Neutral electronics are a farce...


Unless you're a rich recording engineer who record and listen to your own stuff on high end equipment, I doubt anyone can claim their stuff is neutral.  I get the feeling, if I were this guy, I'd be disappointed in the result. May be I'm wrong.
dracule1
Hi, Atmosphere, sorry to abuse you of some of your beliefs but photons are the "carriers of the electromagnetic waves, which is what Radio Frequencies are. That’s why, as I already said at least three times, that radio waves travel at light speed, because it’s comprised of photons. Can you think of anything other than photons that travels at light speed? Actually, now that you bring it up, he music signal in cables and wires is also an electromagnetic wave and is also composed of, uh, photons. What about x-rays? Yup, photons. The ELF transmission at 75 Hz?  Photons.

Atmasphere, the real ’good and valid point’ I felt Geoff to be making there (and I didn’t fully make this clear above) is simply that magnetic fields do have an adverse impact on sound. Who is right or not on the theoretical details I’m not really qualified to answer.

" This was around the issue of balanced line connections, which can be used to eliminate problems of cable construction and colorations as well as the effects of magnetic fields impinging the cable. BTW, this is not to say that EMI/RFI isn’t a problem; Geoff was right about that); what I am saying is the if you run balanced lines and the equipment supports the balanced line standard then the cables will have almost no effect on the sound and it will get around the problem of EMI impinging the cable."

This is technically true. However it is Wholly insufficient to fight either magnetics or EMI/RFI in the **system** - that is to say with its sonic performance overall. This is because they both have Sooo many other points of entry into the system and just protecting the IC’s alone can never, and will never, cut it.

My system uses balanced lines from source to amps. But, if that were anywhere near sufficient by itself, then the $10k’s worth of Alan Maher Designs gear I’ve bought over the last few years that is designed specifically to deal with both magnetics And EMI/RFI should have made no impact on the sound and that is plainly not the case at all. It makes a "night and day" difference...and yes, as in a ’whole new system’ level of difference. What I’m saying is that balanced lines, in the grand scheme, make no appreciable difference...**once you’ve caught on to just how bad the overall picture of magnetics/EM/RF vs system performance actually is**, that is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
-From the page:
A photon is massless,[Note 3] has no electric charge,[12] and is stable.

However it also states that it is a form of EM radiation.

However the signal in a cable is not carried by photons. A better carrier would be the electron, although stated in those terms might be considered a gross oversimplification.

Ivan, if you had read the thread through (and I don't blame you for not doing so) you would see that I brought up the balanced line thing specifically with respect to the fact that if properly executed (and quite often in high end audio, the balanced line standard is pretty well ignored) then the cables at least will be immune to EMI (stray magnetic field) problems. If you do not hear that in your system then its likely that it is not supporting the balanced standard. 
Understood. Last I checked, I believe my system was full differentially balanced, but since some of it is modified I should 'triple check' that, to be sure. But, to make clear for anyone else, I've certainly found balanced lines to make an audible difference in my systems (the degree of which depending on the gear) prior to using AMD. It's just that after doing so, switching out between single-ended and balanced has no longer made an audible difference, under my roof.
Atmosphere wrote,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
-From the page:
A photon is massless,[Note 3] has no electric charge,[12] and is stable.

I never said a photon did have mass, or that it had an electrical charge or wasn’t stable. But electrons are carriers of *charge* not the audio signal. The electromagnetic wave that is the actual signal is made of photons. Just like (visible) light but with a different wavelength. Gamma rays, x-rays same thing - Photons with a different wavelength than visible light. The electromagnetic spectrum is extremely wide and includes obviously visible light which is obviously just a very small part of the whole thing. Electrons in the conductor are almost at a standstill, but the music signal is moving at near light speed (since it’s made of photons). That’s what I mean by carrier. The radio wave (RF) does not need a medium in which to propagate, obviously, since it will propagate in a vacuum. Just like a radio transmission to a satellite is comprised of photons. Or an ELF transmission.

Atmosphere also wrote,

"However it also states that it is a form of EM radiation."

Electromagnetic radiation. Now we’re getting somewhere! I am agreeing with that statement. That's what I’ve been saying, that light and radio waves are electromagnetic waves, radiated. The units of measurement for satellite communication transmission is surprise, surprise, EIRP, Effective Isotropic Radiated Power.

atmosphere also wrote,

"However the signal in a cable is not carried by photons. A better carrier would be the electron, although stated in those terms might be considered a gross oversimplification."

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?