Audioquest HDMI cables
- Thread starter Bruce B
- Start date
Thanks Marshall for your reasoned questions:
In the light of day, I see that my terminology, the distinction between a quote and the packaging of a quote, was clearly not finessed carefully enough, and excess emotion (on my part) is never useful. The Audioholics post:
<< A subsequent “Open Letter” from Audioquest owner William Low admitted he heard the video a year ago, found the audio difference “unbelievable”, but did not ask to have the video removed until after Mark Waldrop published his findings a year later. >>
only shows my use of the term “unbelievable” (in quotation marks in my letter, because “unbelievable” more correctly stood in for “difficult to believe”). The story built around my use of this term is where the fiction was created. I posit that instead of using a full quote:
<< Backing up about a year, to when the video was created—I saw and heard the video. I found the audio difference “unbelievable”. I asked for verification that that there had not been any enhancement or manipulation. The dealer was contacted, and AudioQuest was assured that the video was honest and included no alteration. Maybe I was an optimistic sucker, hoping too hard that the seemingly impossible was possible—after all, playing these cables into a flat-panel TV and listening through the TV’s pathetic built-in speakers does reveal obvious audible differences, but that this magnitude of real-world audible difference should be seemingly even more obvious in a compressed video was astonishing. >> (copied from stereophile.com)
that the Audioholics story is a misrepresentation. Audioholics, anyone, can speculate all the want about how evil I might be and what they think actually happened — but referring to what I wrote, and quoting “unbelievable” in their writer’s context rather than mine, is a misrepresentation of what I wrote.
I’ll work on growing a thicker skin
Sincerely, Bill Low/AudioQuest
Let's get this scheduled for Judge Judy. She'll sort the entire mess out
That would be some real mainstream exposure for the niche market of high end audio. I would pay money to see that, and I hate the whole judge Judy thing.
Tempest in a teapot.
It's amazing to me that such an incredibly simple thing gets
misinterpreted by so many.
Here's what happened:
Our SW regional guy, David Ellington walked into our dealer, Home
Entertainment by D-Tronics (NO relation to the Home Entertainment where
Ellington worked 10 years earlier, different entity) to do
various demos at the store. He was surprised to see cameras and said
something to the effect of "are you filming today?". He was told yes, that
the store likes to loop demos in their showrooms so they contract with a
video company to make the videos.
No big deal, another day on the road for David.
Eventually, the video comes out and Bill Low eventually sees it. (I never bothered.) Bill is
bothered by what he's hearing and asks David to verify with the store that
no manipulation of the signal took place. David did this and the store
assured him that what was on the tape was an accurate representation of
what happened.
Bill said something like OK, glad we asked and we moved on to the 100
other things that occupy us daily. With offices in the US, Holland and Hong Kong, and 117 employees we have plenty to keep us busy daily. An independent video of one of our regional guys doing a demo at a store in TX was frankly not a big event on the radar screen around here. These kinds of videos get done all the time. If you go to Youtube, you can find 100s of them. Now, a video that AQ produced, something that was produced at our behest? THAT would have the full attention of our entire marketing department I can assure you.
That’s it, the whole story.
I’m pleased to report that Mark Waldrep has just made a copy of the questionable video available. I suppose I should be suspicious, but I’m not (gee, have I learned nothing from not being suspicious enough a year ago!), though a copy from Amir would still be appreciated if not inconvenient.
Thanks for accepting that I might be a member of the honorable opposition. I have many employees whose political views would make us mortal enemies in some less civilized context, but who are honest honorable people who I am fortunate to be able to employ.
A point about directionality: We believe we now understand the mechanism which I once used as example #1 of why would one ignore a free improvement, regardless of understanding the underlying mechanism. Now that we have an “easily” testable hypothesis (picked-up noise has to follow the path of least resistance), I look forward to having others publish the proof, because I understand that coming from AudioQuest, the “skeptical” will not accept our results.
