Directional speaker cables

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The theory of directional cables, is that the shield that surrounds the two signal carrying wires should ideally be grounded to the component that carries the higher signal level (noise pickup would be grounded out at that point) to be the most effective. In reality I don't think that it makes that much difference. The few cables that I have that are marked like that I do try to install the right way around just in case.

Connecting a shield at one end can help break up ground loops, not sure just how effective that would be with unbalanced signals when the signal has to travel though a connection wire that is grounded at both ends anyway.

If you think about it, the component grounding may be different, some older components will "ground" only on the neutral while others (more modern) will ground to real house ground. So connecting the shield on the driver side (typically the low impedance side) and using it only as a shield for the transmission makes some sense.

Also, if the components are on different AC runs, then their grounds may indeed be at different potential. Indeed their HOT may be on different sides of the 240V... so, that could cause ground loops.

IMHO it doesn't hurt anything, it's one of those things that might help in some situations and not in others. In my own experience, my digital components are on a different homerun from my analog components. They are all on the same side of the 240V so there should be no difference. I got both unidirectional and bidirectional interconnects. I honestly didn't care when I bought them, I was looking for used high quality interconnects and that's what matters to me.

Complaining about this is useless since it's benign in most situations and likely useful in some.

Of course, my cables do use a liquid shield of triple virgin semi-solid organic mercury mined by monks in the high altitudes of the Andes. And they got signed, hence they are quadruple signature models. It makes the sound shimmery. If you can't hear it, then your components are simply not good enough and your Tice Clock needs a new battery.
 
Years ago, I had some speakers cables coiled up because they were too long for my speaker placements. The sound would get so confused that it would jump from the cables and it sounded like the sound was coming from the walls instead of the speakers. It was either that or the fact that I had (still have) a Carver C-9 Hologram Generator.

:D

Doug

Did you ever read Aunt Enid Lumley in TAS in the mid 80s and early 90s?
 
I have a magazine ad from long ago that "sold" stupid hardware for situations that should not exist. Examples included bolts with offset hex heads (for holes too near the edge), Z-shaped bolts for holes that don't line up, and stepped bolts where the two parts have holes of different sizes.

My favorite of these was a special washer to be used where the countersink was drilled on the wrong side of the part. A few months later, I actually had an assembly case where I needed that washer. I was hanging a shop lamp over a workbench from the shelf assembly that formed the back of the bench. I had fastened two 12-inch straight irons onto the bottom of the top shelf with flathead bolts and nuts. I then wanted to fasten a board to mount the lamp on onto the bottoms of the other ends of these irons. The countersinks were on the wrong sides of the irons! I used the lathe to make those washers.
 
The theory of directional cables, is that the shield that surrounds the two signal carrying wires should ideally be grounded to the component that carries the higher signal level (noise pickup would be grounded out at that point) to be the most effective. In reality I don't think that it makes that much difference. The few cables that I have that are marked like that I do try to install the right way around just in case.

Connecting a shield at one end can help break up ground loops, not sure just how effective that would be with unbalanced signals when the signal has to travel though a connection wire that is grounded at both ends anyway.

The art of the grift...

This one has to originate from someone twisting the concept of lifting the shield on one end of a balanced signal cable as you suggest. I guess that's the art of the grift. Find something vaguely similar to attribute to something that sounds close to something technically accurate.

Like the "audiophile USB cable" that describes and attributes analog circuit domain concerns to a digital signal cable. I suppose if you really know nothing about cars, "high speed muffler bearing" doesn't raise any red flags either!
 
Years ago, I had some speakers cables coiled up because they were too long for my speaker placements. The sound would get so confused that it would jump from the cables and it sounded like the sound was coming from the walls instead of the speakers. It was either that or the fact that I had (still have) a Carver C-9 Hologram Generator.

:D

Doug
That can cause quantum tunneling and you get frequency combinations that don't make sense to the physics of this universe. But I think a more expensive USB cable would clear that up!
 
The art of the grift...

This one has to originate from someone twisting the concept of lifting the shield on one end of a balanced signal cable as you suggest. I guess that's the art of the grift. Find something vaguely similar to attribute to something that sounds close to something technically accurate.

