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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
jea48
2,944 posts
 
Al, (almarg),

Thank you for responding to my earlier post directed to you.

If by chance you are still following this thread I have another question for you.
I ran across this thread, in the quest of finding more information on dielectrics and how they affect the signal passing through them.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/cable-dielectric-cause-of-artificial-sound

I read this post of sean’s

sean
6,229                                                                      posts10-09-2006 11:49am


I stumbled across a very curious phenomena pertaining to cable dielectric at work the other day. Nobody that i have discussed the matter with can explain what is happening, yet they have seen the very easily measured and duplicated results that i’m obtaining and can’t deny them.

I have ideas as to what is causing this curious phenomena, but don’t want to speak up about this as of yet. I will say that what i’m seeing tends to make me believe that dielectrics, which aren’t supposed to conduct, have a polarity / directionality to them i.e. they conduct better in one direction than in another.

I know that some companies already have cabling on the market that supposedly deals with this subject, but i don’t think that they fully understand exactly what is going on here. I just hope that Clark Johnsen doesn’t see this. Something about polarity based issues tends to get him in all worked up : ) Sean

I will say that what i’m seeing tends to make me believe that dielectrics, which aren’t supposed to conduct, have a polarity / directionality to them i.e. they conduct better in one direction than in another.
Sean never said how he conducted the test. Any thoughts on his comments?

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
I can certainly see why someone might reverse the cable and think the difference in sound was due to the dielectric material, not the wire itself. Even if the tester believed wire was directional how could he separate the effects of the wire directionality from the effects of the dielectric dirctionality, assuming there was any? We have seen a similar situation with the fuse holder being given full credit for fuse directionality. We see all manner of theories that avoid the elephant in the room.
jea48
2,944 posts
 
@terry9,

I ran across this thread. If you have not read it you may find it of interest.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/diy-interconnects-review#Jadem6

.
terry9
931 posts
 
@jea48 

Solid. They came off the spool and went to the plating company. No, I did not reverse them. I did not then, nor do I now, expect there to be a perceptible difference.
I no longer spend much time on interconnects, for the reasons stated.
almarg's avatar
almarg
8,673 posts
 
Jim, re your question about Sean's post that you quoted, I looked at all of his posts in that thread, and many of those provided in it by others.  As you alluded to, no specifics were presented, and so I have no idea as to what sort of "curious phenomena" he may have been referring to.

About all I can say about his post is that he should have said "phenomenon," not "phenomena."  :-)

Best regards,
-- Al
 
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