Way back when, late ’80’s I believe, I had my head in the sand (an unfair inaccurate reference to ostrich behavior). The British audio press was full of acknowledgement of cable directionality, and I didn’t want to hear about it because I didn’t understand it, and it would be a pain-in-the-neck to have to control. Fortunately, a comparison of mechanically different insulation on a stranded speaker cable (harder is unequivocally better, all else being the same, also “easily" testable and provable in the test-equipment domain) alerted me to the unignorability of directionality, because this “undesirable” variable contaminated the insulation comparison — directionality made more difference. AudioQuest started marking spools for direction the next day — not the first or last time I was forced to alter my perspective and respond as immediately as possible.
Sincerely, Bill Low/AudioQuest
PS. I look forward to Amir figuring out how I can make my own posts. I can log in, but I’m not authorized to post, which clearly is by accident, not by intention.
Would be my pleasure to provide it. Its size is 18 megabytes. If you PM me, we can figure out a way to send it to you.
We had a problem with email registrations not going out. We just fixed that. My apologies for that. In the above PM, please give me the alias you created and I can fix it immediately.
Not necessarily. Post your results and how you obtained them. Then anyone with AQ or other cable could repeat the test and measure the difference for themselves. Then your credibility among the skeptical goes up. Or if you are only at the hypothesis stage, put out the hypothesis and others might check on it.
That would be an incorrect assumption. If your testing is well thought out and independently reproducible than you are good to go.
I accept that what is obvious to myself and many others, the audible differences, is not proof to others. I know all that I need to know -- I knew all that I needed to know when I chose to honor directionality over twenty years ago despite not having a clue at the time as to the underlying mechanism. There was a right and a wrong, why ignore a free solution?
I am encouraging those seeking the truth, and not just looking to defend a current point of view, to please, as suggested in esldude's post, do the work to prove for themselves what is already proven to so many who've used their own senses to judge the existence and relevance of the phenomenon -- after all, many things can be easily measured that are not relevant in a given application, so it can be argued that relevance is more fundamental than external measurements.
An interesting irony regarding directionality in drawn metal: Upon learning about and witnessing (hearing) this phenomenon, a supplier of premium conductors worked on trying to eliminate directionality. Probably through even more extreme annealing (my guess), directionality was reduced -- but not to any good effect. Directionality, the very slight difference in impedance in one direction vs. the other at frequencies which are carried almost exclusively near the surface of the conductor, is actually a benefit to be taken advantage of, not a disease to be cured.
May those who are sufficiently motivated and capable, who do hear the difference (which does not include turning around an RCA or XLR cable [which can't be turned around anyway], because such cables only have the shield terminated on one end), please apply themselves to this prove-it challenge. I'm not asking for free help -- I don't need the help, but I fully respect that there are others who also truly care about pushing back the frontier of human ignorance. My role is to apply every technique, fully understood or not, in the service of doing less damage to the music.
Sincerely, Bill Low
Hello Bill Low, glad to see you have your own account here now.
Please note on this particular subforum we like to see measurements. Not go listen for yourself or similar subjective evaluations. (the general forum, cable forum and others here at WBF are the place for that) We know music and sound are always in the end a subjective experience. For some purposes going the measurements route provides clarity and repeatability in ways difficult or impossible to do with simple listening.
Also I am no moderator or anything other than a regular user here. So just pointing out the parameters of this particular sub forum in a friendly way.
Fine, but you seem to want us to believe that analog and digital cables are identical in this regard as to directionality. I see every reason not to believe that for digital, even if it possibly might be true for analog cables. But, if you wish to demonstrate that on digital cables with objective measurements or double-blind listening tests, we would all be glad to consider that point of view. I seek the truth as much as you, as do many others here.
If there is such a difference in impedance, it should be measurable. A pointer to some actual measurements would help your case here.
There has been research done on the molecular structure of drawn wire, basically it ends up forming a chevron type structure which is asymmetrical. Considering a perfect crystal structure (UPOCC wire) makes for a wire that has measurably better conductivity, about 103% IACS for ETP copper wire or 3% better conductivity vs regular copper wire, it should be no surprise that wire with an asymmetrical crystal structure would have directional properties.
Well AC signals tend to flow electrons in both directions. So in what manner does this directionality show up in the signal?
It depends if there is DC bias, but in any case the signal is the wave propagation, not the movement of electrons. The wave moves at some large fraction of the speed of light, electrons move very slowly.
Opinion is not proof however. Especially since we are in the strict territory of digital signaling.
