Directionality of cables??

[ColinTheAmpMan1]

Hi,
I read just recently that a cable can have directionality. I should add that this was applying to screened cable used for musical connections, specifically guitar cables. Now this sounds rather like "guitar audiophoolery" to me, but are there any other opinions? It was stated that since the copper strands of the cable are extruded, that this process will align the molecules in some way, which causes the claimed "directionality". There were anecdotal comments about trying the cable out in both directions to hear if there was an audible difference and some suggestions that there indeed were.

I find this a bit dodgy (and there are dodginesses galore in the guitar/amplifier community) on purely practical grounds, as I think that the individual strands might not be "aligned", even if such a process as extrusion could do much at the molecular level. Would this not apply to all electrical wire, solid or stranded? Since we are dealing with AC signals in the case of the guitar cables, does "directionality" have any meaning, anyway?

Does anyone have any observations, or does anyone else think this might be snake-oil?
Colin.

[mole42uk]

I've been fixing musician's gear for 40 years - I was an accredited repairer for Orange (amplifiers, not mobile phones) in 1976 - and my considered opinion is that any such claims are genuine, 100% pure snake oil.

I'm surprised this has come up again. It's not April 1st is it?

Not normally a fan of videos but this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12GHUf8DOPs sums it up quite well. \the first few seconds is all you need, a load of c**p.

A tapered transmission line would have to be put in the right way round, even then it's not directional.

[G8HQP Dave]

Directional audio cables is complete bunkum, yet surprisingly many people believe it.

For a cable to be directional, at least one of the following has to be true:
1. the cable length is a non-negligible fraction of a wavelength and the cable is badly made (or deliberately asymetric) so one end is different from the other end (e.g. different characteristic impedance),
2. the cable can somehow sense both electric and magnetic fields and multiply them to get power flow.
Virtually all audio cables fail on both.

[turretslug]

As so often with these things, one needs to say, is today's 'phool obsession (and there is a very long and slightly depressing list of them) likely to result in effects that are 10dB down on the signal (worth pursuing) or 200dB down (utterly lost in the noise, literally and metaphorically)? Being (generally) good-natured and helpful by instinct, I used to advise and trouble-shoot for a few people I knew about their desire for ever more wonderful hi-fi gratification but in the end I wearied of esoteric tail-chasing about ultra-pure copper cables and why chassis screws should be of a particular grade of stainless steel when epically basic and straightforward concerns (and, incidentally cheap to solve....) such as good earthing practice and attention to layout were sniffily dismissed.

You can lead a horse to water....

[julie_m]

This time, there is a simple answer, for once.

It's boks.

[Station X]

Originally Posted by ajs_derby

It's boks.

Indeed it is, so I'll close this thread before it becomes a general discussion on audiophoolery.