In that case, change comes from all even harmonics flipping their phase for 180° in relation to main signal. It is noncontroversial and confirmed by many forum members that overall sound presentation changes with that. Nelson Pass was explaining that a lot and designs First Watt products to have ‘negative phase’ H2.
As a cable-maker I'm always asked for advice on whether bi-wiring, tri-wiring, bi-amping and even quad-amping is a good idea.
My response is always the same; try it and if you like it, stick with it!
It's pointless to waste time discussing or trying to convince anyone that any single solution or method is beneficial, or not. Who can really say and why should it matter anyway? There's no right or wrong way of carrying an analog signal (excepting for correct phase/polarity of course).
That may sound like a pretty pedestrian and non-committal sort of response but I find it's the easiest response to give and for as long as I actually don't know whether bi-wiring is definitively beneficial or pointless I'm not going to stick my neck out and claim as such.
I supply 3 speaker cable models, two of which are configurable as bi-wire, bi-amp. Not because I necessarily believe in these methods but because I believe in experimentation and there's a very healthy percentage of experimenters out there willing to find out if bi-wiring works for them.
You try the bi-wire cables in your system and it sounds good, you keep it. Otherwise send it back and we'll get you some single-wire cables and equivalent bridge cables. Easy!
For anyone interested in measurements and whether cables actually 'make a difference', Alpha Audio over here in NL conducted a fascinating test using objective measurement techniques as well as subjective listening tests.
Give it a read. It may provide some insights for the curious amongst you:
Interconnects Here
and speakercables Here
My response is always the same; try it and if you like it, stick with it!
It's pointless to waste time discussing or trying to convince anyone that any single solution or method is beneficial, or not. Who can really say and why should it matter anyway? There's no right or wrong way of carrying an analog signal (excepting for correct phase/polarity of course).
That may sound like a pretty pedestrian and non-committal sort of response but I find it's the easiest response to give and for as long as I actually don't know whether bi-wiring is definitively beneficial or pointless I'm not going to stick my neck out and claim as such.
I supply 3 speaker cable models, two of which are configurable as bi-wire, bi-amp. Not because I necessarily believe in these methods but because I believe in experimentation and there's a very healthy percentage of experimenters out there willing to find out if bi-wiring works for them.
You try the bi-wire cables in your system and it sounds good, you keep it. Otherwise send it back and we'll get you some single-wire cables and equivalent bridge cables. Easy!
For anyone interested in measurements and whether cables actually 'make a difference', Alpha Audio over here in NL conducted a fascinating test using objective measurement techniques as well as subjective listening tests.
Give it a read. It may provide some insights for the curious amongst you:
Interconnects Here
and speakercables Here
hmmm. an interesting thought. Perhaps someone who deals with currents from femtoamps to kiloamps, megavolts to picovolts, room temp to absolute zero, timing from milliseconds to attoseconds should be asked..
Just thinkin..
edit: then again, would someone with that breadth of experience care?
John
^ Haha. If we are going to be sarcastic then, sure, huge currents should make for easier measurements. Once the wire starts glowing dark red though maybe the measurement effort is starting to change the DUT properties. Haha again.
Thinking about it a little more, why would anyone interested in winding magnet coils care? Maybe their interest isn't in hi-fi audibility? I mean, what if excess noise were directional, what would that mean to an electromagnet? What would it care about excess/current noise in one direction or the other? Seems like it wouldn't have much affect on magnetic field stability, which is likely more related to inductance than resistance noise, or is that not what is observed?
Thinking about it a little more, why would anyone interested in winding magnet coils care? Maybe their interest isn't in hi-fi audibility? I mean, what if excess noise were directional, what would that mean to an electromagnet? What would it care about excess/current noise in one direction or the other? Seems like it wouldn't have much affect on magnetic field stability, which is likely more related to inductance than resistance noise, or is that not what is observed?
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Attention! First the observation, THEN the theory! This also applies to AC and DC!
An example of process current in a medium with a high diameter:
And: a next flash would sometimes look for a new path ("burn-in processes")
You can see the small lightning outliers: these are "search currents", in fact movements that initially take the lowest resistance, which then becomes too high in relation to other "search currents". This also happens in cables.
So the far more complex practice;-)
An example of process current in a medium with a high diameter:
And: a next flash would sometimes look for a new path ("burn-in processes")
You can see the small lightning outliers: these are "search currents", in fact movements that initially take the lowest resistance, which then becomes too high in relation to other "search currents". This also happens in cables.
So the far more complex practice;-)
Attachments
Okay, I got it now.
However, I wonder why someone would do such a thing and who would benefit from it. 🤔
I agreed with you so much that I liked to increase your "sometimes"
to my "often"
🙂
It's true, I thought just the same thing a few days ago... 😉
Ye gods, but (and I'm not talking about the post above) there's some utter, drooling drivel being spouted on this thread.
Now who could we possibly think of (for the former, anyway)? 😉
Ouch.
Now who could we possibly think of (for the former, anyway)? 😉
hmm. winding magnet coils, you mean like a voice coil that is embedded in a magnetic field?