I've ordered in the past both King Cobra XLR's and Vodka RJE.
There are two problems with this as I understand things to be: The signal is AC so it travels in both directions and skin effect isn't an issue at wavelengths we can hear.
Please understand this is where I reasonably get upset with a cabling outfit such as yourself. You are supposed to be a material expert in this regard. XLR can certainly be 'turned around':
With all due respect I believe you do.
Then I have a suggestion. You seem to be full up to the hip in the idea of cable directionality as it pertains to even Ethernet cabling.
Let's put together a measurement system using your trained listener.
I'll provide a Cisco switch, client computer, server computer, J-River Media player. You supply everything downstream of the USB port on the computer.
That is USB cable, DAC, line level cables, amp, speakers and music.
On the computer / switch side of things I'll provide a total of 4 (four) Vodka RJE. Two flowing one direction, two the other direction. The switch and computers will be setup in LAG mode.
What this means is that while music is playing the two different directionals can be changed without interruption to the music play back. This scenario is common in data centers (and my home
) to ensure that a failure of a NIC doesn't stop operations. Traffic just fails over to another NIC with out interruption.If your trained listener can hit a successful 14/15 possible changes of the cable then I will donate $2000 to a charity of your choosing and I've also purchased $1400 in cabling from AQ.
If your listener can't hit it then you donate $2000 to a charity of my choosing, indemnify my cost of the cables, and take care of my air fare.
This would be single blind and the listener wouldn't know what cable is currently in play. I'll do the switching but by all means have an AQ rep with me. I even recommend shooting video.
Let me know when you would like to proceed. I have the mid of March available to me. Figure just a single day. In the meantime all the details can be worked out here in thread as to be transparent and open process for all to participate in and give feedback, critique, suggestions.
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I am lost here Dave, care to elaborate? In what way the wave propagation is unidirectional? And what about DC bias? On signal wires? It could be you are talking about the DC bias some cables company have been selling on their wares? In what measurable ways does such bias modify the electrical characteristics of said cables?
At the end we can cling to tenuous possibilities. I am Ok with (but have not , yet, proven of) the audibility of (some) differences in cables) but cannot just take these as proof for directionality , even less in Ethernet cables which I use in my work everyday (IT integration company and we have put together some Data Centers)...
In our hobby there has been some spectacular tales of audibility which disappear under the littlest amount of scrutiny . Extraordinary claims such as the directionality of an Ethernet cable ( and of Audio Cable in general) deserves much more than speculations. especially in this part of the Forum. It is one thing to claim incredible feat of auditory acuity . In video it is much easier to verify. Stop the video, take picture. measure and compare. A very easy test to perform and not even requiring the dreaded (by many audiophiles) Double Blind protocol.
First, thank you esldude for your kind reminder as to nature of this sub-forum. I am expecting this post to be the last one before a probably swan song.
Thank you Jinjuku for the engagement and the respect ... though, you and so many others seem to not actually have read what I've written about directionality. Maybe a case of expectation bias?
Most significant, I have never claimed that the signal is directional, whether analog or digital (actually, there is only analog, digital is the information conveyed through an analog medium, but as a history major, I'm not the one to be explaining this as well as the tale can be told). In the past I didn't even posit a mechanism for directionality, though I never believed that it was the signal which was directional.
Multiple decades ago, Charlie Hanson (the creator and designer of Ayre Acoustics and definitely one of the most brilliant minds and most capable engineers the audio world has benefited from) and I mused together about directionality. We both had noted that all conductors, positive and negative, needed to run in the same direction. We had both noted that while conductor direction was consistent between low level components, to the power amp, and on to the speaker, that if the same metal is used for an AC cable, the direction was instead of to-the-speaker, that the correct direction for an AC cable was to-the-wall.
We had both noticed that the sonic signature of a cable in the incorrect direction was similar to the sound of the type of active circuit misbehavior that's often the result of EMI. Charlie made reference to the benefit of a cable being used in the correct direction as being "akin to diode rectification." Charlie is very, very careful with his words -- he said "akin to", not "because of" (!), so please don't get distracted by why diode rectification in a conductor is impossible. Charlie is a polymath, and he's also a totally no-room-for-BS engineer -- but Charlie the scientist also enjoyed pondering the empirical evidence, not looking to disprove the empirical evidence. Something Charlie had observed only tickled him, because evidence of the frontier of knowledge tickles a scientist.
