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Are WH Phantom Cables Directional?

Here is my take on this perpetual argument: I have worked in: the nuclear industry as a C&I eng; aerospace as a software eng; marine industry as a hardware eng and for a number of industrial instrumentation companies doing mostly software eng. I have some decent experience of quality in low to mid volume manufacturing for some of the most demanding environments. I have also worked for Naim for a bit. Naim deeply impressed me over the three years I work there (on and off in a gap year then holiday work to pay my way through University) with their fastidious approach to quality and consistency of manufacture.

They genuinely believed cable was directional, they pulled cable the same direction from the reel and cut and stripped the wire to show which direction it came off the reel so they could consistently wire up the boxes and interconnects etc. Do I believe cables are directional? No. Does this attention to detail matter? In my opinion, yes. Witch Hat are born from the same DNA. I respect the attention to detail. I don't expect anybody can really hear the difference regardless of orientation, but it will make you feel better to fit it as intended.

Usually these threads descend into thread crapping, and this will probably get removed in the cross fire. Before that happens, perhaps ask yourself: are you genuinely adding something to this or just repeating your beliefs in the hope "the other idiots" wake up and realise you were right?
 
If cables are directional to current then they're acting as diodes, which can't be a good thing if fidelity matters. If a cable really were directional, wouldn't it suck — or conversely blow if you install it the wrong way around?

Joe

 
Tony L said:
If they are they’ll say so, and I’d always go with the designer’s recommendation rather than any self-professed internet “expert” opinion! It costs nothing to put them in the orientation intended, so why wouldn’t you?
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It doesn't occur to you that maybe some forum members could be designers? Or do you think that high-end hi-fi equipment designers exist in a little bubble, surrounded by exotic texts that no-one else is aware of ?
 
nobeone said:
They genuinely believed cable was directional, they pulled cable the same direction from the reel and cut and stripped the wire to show which direction it came off the reel so they could consistently wire up the boxes and interconnects etc.
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You're sure it wasn't just for consistency? E.g. so that both cables in a set have the writing going the same direction from one end to the other? Not saying Naim wouldn't believe in directionality (or promote it even if they didn't). Either way it's amusing.
 
They (Naim) ain't so good at LED-biasing circuits, that's for sure, judging by the shocker that lurked behind the logo of my Nait 3.
 
booja30 said:
You're sure it wasn't just for consistency? E.g. so that both cables in a set have the writing going the same direction from one end to the other? Not saying Naim wouldn't believe in directionality (or promote it even if they didn't). Either way it's amusing.
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it is still their way even today. When I went on the factory tour, we were told that when a new reel of wire arrived, they made up a pair of NAP 110 (I think, but don't quote me) with one having the internal wires going in one direction - as it came off the reel, and the second with the wire going in the other direction. they would then listen to them both, and the wire reel would be "directioned" accordingly.

Nowt to do with writing on wires in the amps.....
 
Although I worked in the electronics assembly industry 40 yrs ago when I was a student my knowledge of electronics itself is sparse and at the 'little knowledge is a dangerous thing' level.
When I was going through my divorce, I moved in with a mate from the pub who designed and built bespoke medical electronics. He was a man of very strong opinions on many subjects. Although a musician and music lover he had very little time for HiFi as he felt that the best was so far away from live music that it was a colossal waste of time and money. I moved in with my huge active isobarik setup , and he helped me install it. All my cables were labelled for both frequency range, and direction. I cringed waiting for a withering discourse on the stupidity of HiFi people , but he said that at audio frequency the LCR of the cables would have no sonic effect. He then asked about directionality. Rather than dismiss it as ridiculous, as I expected he said that if otherwise independent people claimed to hear the phenomenon then there may be a scientific explanation for it.
Several days later, after a few pints he brought the subject again. He proposed a theory that I have subsequently seen elsewhere.
As far as I can recall it went like this :
Wire is made from, say, copper plus impurities and is a bit like interlocking crystals. Although the resistance of the material itself is pretty constant and directionless at a junction impurities may cause the resistance to be slightly different in different geometrical directions
This then could make a cable act like a really leaky diode. So, he felt
, that the sonic effect would be most obvious if, say, left signal cable was reversed relative to right. Play a mono signal through it, then reverse one lead. So we set this up and had a listen, but we couldn't hear any difference.
So, there you go.

He also felt curved pcb tracks superior to right angles, and all resistors on a board are facing the same direction - why? To show that the person building it cared. If he ever buys a decent HiFi it will probably be Naim CB era, as he likes the plate wiring for the same reason.
 