The only difference is we try to keep the wire still despite Lorentz forces in the 5 to 10 kpsi range in fields at the 8 to 10 tesla strengths. When a wire moves it will heat up (metals have almost zero heat capacity at 1.8 kelvin) and revert to normal conduction. We have sub millisecond timeframes to detect this and turn the 16 kA supply off and extract as much magnetic energy as possible.
Why would my specialty prevent me from having an interest in hi-fi audibility?
My specialty says that "directional excess noise" is a non-sequitur, made up by someone who does not do this stuff for a living. You repeating it does nothing to float my boat.
One thing I lament as I interview, hire, and train the next generation of engineers at work is that almost everyone shied away from E/M theory. Also, that magnetics and magnetic theory is poorly taught in degree programs.
John
There have been times when so-called experts have told people they can't possibly be hearing something they do hear. In many of those cases it turns out that the listener was imagining something not real. In a few other cases it turned out that the expert was probably wrong. Purple felt pens on edges of CDs, for example. Schuman Resonance frequency effect on sound perception, for another. Whether on not Bybees can have any effect on sound, is yet another. Its that the experts aren't always as smart as they think, so they miss a few things now and then.
In the case of wire directionality, people have reported hearing it in a particular silver wire alloy. They annealed it out by running a lot of electricity through it for months. At least that's what was reported. Nobody has ever made a serious attempt to measure what might be causing it because they say, "I don't have to measure it because I already know its impossible." That's pretty much the same type of thing flat earth believers say about evidence of a round earth, "I don't have to look at the evidence because I already know its wrong."
What it really means is that when humans have strongly held beliefs then their confirmation bias can make them automatically reject any disconfirming evidence. Happens a lot, we see it all around us in many of the world's problems. Yet, we humans are pretty much blind to seeing ourselves doing the same thing.
In the case of wire directionality, people have reported hearing it in a particular silver wire alloy. They annealed it out by running a lot of electricity through it for months. At least that's what was reported. Nobody has ever made a serious attempt to measure what might be causing it because they say, "I don't have to measure it because I already know its impossible." That's pretty much the same type of thing flat earth believers say about evidence of a round earth, "I don't have to look at the evidence because I already know its wrong."
What it really means is that when humans have strongly held beliefs then their confirmation bias can make them automatically reject any disconfirming evidence. Happens a lot, we see it all around us in many of the world's problems. Yet, we humans are pretty much blind to seeing ourselves doing the same thing.
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I will also say this: I was an engineer at more than one medical accelerator facility. I worked with femtoamps up to several hundred amps (more in fault conditions), high voltage to above 100kV, etc. Never was there any need to consider if there could be a directional current noise effect related to the grain structure some die-formed wire. What has been studied though is what causes excess noise in metal film resistors. Small defects in metal deposition and or small defects in the substate material were found to be factors in excess noise there. It isn't known to be directional, but current flow around small areas of lower conductivity happens, and current dependent noise is produced.
Also, I would just add that when I started talking about substrate coupled noise in mixed signal ICs such as dac chips around here, I got some blowback and denial from some of the local experts who had never heard of such thing. Of course, if they never heard of it then it must be made up BS, right? The I showed them the only two books published on the subject, and they basically said, "okay, but it doesn't apply to any audio electronics, only to microwave stuff." Then I showed them a paper on substrate coupled noise in mixed signal ICs such as audio dacs. You know what happens next, pretty soon everybody always knew that. The stereotyped next stage after that is, "we invented it."
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I tested and troubleshot mixed IC's back in '83. 12 bit A/D with two conversion rates mixed in. Two IC's to decouple the analog and digital sections for exactly that reason. The effect that is really cool is how thermal coupling on the input stage transistors can affect performance, leading to crazy things like cross coupled input quads to temper the effect dissipation at another location in the chip has due to thermal gradients.
I've also troubleshot at the individual transistor level under a metallurgical scope, sometimes SEM or SIM both analog and digital MSI and LSI, so have no clue what the argument you present means. Are you saying you argue with those who have insufficient knowledge? Why?
And then state that those who argue with you on any topic obviously have insufficient knowledge?
As to resistor current noise, that is a big factor in low noise circuitry and well known. I personally heard in at home, bass lines were causing audible noise in the tweeters, modulated by the bass signal voltage in the eq circuits..really cool. But to take what happens at the atomic level on a vapor or sputter deposition resistor and simply apply it willy nilly to a bulk metal such as copper or silver? Nah, grasping at straws.
Direction based current noise in copper or silver grain structure due to draw direction....on an AC signal? sigh.
We have a nextgen medical accelerator magnet sitting in one of our production bays, we had to test it at various currents and cycles. Now, the darn thing just sits there taking up space. We wish the owners would take it away.
John
I've also troubleshot at the individual transistor level under a metallurgical scope, sometimes SEM or SIM both analog and digital MSI and LSI, so have no clue what the argument you present means. Are you saying you argue with those who have insufficient knowledge? Why?
