Can you hear the "directionality" of interconnects and speaker wire? Kevin LaTour can.

I haven't swapped my cables around yet, but I measured these:

100% volume
TT > SOLO > Mac line 10 mV
Mac MM phono input w/shorting plugs 16 mV

This shows me the cables (TT to SOLO to Mac) add very little noise compared to no cables.

And the SOLO must be a lot quieter than the Mac's built in phono amp.

 

If a wire has a diode effect, the wire is defective. I never encountered that. Impurities may have a slight diode effect same as a bad solder joint, but is bypassed by other space in the wire itself to nullify any diode effect.

 

I'm no physicist, hell, I didn't even have high school physics. So maybe your or someone else can better explain quantum tunneling to me. From what I've read about it on the net, it seems to relate to the probability that a very low mass particle like an electron will wind up on the other side of a barrier that it doesn't classical have enough kinetic energy to otherwise surmount. I don't know mechanically that anything in the construction of a piece of copper wire -- whether that's grain structure or some less conductive material present in the 99.9 or whatever copper itself -- forms a barrier that a musical signal can't just pass through or around with its own energy. For those with a physics or materials science background -- is quantum tunneling really implicated even theoretically in this scenario? Also, I'm not sure why the effect would be any different in one direction vs. another, even if it were.

Most of all, however, I don't understand how the material -- the cable -- could possibly "acquire directionality" through quantum tunneling of the signal passing through it. Someone with actually knowledge of this please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think tunneling of this sort, whether described by classical physics or quantum mechanics, doesn't cause a change in the structure of the cable. If there's some kind of barrier in the cable that the signal wave is going to partially bounce off and partially pass through, or appear on the other side of as a result of quantum tunneling, the same barrier is present the next day when you play music as it was the prior day when you were playing music. Quantum tunneling doesn't actually mean the electrons are carving a little physical whole in these supposed barrier that signal can now pass through (though better in one direction than the other).

I'd like to better understand quantum tunneling. Sounds to my untrained-in-physics-self like the above marketing copy is another instance of audio copy misapplying a real phenomenon, but I don't have an adequate understanding of the physics to be able to judge that for myself.

 

Having re-read the original post I'm not sure what difference was heard and what degree of difference there was.

As I've not tried this I imagine it's one of those subtle differences, which you'd regognise in your system but may not in a system you don't live with.

And given quantum physics has been introduced, what may be the implication if quantum biology is also involved.

 

I posted this right after Steve bumped this old thread plus 2 others he started having to do with cables, electrical and signal path tweaks. I thought it was funny because at the time there where quite a few other new threads started by members just wanting some help building their system, buying some nice cables and power conditioners.

Of course these threads alway attract the same types of members no matter the site. You'll have some people saying what they have and like to help the OP. They will then go about their business and post on other topics in other threads.

You then have a very special group that you'll see posting excessively and running the thread in multiple directions other than the OP. It's always the same and doesn't matter what the thread was posted for, it will also be the very same members stuck like glue in a cable thread. They might jump from one cable thread to the next to do nothing more than weigh in what they want to disprove about cables no matter what has been asked. It will go from all cables test the same and there is no reason one cable cost $25 and another cost $2000. They will talk about improbability in that cables don't sound different, too psychoacoustics. Before long they will then go looking for the most expensive cables they can find and start posting manufactures claims. Then go on a tangent about the impossibility of these claims to the point mods shake their head and say this thread needs to go because it's not helping the topic or the OP and too much work to clean it up.

The OPs (Steves) question was "Can you hear the difference if you switch your directional cables one way or the other"?

This might take a normal member a comment or two as they might get reminded of other experiences. But it's a simple question yes or no, and maybe a little comment as to what you "Heard or Hear"

But anyway, I thought Steve bumped all of his tweak threads to draw the same members who can't stop posting in other members threads and running them off the rails. It totally seemed to work at least to the point it slows down their tangents in other threads..........

 

Nice analysis Dan!

"But anyway, I thought Steve bumped all of his tweak threads to draw the same members who can't stop posting in other members threads and running them off the rails."

I think he did it for fun!

 

Can't say for sure but I'm not going to knock it as I've never given cable direction a close listen.
It's really a non issue as there's no cost or extra effort in running them the correct direction.

 

LOL every time there's an advancement in Physics, former sacred laws get broken and called into question. Even the fundamental ones!!! Like when quantum mechanics starting taking footing, and the questions that arose about the "fundamental laws" of Newtonian Physics, Einsteins work, etc.

Sure, as physicists found out how much they didn't know, they then worked to prove the co-existence of the models due to their ultimate lack of understanding. Even today.

There is so much about physics / matter we don't know, probably more than we do. So sometimes using "science" is an incomplete exercise at times, and 'science' at times is not right, but that's the nature of it. (at least our understanding is not right)

 

Well, get busy then!! Looks like you have some free time.

 

It's particle/wave or quantum realm physics.

Conceptual
A barrier (potential energy source) normally reflects a particle incident to it I has lower potential.
There are cases where a particle with less energy will 'tunnel' or bore thru the higher potential barrier.
The is < 3 nano-meter, molecules, etc.

It has no relevance in the audio cable realm.
It's been developing theory for >100 years.
GHz range of frequencies.

this is a good intro, but to truly to understand it you need to do it conceptually via the math representation. I understand it in layman's terms only.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemica...g-2014/study-materials/MIT10_626S14_Lec20.pdf

 

In my physics degree, as well as the standard Schrodingers equation torture of the quantum electrodynamics and solid state courses I did a project on scanned tunnelling microscopes which were newish back then.

'Tunnelling' describes electron behaviour on an energy graph more than what happens in meatspace. Since the electron is effectively an entity distributed unevenly across a volume in a field it has the ability to crop up on the 'wrong' side of an insulating gap from time to time. If there's a potential difference, that will constitute a current. The smaller the gap, the more likely that this happens, but on a scale of micrometres this barely happens at all, ever, and if it did, the world would be a much scarier place.

For this reason it surprises me that Nordost mentions tunnelling effects, because in a conductor like a copper wire I would have thought that any such effect would be negligibly infinitessimal.

But science is full of surprises, so if someone can show that this effect is measurable and audible, I take my hat off to him. I'm not holding my breath for that to happen though.

One could start by measuring impedance very accurately in the wire in both directions. I would expect the discrepancy between the two directions to be vanishingly small if the wire is worth using.

 

Thanks for this.