No. Not because of that. You may remember that I defended some of your points before. Hover, think why and where does “two rubbing electrons” impression come from.
Do you imply that my measurements are flawed? 🙂
No need at all. Just don’t go with listening impressions to those “two rubbing electrons” levels.
Ferrites don’t do anything on a properly designed system. Otherwise, they may have important function.
So now that we all agree 🤣 that solid core is the best sounding, the next thing to talk about is the direction of the wire. All solid core wire sounds better in one direction than the other. 😳 This is because when it is made it is pulled thru dies to make it smaller and this puts a grain in it like shingles on a roof. I know someone will say "but this is AC and it reverses", well the source and the load are always the same. Some say that the direction needs to be set to drain the noise from the load to the source which is the lowest Z. I have tried listening for direction and I do hear the difference. I don't know how there could be any sighted bias as I never know which direction is going to sound best! Try it, have fun. 🙂
At 5,000x magnification, you can notice the striations that show where the wire was drawn through the die.
But, not so noticeable at 1000x magnification:
And looks really smooth at 37x magnification:
The ratio of skin depth at 60 Hz to the depth of those striations must be around 2,000 to 1.
Given that ratio, I can't see the striations noticeably affecting the conduction properties of the wire.
As for hearing a directional difference, it must be due to those poor little electrons finding it harder to clamber up those jagged striations than to slide down them! 😀
I think that once the electron has found and penetrated the plasma membrum of the ovum, directionality is profoundly affective with many fecundive effects.
There is also the corollary. Would you agree that if you go in thinking that (in most cases) any expensive or firmly held belief in an 'upgrade' will inevitably sound better? Expectation bias is a very real effect, and we have all heard of the recording engineer EQ-ing a track to perfection, only to find he was tweaking an unused channel. It is a fact that what we think we hear is also very easily corrupted by our own eyes (gorgeous rosewood and gold speakers will likely sound 'better' to most listeners than the same speaker with rough edges and hand-painted in emulsion), so what possible means exist to eliminate or reduce expectation bias to a statistically realistic degree? Double-blind testing becomes rather difficult for an individual performing the modifications!
A few comments:
Regarding directional audio cable, my listening panel finds no evidence that it is real. Certain other effects with wire and cables do appear to be real, but I will not go into detail for now other than to say there are a couple of AES papers showing effects, one of them peer reviewed, on headphone and line level cables. (EDIT: Shielded cables with the shield connected at only one end are an exception and can be directional.)
Changing the subject for a moment, have to agree that people are often fooled by expectation. That includes expectation from looking at FFTs before listening, as may have happened recently in an ASR review. It means that whether we are measurement oriented or prefer to judge SQ by listening, we must have checks and balances, systems and methods, that counter the effects of bias and expectation. Have my own ways of doing that here which I have described before, but no one I am aware of so far has shown interest in implementing something similar themselves.
On the subject of ferrites, IME sometimes they are needed and other times they can do more harm than good. Depends. People who claim ferrites affect sound in a bad way are not always imaging things. The ferrite effects Bruno Putzeys described in his class-D amplifiers were noticed by a few customers which is what led to his investigation of the problem. However, most customers did not notice. What people notice in the way of unexpected, quickly passing little sounds seems to vary a lot from person to person. What Bruno described as the audible effect was some low-level semi-random popping noises. If someone is listening for distortion, for FR, if the violins body resonance comes through, for sound stage depth, etc., the more it seems to be that other little things not being listened for may go unnoticed. IME sometimes its important not to listen for anything in particular, just listen.
Regarding directional audio cable, my listening panel finds no evidence that it is real. Certain other effects with wire and cables do appear to be real, but I will not go into detail for now other than to say there are a couple of AES papers showing effects, one of them peer reviewed, on headphone and line level cables. (EDIT: Shielded cables with the shield connected at only one end are an exception and can be directional.)
Changing the subject for a moment, have to agree that people are often fooled by expectation. That includes expectation from looking at FFTs before listening, as may have happened recently in an ASR review. It means that whether we are measurement oriented or prefer to judge SQ by listening, we must have checks and balances, systems and methods, that counter the effects of bias and expectation. Have my own ways of doing that here which I have described before, but no one I am aware of so far has shown interest in implementing something similar themselves.
On the subject of ferrites, IME sometimes they are needed and other times they can do more harm than good. Depends. People who claim ferrites affect sound in a bad way are not always imaging things. The ferrite effects Bruno Putzeys described in his class-D amplifiers were noticed by a few customers which is what led to his investigation of the problem. However, most customers did not notice. What people notice in the way of unexpected, quickly passing little sounds seems to vary a lot from person to person. What Bruno described as the audible effect was some low-level semi-random popping noises. If someone is listening for distortion, for FR, if the violins body resonance comes through, for sound stage depth, etc., the more it seems to be that other little things not being listened for may go unnoticed. IME sometimes its important not to listen for anything in particular, just listen.
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At a gigahertz conductor surface finish matters. So silver plating on a solid core is the way to go. All the current travels in the silver plating. At audio frequencies surface finish is of no importance.
Just another case of taking engineering knowledge way out of context.
Just another case of taking engineering knowledge way out of context.
Kunchur, Milind "Cable Pathways Between Audio Components Can Affect Perceived Sound Quality", JAES June 2021
That paper does not actually compare 2 similar interconnects as one was RCA and the other XLR. RCA unsurprisingly had more noise which made it possible to hear a difference between the interconnects.
Wasn't thinking of that cable paper, there were two by Akihiko Yoneya. https://www.aes.org/events/147/presenters/?ID=8963
Regarding conductor surface effects, in stranded cables exposed copper surfaces will oxidize over time. Copper oxide has nonlinear properties. When current flows through the wire, eddy currents will be induced that flow laterally across the contaminated surfaces. Whether or not there is an audible effect can be debated. The listening panel says individually insulted strands (enameled, like magnet wire) often tends to sound better.
Regarding conductor surface effects, in stranded cables exposed copper surfaces will oxidize over time. Copper oxide has nonlinear properties. When current flows through the wire, eddy currents will be induced that flow laterally across the contaminated surfaces. Whether or not there is an audible effect can be debated. The listening panel says individually insulted strands (enameled, like magnet wire) often tends to sound better.
Here is a article from Audioquest about cable direction.
https://www.audioquest.com/theory-education/article/83-directionality-its-all-about-noise
https://www.audioquest.com/theory-education/article/83-directionality-its-all-about-noise
One of those has already been discussed here.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/signal-dependent-cable-capacitance-change.356154/
Not the best cable there, I am told.
Regarding work hardened grain structure in die-drawn wire, if deemed a problem I am told it can usually be pretty much annealed by running a fair amount of AC current through it for a day or two. For 14 or 12 gauge speaker cable that might be something like 10A of AC.
Regarding work hardened grain structure in die-drawn wire, if deemed a problem I am told it can usually be pretty much annealed by running a fair amount of AC current through it for a day or two. For 14 or 12 gauge speaker cable that might be something like 10A of AC.
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