Like the "audiophile USB cable" that describes and attributes analog circuit domain concerns to a digital signal cable. I suppose if you really know nothing about cars, "high speed muffler bearing" doesn't raise any red flags either!

Apples and oranges.

Floating the shield at the load ( the high impendance side of the connection) makes some sense. That is an analog signal so noise can get into it.

Audiophile USB cables... well.... digital signals are designed to use a level threshold and include error correction, so it would have to be one very crappy cable that acts as a low pass filter... or a very poorly designed device. A well shielded, well terminated (good strong solders) with sufficient bandwidth should be the same...

...Although I ended up buying nice looking colored ones, to color the code the connectors at a glance: red for USB-C connectors, blue for micro USB connectors, green for Apple stuff and black for OTGs. But, I got them all at Bezos' online emporium and they didn't cost much. And the color coding makes it a God Send when you got a drawer full of them.

However, then you got HDMI cables... those, oddly enough, do screw up the connection and are made to be obsolete. I had a fine HDMI cable between my PC and TV that worked fine, but when I tried using it with the Roku it just didn't work.... figures... Only a matter of time before we see "audiophile" HDMI...

HOWEVER, if you're gonna dump on something... dump on audiophile ethernet switches and most streamers (which can be done with a cheap Raspberry).

What next? Audiophile IP Addresses?
 
Aren't the Saucerful of Secrets playing Apples and Oranges this tour?

Sorry to digress into something real... HDMI and thunderbolt cables have become a ringer for cheap facsimiles. Not the hyped bs "audiophile" sales pitch this time but the other direction. You have to look high and low when you shop for these nowadays because of all the substandard fakes. HDMI cables that barely work and only with some chipsets. The sellers know that they can get away with selling them to people with less resolution displays or graphic cards. Thunderbolt cables that they know 9 out of 10 people will only ever use to connect a 2nd display and it turns out it can't actually even make a thunderbolt connection.

And now that Apple has everyone using that USB-C connector for everything thunderbolt/firewire/USB the flaky cable thing is only going to get worse. "Oh sorry, our USB-C cable can't do thunderbolt. Should have read the fine print there!"
 
Aren't the Saucerful of Secrets playing Apples and Oranges this tour?

Sorry to digress into something real... HDMI and thunderbolt cables have become a ringer for cheap facsimiles. Not the hyped bs "audiophile" sales pitch this time but the other direction. You have to look high and low when you shop for these nowadays because of all the substandard fakes. HDMI cables that barely work and only with some chipsets. The sellers know that they can get away with selling them to people with less resolution displays or graphic cards. Thunderbolt cables that they know 9 out of 10 people will only ever use to connect a 2nd display and it turns out it can't actually even make a thunderbolt connection.

And now that Apple has everyone using that USB-C connector for everything thunderbolt/firewire/USB the flaky cable thing is only going to get worse. "Oh sorry, our USB-C cable can't do thunderbolt. Should have read the fine print there!"

The fact that the cables are now part of the circuit is ironic.

What next, 48VDC applied to the cables... oh wait.... Maybe Audioquest was ahead of the curb?

How about MIT with those big wooden boxes in their cables? The ones that contained some kind of filter...
 
In the right direction (this thread put this song in my head):



Like, in Oz... is the source to the right and the load to the left? I recall taking some video of the water going down the drain and it was indeed backwards... even as your toilets shoot straight (in the US they go around in circles..)

Do you guys play this song backwards?

 
Well, then you must know that the torquing sequence for a Fibercast flange is different than that for a carbon steel flange…and that you must use full-face gaskets on the former.



I do the same. Glad to see that I’m not the only tech-anal nut trawling on this forum. 😜

I don't typically use hardware that large, but I did finish Mark I of my custom stereo rack last year. I did put the sharp edges facing the neoprene washers and the wood. I did scuff up the rattle canned allthread assembling it and touched it up after final levelness adjustment. That pic has 3 of the 5 shelves but shows the washers the best.
 

Attachments

  • 20210314_193838 - Copy.jpg
    20210314_193838 - Copy.jpg
    195.8 KB · Views: 39
Back
Top