Cable directionality


I'm sure this has been discussed before but I missed it, so what is all this stuff with the direction of voltage flow with cables? Every cable you see any more has a little arrow on it. Since the signal is AC and travels one direction as much as it travels the other, what difference could this possibly make. I have talked to numerous co-workers (all electrical engineers) and they ALL say this is the biggest bunch of bunk they have ever seen. Since I am the only "Audiophile", I try to keep an open mind(I'm also the odd man out being mechanical.) Skin effect, resistance, capacitance, etc. are true issues. You pass power through a wire and it creates a magnetic field. You do deal with impedence and synergy with the driving source. How about a few technical answers from the audiophile community.
bigtee
I posted this some time back. If you search the archives you'll find many spirited answers. (I'm an old EE and don't understand it either.)
Marty: There should be no DC on any of your cables. Music is only ac.
One person said it was because only one end of the shield is connected and that should be the source end.
The cable will have two inner conductors and the shield isn't terminated to the ground connector at the source side of the cable. I've seen this illustrated in some pro audio books when going from ballance (xlr/trs) to unballance (rca/ts) terminals. Hope that helps. Rich
Rich, A lot of cables are terminated with both ends of the shield connected. I have a couple of pairs of Tara Labs that are and have seen others. Recently, I have seen where manufacturers are advertising in their white pages that the shield is connected at one end only. I know with a lot of equipment, the shield is ultimately tied to ground of the unit which in turn is tied to the home grounding scheme. To me, this cable thing seems like an episode of the X-Files.
The shield is typically connected at source end in pro applications. Allegedly helps keep interference away in long cabling situations.
If we coin a word, "directionality", to mean which way does the cable sound better to our ears, then we can do away with manufacturers' marketing hype. However, WHY should a cable sound slightly different depending upon which way it's connected? Unless the shielding on one end counts (electrically)...
Having developed interconnects I think that directionality is of minimal importance when the cables are made, the shielding grounding point is a good one and it is supported by the physics professor that aided me in developing the Argento interconnect. I do not use a grounded shield, I actually use a floating shield because I am aprehensive about using a grounded shield due to the increase in capacitance and inductance that a grounded shield will introduce. Our floating shield extends over the RCA connectors but is separated by heat shrink.

When it comes to the belief that something changes I also disagree but do so respectfully. Static electricity is what changes. The static charge that is held by the dielectrics is what the "break in" is all about. My cables just like all others take time to break in because they need to dissapate their static electricity. Flexing and bending and shipping them do build up static electricty. Leaving them be once connected is the quickest way to break them in. Thankfully the Argento is a flexible but shape maintaining cable, meaning you bend it but it stays in that shape so it takes less time to break in because it doesnt wiggle around like worms near vinegar every time you listen to music.

The belief that the silver or copper "changes" is crap too, how does a metal change when you are only putting a few volts through it. Please explain that to me with some proof. What I really like is the so called Cable cooker that I have seen for sale on the net. It supposedly breaks in cables. Right but when you disconnect your cables they need breaking in again. Intelligent very intelligent, thats like washing your car in the middle of a S#1% storm. It is a good idea, but it just doesnt work in reality.