Directionality of wire


I am a fan of Chris Sommovigo's Black Cat and Airwave interconnects. I hope he does not mind me quoting him or naming him on this subject, but Chris does not mark directionality of his IC's. I recently wrote him on the subject and he responded that absent shunting off to ground/dialectric designs, the idea of wire directionality is a complete myth. Same with resistors and fuses. My hunch is that 95% of IC "manufacturers", particularly the one man operations of under $500 IC's mark directionality because they think it lends the appearance of technical sophistication and legitimacy. But even among the "big boys", the myth gets thrown around like so much accepted common knowledge. Thoughts? Someone care to educate me on how a simple IC or PC or speaker cable or fuse without a special shunting scheme can possibly have directionality? It was this comment by Stephen Mejias (then of Audioquest and in the context of Herb Reichert's review of the AQ Niagra 1000) that prompts my question;

Thank you for the excellent question. AudioQuest provided an NRG-10 AC cable for the evaluation. Like all AudioQuest cables, our AC cables use solid conductors that are carefully controlled for low-noise directionality. We see this as a benefit for all applications -- one that becomes especially important when discussing our Niagara units. Because our AC cables use conductors that have been properly controlled for low-noise directionality, they complement the Niagara System’s patented Ground-Noise Dissipation Technology. Other AC cables would work, but may or may not allow the Niagara to reach its full potential. If you'd like more information on our use of directionality to minimize the harmful effects of high-frequency noise, please visit http://www.audioquest.com/directionality-its-all-about-noise/ or the Niagara 1000's owner's manual (available on our website).

Thanks again.

Stephen Mejias
AudioQuest


Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-15-audioquest-niagara-1000-hifiman-he1000-v2-p...


fsonicsmith
Post removed 
Well, of course wire directionality wouldn’t show up anywhere except among audiophiles because wire directionality is really defined as the reason wires, cables and fuses SOUND better in one direction than the other. SOUND better in the artistic or sensual or subjective sense.
...
It’s not rocket science. You can establish correct direction of the tiny wire, or any wire, by measuring resistance of a length of wire....

If "SOUND" was a characteristic of a wire, inherently different depending on which direction the signals are flowing, that had zero effect on any other use for a wire, perhaps.  But, if that characteristic that affects "SOUND" could be reliably measured with a material difference in resistance, one would think someone outside of audio, and likely smarter than most of us, might care enough to at least have considered whether that difference matters even a tiny bit when billions of lives or, more importantly to many, trillions of dollars could be at stake.  Subjective sound, in a non-sound application, might not matter, but an objective difference in resistance probably would.

I have no idea whether anyone does or not, which is why I asked the prior question about directionality outside of the hobby.  Does the super-smart person or robot designing and/or assembling some super-sensitive component, critical to something more important than our super-cool stereos measure each wire each way to determine which way it should installed?  In so doing, actually considering directionality, even if it might not be called "directionality" outside of the hobby.
@almarg

Sorry to see that common sense is all but absent on Audiogon because of those who work so hard to maintain and propagate myths.

The onus is on those with wild claims to prove via repeatable measurements that their weird and uniquely bizarre phenomena actually exist - especially when nobody outside of a few audio wing nuts swear by these new phenomena.

Science does not have to disprove every wacky claim / it is the responsibility of those with the extreme wacky claims to provide proof that their claims are not bogus errors or imaginations run wild or just made up anecdotal BS.
shadorne                                                                      08-01-2017 8:50pm

@almarg


Sorry to see that common sense is all but absent on Audiogon because of those who work so hard to maintain and propagate myths.

The onus is on those with wild claims to prove via repeatable measurements that their weird and uniquely bizarre phenomena actually exist - especially when nobody outside of a few audio wing nuts swear by these new phenomena.

Science does not have to disprove every wacky claim / it is the responsibility of those with the extreme wacky claims to provide proof that their claims are not bogus errors or imaginations run wild or just made up anecdotal BS.
@ shadorne

Sorry you feel that way. Not everything can be measured.
I am done!
"Not everything can be measured"


Exactly. Whatever experience that can be measured repeatedly and independently becomes accepted verifiable fact. What cannot or has not been successfully measured repeatedly and independently is in the realm of conjecture or hypothesis or "marketing hype" or "unsubstantiated claims".

There is a big difference in how much credibility one should really give to conjecture especially wild claims that are not easily verified.

For example, "man-made global warming" is conjecture and a hypothesis that is currently impossible to verify - we don’t know what component is natural variation and what might be man-made - we do know that natural variation can be colossal compared to what is conjectured that man might cause - so the theory has NOT been proven a fact although it is a surprisingly widely held belief. Quite a lot of widely held beliefs fit this category and it is often hard to distinguish fact from conjecture - our media and Internet forums certainly do not help.