscule differences (if any) could be down to connectivity, solder joints etc.
You said that the better signal had more harmonics. Harmonics are caused by distortion.
And new variables added. Such as contacts that may vary over temperature.
Clearly audible and faint difference are not compatible comments.
As others have pointed out, you can trust your ears. It's you brain that is the problem.
Nice info Dario ,caps sure as inner/outer foil ,never tested resistor direction, but I put all in the same direction of current loop looking the printing ,at last there is an order
What a curiosity, this untrustable brain. Apparently, it's honest with us with the music we love, letting us enjoy the sweet tone in a particular singers voice or allowing us to hear accurately a particular guitar riff. But with audio equipment, our brain transforms into an unremorseful and malicious liar, refusing to let us make heads or tails of what we're actually hearing, or even worse, taking a demented pleasure in making every single piece of gear ever made sound EXACTLY the same !! Oh vile and cursed brain !!!!!....why do you toy with us in this manner ??!
IMHO, this is non-sense...the entire signal is made up of harmonics, you should have heard before of Fourier, haven't you?
Any simple and plain filter will reduce the number of harmonics.
And distortion can occur both filtering out or adding harmonics.
Again, maybe I'm missing some nuances in English, but they are perfectly compatible.
A faint difference can be clearly audible when you focus on the involved details.
It is indeed. That's why optical and aural illusions can be so fascinating, and why we can be delighted by skilled magicians.
NO NO NO. All a filter can do is reduce the level of harmonics. It cannot reduce them.
Clearly audible is the sound of a ripped woofer. I think you mean 'consistently detectable'.
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