About the mechanics of testing for directionality, whether using ears or other devices, because if the experiment is done without sufficient respect for the possibility of an unexpected outcome, the experiment itself might well be fatally flawed, as is the case with two of the methodologies described:
Almost all single-ended audio interconnect cables are twisted-pair with a shield only connected on one end. Such a cable cannot be turned around for the purpose of investigating directionality without reterminating the shield, full stop -- and, as the shield dumps far more RF garbage on the end it's connected to than either end of the ground conductor, an unshielded cable, or simply the shield not terminated at either end, is required for any valid test of conductor directionality.
AudioQuest cable models which are available with XLR plugs, never conform to the diagram shown in Jinjuku's post. This is (I believe, I certainly tried) described very clearly in all written materials about AQ balanced cables, on the cable's box and on our website. The shield is never used as a conductor. All AQ cables with XLRs have 3 conductors plus a shield, which is only connected at one end. One would have to reterminate both ends, more than once because the first retermination would not be the equivalent of the cold-weld (or resistance-weld in the past) by which AQ terminates cables.
Because directionality is "all about noise" (as my ad headline says, which has even been posted on some cable-fight forums this week, though of course not read by everyone), connecting more than one cable (or stereo pair for analog) between chassis voids the experiment. This is about as good an example as the subjectivists could ever hope for of how tests "disproving" what they know are rigged, of course not always intentionally -- though they might justifiably suspect that working towards a desired outcome prevented truly trying to isolate all variables to the extent awareness and technology allow. "Proving" that signal is not directional is not a test of whether conductor directionality exists or not.
Whatever an expert can or cannot measure with test gear, or whatever a listener can or cannot hear, I think can be best facilitated by a single cable, usable for S/P-DIF or analog (only some not-power dependent USB gear will even work with such an out-of spec not-a-USB cable). I recommend testing be done using two uninsulated and unshielded solid conductors (so as not to be concerned that not all strands run the same direction, the two solid conductors having been cut from a single conductor so that their relative direction is known), with identical plugs attached in the same manner, on both ends. This one wire, when tested, needs to be turned one way, and turned the other. Our experience is that directionality, as determined by using bare conductors, always yields a similar benefit for USB, Ethernet, HDMI, S/P-DIF, AES/EBU, FireWire, AC cable and analog.
For optical, directionality can be observed, but at present I am of the impression that this is due to slight variation in the angle and polish and excess glue, etc. in the termination process -- though I do not know enough to completely rule out that fiber-optic manufacture might not introduce some asymmetry in the impurities which scatter light, contributing to a smearing of the same data across time. There is partial correlation between dB loss figures and resulting audio performance in single-fiber Toslink cables -- however, our best Toslink cables have far more loss because there is less surface area for a multi-fiber cable. The improvement in a higher-loss multi-fiber cable is very simple, and one of the few times that a visualization tells the whole story. The enemy is not amplitude, it is dispersion over time due to the incoherence of the light source (an LED, not a laser), and so the smaller aperture of each fiber in a multi-fiber cable benefits from the reduced size of the aperture in a manner similar to how a pin-hole camera doesn't need a lens.
Definitely a stretch as an analogy, and a subject which is unbelievably and sadly political, climate change. Well of course the climate is changing, it always has. One of those long term changes is in precipitation per year. The top of Kilimanjaro is always below freezing. None of the loss of snow and ice atop Kilimanjaro is due to warming, natural or accelerated by man -- the loss is due to sublimation taking away more of the snow than new precipitation restores. Does this reality, and that it makes those who use the declining snow on Kilimanjaro as a poster-child for man caused climate look like liars, mean that therefor climate change is a lie?
No, in most cases, the "perpetrator" doesn't know about sublimation, sort of like not knowing that noise, not signal is at the core of directionality. And, while the claim that the snows of Kilimanjaro are melting is false, like the D-Tronics video that's the point of this thread is false, that doesn't mean that climate change isn't real, or that cables differences don't exist.
