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Cable arrows

gints said:
Some QED interconnect cables, for example Silver Spiral has same direction arrows. There are extra wires (screen, grounding?) which are connected only at one end.
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Surely this is only needed where you have long cable runs or a noisy environment.
 
booja30 said:
Hey guys, remember: the signal is AC. There is no 'upstream' or 'downstream'. For example, playing a sinusoidal tone, the current would move one direction half of the time and the other direction the other half. Directional speaker wire and interconnects make...
absolutely no sense!!1!
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In cables with an arrow I know about from personal experience, the arrow does not indicate directionality, it indicates asymmetry.

These cables comprise a twisted pair covered by a shield. The twisted pair carries hot and cold signal connections and the cold wire is connected to the shield at one end only. So the cable is genuinely asymmetric and marked with an arrow pointing away from the end where shield and cold are connected.

Whether or not this asymmetry is thought a good idea, the best practice I have seen (in an AES professional seminar) is that you make sure the grounded end is connected at the source.

The OP seems to have such a cable. So, the practical advice he has been given is correct: to point the arrow away from the source (the phono stage) and towards the preamp.
 
My XLR & USB cables are all directional as are my speaker cables (two plugs on the amp end, 4 plugs on the speaker end)

Does it matter which end you connect first when installing them?
They never mention this in the accompanying manual.
;)
 
terrycym said:
My XLR & USB cables are all directional as are my speaker cables (two plugs on the amp end, 4 plugs on the speaker end)

Does it matter which end you connect first when installing them?
They never mention this in the accompanying manual.
;)
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You should always work from the speakers back to the source, otherwise there might be bits of music left in the cable that could fall out and you’d lose them.
 
terrycym said:
My XLR & USB cables are all directional as are my speaker cables (two plugs on the amp end, 4 plugs on the speaker end)

Does it matter which end you connect first when installing them?
They never mention this in the accompanying manual.
;)
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Ah, but do they sport arrows?
 
Arkless Electronics said:
The hard of thinking ask the same question every day... so have to be told the truth every day... simples.
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Yes but the problem is that they don't believe the engineers and scientists that tell them the truth. In fact the 'truth' is even weirder and nobody really understands it. Electrons like photos inhabit the quantum world and that is a very strange place unlike the continuum where we live. In the quantum world subatomic particles such as electrons behave as both waves and as particles (wave-particle duality). In a metal some electrons in the outer shell of each atom wander off leaving positively charged ions that are held together in a metallic lattice. These electrons are said to be delocalised and are envisaged as a cloud that spreads and covers all the ions. By subjecting this electron cloud to a positive or negative charge will pull or push that cloud so that it moves and its that movement which we call an electric current. Thus there is no way that a piece of metal such as copper can be directional.

Cheers,

DV
 
Cables are directional and all my CDs sound better if I put them in the slot with the print upright, so I can read it as I shut the drawer. If the CD is put in lopsided, the music loses focus.
 
I thought 'the cables arrows' referred to obsessive, formation cable tidiness?

A.R.T.-Analyst-1.jpg


Well, it should.
 
If I remember what the sparky who put it in said correctly the SWA running to my pond has the armour shield connected to the Earth core at both ends; but the pump does make an irritating humming noise, do I need to get him back to connect the shield only at the source end to address that? :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
I use Deltec Black Slink between my pre - and power- amps, because that's what I have / they came with. It is good stuff.

One reason I like it so much, is subjective - but not in a way to appeal to Subjectivist Audition!

These were handmade cables, and despite being XLR balanced & with a fab, very-dense braid-shield (& yes, the goretex) - the fine strand-pairs forming them were drawn off the reels, then laid-up 50 % one direction off the reel, 50% the opposite: slow, expensive, and deliberately-so, just so there could be no such bollockery about 'arrows', directionality etc. - "no of course there's no bloody difference - we took pains to ensure this..."

This amuses my inner-physicist.
 
John Phillips said:
In cables with an arrow I know about from personal experience, the arrow does not indicate directionality, it indicates asymmetry.

These cables comprise a twisted pair covered by a shield. The twisted pair carries hot and cold signal connections and the cold wire is connected to the shield at one end only. So the cable is genuinely asymmetric and marked with an arrow pointing away from the end where shield and cold are connected.

Whether or not this asymmetry is thought a good idea, the best practice I have seen (in an AES professional seminar) is that you make sure the grounded end is connected at the source.

The OP seems to have such a cable. So, the practical advice he has been given is correct: to point the arrow away from the source (the phono stage) and towards the preamp.
Click to expand...
This is my understanding too, and what I do with this type of interconnect, VDH D102s in my case . Having said that, I have to admit I haven't the faintest idea whether there is any real science behind the suggestion that the grounded end should be connected to the source. What do our resident electronics experts say?
 
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