The 'why' is I was simply dealing very directly with the statement you made which I quoted above so the context is very immediate. Here it is again:
I think you know that is not the case; giving you that benefit of the doubt how is it that you square the fact that tubes and transistors have current flow but somehow the wires that attach to them only have photon flow??
IOW, what's wrong with this picture?
You are correct that electrons don't flow very quickly in a conductor. The reason that the signal travels much faster is easily seen if you think of a hose filled with marbles- the hose representing the wire and the marbles representing the electrons. If you put a marble in the input of the hose another immediately (at light speed) pops out the other side. In practice not the same electron you put in but it does the same work.
IOW, signals do not propagate through any audio cable in the form of photons, unless that cable is a fiber optic. And the signal does indeed move much faster than the electrons.
Electrons carry charge, whereas the music signal is an electromagnetic EM wave so it (the signal) must travel in a conductor at near lightspeed. In order to travel at that speed the wave must be, physically, photons, not electrons. The electrons in the conductor only travel what a meter an hour or something. If the audio signal wasn't light speed you would hear a pretty big delay for normal phone conversations, no?This suggests that you think the audio signal is traveling in the form of photons. Obviously to do that, eventually the signal has to arrive at a tube or a transistor, in order for a stereo amp or preamp to do its job; therefore the **only** logical conclusion one can draw from your statement is that you think the tube or transistor must have photon flow too!
I think you know that is not the case; giving you that benefit of the doubt how is it that you square the fact that tubes and transistors have current flow but somehow the wires that attach to them only have photon flow??
IOW, what's wrong with this picture?
You are correct that electrons don't flow very quickly in a conductor. The reason that the signal travels much faster is easily seen if you think of a hose filled with marbles- the hose representing the wire and the marbles representing the electrons. If you put a marble in the input of the hose another immediately (at light speed) pops out the other side. In practice not the same electron you put in but it does the same work.
IOW, signals do not propagate through any audio cable in the form of photons, unless that cable is a fiber optic. And the signal does indeed move much faster than the electrons.