JemHayward said:
Although I worked in the electronics assembly industry 40 yrs ago when I was a student my knowledge of electronics itself is sparse and at the 'little knowledge is a dangerous thing' level.
When I was going through my divorce, I moved in with a mate from the pub who designed and built bespoke medical electronics. He was a man of very strong opinions on many subjects. Although a musician and music lover he had very little time for HiFi as he felt that the best was so far away from live music that it was a colossal waste of time and money. I moved in with my huge active isobarik setup , and he helped me install it. All my cables were labelled for both frequency range, and direction. I cringed waiting for a withering discourse on the stupidity of HiFi people , but he said that at audio frequency the LCR of the cables would have no sonic effect. He then asked about directionality. Rather than dismiss it as ridiculous, as I expected he said that if otherwise independent people claimed to hear the phenomenon then there may be a scientific explanation for it.
Several days later, after a few pints he brought the subject again. He proposed a theory that I have subsequently seen elsewhere.
As far as I can recall it went like this :
Wire is made from, say, copper plus impurities and is a bit like interlocking crystals. Although the resistance of the material itself is pretty constant and directionless at a junction impurities may cause the resistance to be slightly different in different geometrical directions
This then could make a cable act like a really leaky diode. ...
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Your friend is correct. Conductivity of metals like copper can be directional. However this anisotropy is almost certainly too small to worry about in the case of loudspeaker cables.

The following is probably too detailed for most but is part of the solid-state electronics taught at undergraduate level.

One element of resistivity in metals comes from the scattering of the electron wave function from crystal boundaries. The path density of crystal boundaries in mechanically worked copper can be different in different directions.

Fortunately, this is just a small element of copper's resistivity. For example the very purest single-crystal copper has just 3% less resistivity than normal electronic-grade copper. That's due to the reduced scattering from impurities and from crystal boundaries, leaving 97% to come from lattice phonons (atomic vibration). I would expect this small element to have a 180-degree rotational symmetry in drawn copper cables, so very little difference between the two principal directions. So, even less to worry about in this context.

The leaky micro-diode issue is just plausible in very impure copper but does not stand up in reality. I am aware of two tests on copper cable for the non-linear signal distortion that would result. One test found nothing within the limits of the test capability and the other (done by some former colleagues) found very small non-linearity (way below significance) but mainly from the metallurgy of the connectors (specifically ferromagnetic nickel plating), not the copper.
 
The micro-diode phenomenon is well-known. It can be annoying with bad solders and bad, oxidized contacts at an MC input for instance, or in radio circuits.
 
My argument (I was on the 'it can't make a difference' side) was that there will be as many junctions that are resistance+ as resistance- so the effect would cancel out or at least be reduced to minimal raised to the power of minimal.

Our late night discussions on resistor warming and dynamic compression went on for much longer.
 
chartz said:
Also, do you really think that they use fancy hi-fi cables in recording studios? Nah.
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Studios do take cables very seriously, and they typically get the best stuff they can. We're talking state of the art stuff, with fancy shielding, and great mechanical properties. They bulk buy it on reels and make the cables in house, with the highest quality connectors, since mechanical wear and tear leading to dodgy connections is a source of downtime and frustration (and has a high cost).

Good quality cable isn't cheap - we're talking 75p per meter. Fortunately if you buy in bulk you can get the price down to 69p per meter:

https://www.studiospares.com/cables...opa-ultimate-black-mic-cable-per-m_548900.htm

Neutrik XLRs tend to be everywhere:

https://www.studiospares.com/cables...lr-5x-male-+-5x-female-bundle-pack_575499.htm

So a 10m cable will come in around £7 for cable, and £5 for connectors.
 
Whenever I have to build an interconnect, I use that sort of cable too.
But it isn’t fancy hi-fi cable, it’s professional cable, which is different.
 
booja30 said:
You're sure it wasn't just for consistency? E.g. so that both cables in a set have the writing going the same direction from one end to the other? Not saying Naim wouldn't believe in directionality (or promote it even if they didn't). Either way it's amusing.
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Quite sure. They honestly, genuinely, fervently, believed in cable directionally, and were amongst the first to mark cables as directional I believe. If they were just pretending for sake of production consistency they did so very convincingly behind closed doors where nobody else would know.
 
People expect cables to be directional these days, and I have heard a [very small] difference though I'm at a loss to explain it. I tried making cables without direction markers and got many enquiries about which way round they went.

Naim went even further. Every time a component was changed on a production run due to, say, obsolescence, they'd put many new samples in the board until they felt it sounded the same as the original part. If you stake your reputation on a sonic signature you try very hard to keep it that way. In my experience the most major change they did was from CB to Olive where the redesigned boards had a more forward presentation that their forbears despite the circuitry being the same.
 
Funny that you should mention the great man, I’m listening to Elvis (Fever) on my 33/303/ESL right now. Fantastic and ordinary (not hi-fi or bought-in, that is) cabling everywhere. Yes I even make my own DIN cables with professional micro cable.
 
John Phillips said:
One element of resistivity in metals comes from the scattering of the electron wave function from crystal boundaries. The path density of crystal boundaries in mechanically worked copper can be different in different directions.
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However, along a given path, such as between the ends of a wire, it will be the same in both directions, just like the mile markers by a road are the same distance apart whether you're travelling north or south.
 
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