And then state that those who argue with you on any topic obviously have insufficient knowledge?
As to resistor current noise, that is a big factor in low noise circuitry and well known. I personally heard in at home, bass lines were causing audible noise in the tweeters, modulated by the bass signal voltage in the eq circuits..really cool. But to take what happens at the atomic level on a vapor or sputter deposition resistor and simply apply it willy nilly to a bulk metal such as copper or silver? Nah, grasping at straws.
Direction based current noise in copper or silver grain structure due to draw direction....on an AC signal? sigh.
We have a nextgen medical accelerator magnet sitting in one of our production bays, we had to test it at various currents and cycles. Now, the darn thing just sits there taking up space. We wish the owners would take it away.
John
Its not intended to be an argument. Its that if no effort is made to educate people then everything devolves to what you see over at that other audio website where they think good SINAD numbers guarantee a device is "audibly transparent." In fact, its that same type of thinking that led to this thread being started. It was to the effect that bi-wiring can't do anything, its all "placebo effect." In reality, bi-wiring may or may not be superior. It depends on the particulars in a given case.
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There can be audible directionality in speakers that are driven by an AC signal. For a speaker, in part it depends on the particular AC signal and its voltage waveform vertical asymmetry at certain points in time.
It all gets back down to this though, if enough people report hearing something then maybe there is enough statistical weight to consider looking into it. It may turn out to be imaginary or not. The risk of not considering that we may be missing something is that we will be wrong some portion of the time because we sometimes do miss something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_unknown_unknowns
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"insufficient knowledge"
The example of C in recent years has shown that our "knowledge" were not even able to recognize C as a hoax. Whether medicals, economists, journalists, psychologists, sociologists, lawyers...-)
I mean, on ""knowledge" you can't rely on. All that remains is an interest in further education, in science, in exploring and trying things...-)
Observation first: audio: hearing;-)
The example of C in recent years has shown that our "knowledge" were not even able to recognize C as a hoax. Whether medicals, economists, journalists, psychologists, sociologists, lawyers...-)
I mean, on ""knowledge" you can't rely on. All that remains is an interest in further education, in science, in exploring and trying things...-)
Observation first: audio: hearing;-)
It's apples and oranges, don't try to create equivalence, I usually don't fall for the "look, a squirrel" thing.
Speakers are a combination of mechanical conversions from current to compression/rarefaction based on a magnetic system that typically has flux strength well into the saturation of the iron faceplate and pole tip, also presenting a directional dependence.
Copper and silver conductors have neither of those involved in current transport.
John
ps..cumbb, I have absolutely no idea what you were trying to say. could you rephrase.
Speakers are a combination of mechanical conversions from current to compression/rarefaction based on a magnetic system that typically has flux strength well into the saturation of the iron faceplate and pole tip, also presenting a directional dependence.
Copper and silver conductors have neither of those involved in current transport.
John
ps..cumbb, I have absolutely no idea what you were trying to say. could you rephrase.
I'm not claiming speakers are the same as wire. You brought up AC signals as relevant in the case of wire, and you also brought up speakers (so you could pontificate about them?). If speakers and or AC signals are irrelevant to the discussion then why go there in the first place?
Look, sometimes you have done some very valuable explaining in this forum. I even saved some of your posts for reference. Doesn't change my concerns that we too are too often dismissive about things a lot of people claim to hear. Such things may be imaginary or not, but always dismissive is how we end up missing effects that are real. In my view its a problem. Dismissing something that is real is just as bad as claiming SINAD can guarantee audible transparency. Either way people are confidently told what to believe with absolute certainty, when that belief not physically true. For myself, I would rather live with some uncertainty, even if its that directional noise in wire (or any other audible directional effect in wire) is highly unlikely.
Look, sometimes you have done some very valuable explaining in this forum. I even saved some of your posts for reference. Doesn't change my concerns that we too are too often dismissive about things a lot of people claim to hear. Such things may be imaginary or not, but always dismissive is how we end up missing effects that are real. In my view its a problem. Dismissing something that is real is just as bad as claiming SINAD can guarantee audible transparency. Either way people are confidently told what to believe with absolute certainty, when that belief not physically true. For myself, I would rather live with some uncertainty, even if its that directional noise in wire (or any other audible directional effect in wire) is highly unlikely.
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Markw4, you really need to read what has been written.
I pointed out that my eq was generating noise due to bass signal, and the noise was heard in the tweeters as modulated white noise. This was in support of your film resistor noise statement.
You mentioned speaker signal directionality, I did not.
I do not apologize for "pontificating", as if that were a bad thing. I pointed out why they were. Simple.
Please focus. You're tossing stuff on the wall hoping something sticks.
John
I pointed out that my eq was generating noise due to bass signal, and the noise was heard in the tweeters as modulated white noise. This was in support of your film resistor noise statement.
You mentioned speaker signal directionality, I did not.
I do not apologize for "pontificating", as if that were a bad thing. I pointed out why they were. Simple.
Please focus. You're tossing stuff on the wall hoping something sticks.
John
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