To DaveC: Thank you for mentioning As-Cast metals, and that amorphous materials are a different species. In the more fleshed out version of my discussion of directionality, I specifically mention the difference between As-Cast and drawn metals.
To FratzM: I cannot comment on the charged-ground system used by Synergistics, which some people have confused with my dielectric-biasing system, but I can explain that the DC potential applied to many AudioQuest cables is only a DC potential, not a current, and that as such (a not-changing electrostatic field), there is no intermodulation with the metal conductor, or with the signal. The reduction in distortion is only due to better forming the cable's dielectric, reducing the time-smearing caused by the fact that from one perspective, a cable is just a long capacitor.
And in case this is my swan song for non-measured results on this sub-forum, I want to reply to those who have speculated that it was easy to sell analog cables, but difficult to sell digital cables -- because the truth is very much the opposite. My theory is that in the analog domain, the people who didn't want there to be difference, that once they heard a difference, they acted on or dismissed what they heard as being simply LCR (even when many of the different cables had identical LCR) -- but in the digital domain, when people are surprised by what they do hear, they are much less likely to have a fall back position. They seem more likely to resort to accusations of inadequate listening methodology (which is a real problem on all sides), or they take on a scientist's perspective -- not meaning that they go on a scientific quest, but that they act on the empirical evidence as available and appropriate for them. This has also fortunately meant that many manufacturers with expertise in other areas, who were always cautious about cable recommendations and the politics of brand distribution, have to an astonishing degree made a point of demonstrating their own gear with AQ cables, and sometimes strongly recommending that their dealers do the same. We never had it so comparatively easy before digital.
That some of the designers of some of the world's best audio products recommend the cheapest HDMI or Ethernet cable, or any speaker wire of sufficient AWG, etc., only shows that there is disagreement within the audio community. There always was, and there always will be. Diversity is one of the most fundamental strengths of civilization.
Thank you, Bill Low
Thank you Jinjuku for the engagement and the respect ... though, you and so many others seem to not actually have read what I've written about directionality. Maybe a case of expectation bias?
Most significant, I have never claimed that the signal is directional, whether analog or digital (actually, there is only analog, digital is the information conveyed through an analog medium, but as a history major, I'm not the one to be explaining this as well as the tale can be told). In the past I didn't even posit a mechanism for directionality, though I never believed that it was the signal which was directional.
Multiple decades ago, Charlie Hanson (the creator and designer of Ayre Acoustics and definitely one of the most brilliant minds and most capable engineers the audio world has benefited from) and I mused together about directionality. We both had noted that all conductors, positive and negative, needed to run in the same direction. We had both noted that while conductor direction was consistent between low level components, to the power amp, and on to the speaker, that if the same metal is used for an AC cable, the direction was instead of to-the-speaker, that the correct direction for an AC cable was to-the-wall.
We had both noticed that the sonic signature of a cable in the incorrect direction was similar to the sound of the type of active circuit misbehavior that's often the result of EMI. Charlie made reference to the benefit of a cable being used in the correct direction as being "akin to diode rectification." Charlie is very, very careful with his words -- he said "akin to", not "because of" (!), so please don't get distracted by why diode rectification in a conductor is impossible. Charlie is a polymath, and he's also a totally no-room-for-BS engineer -- but Charlie the scientist also enjoyed pondering the empirical evidence, not looking to disprove the empirical evidence. Something Charlie had observed only tickled him, because evidence of the frontier of knowledge tickles a scientist.
About the mechanics of testing for directionality, whether using ears or other devices, because if the experiment is done without sufficient respect for the possibility of an unexpected outcome, the experiment itself might well be fatally flawed, as is the case with two of the methodologies described:
Almost all single-ended audio interconnect cables are twisted-pair with a shield only connected on one end. Such a cable cannot be turned around for the purpose of investigating directionality without reterminating the shield, full stop -- and, as the shield dumps far more RF garbage on the end it's connected to than either end of the ground conductor, an unshielded cable, or simply the shield not terminated at either end, is required for any valid test of conductor directionality.
AudioQuest cable models which are available with XLR plugs, never conform to the diagram shown in Jinjuku's post. This is (I believe, I certainly tried) described very clearly in all written materials about AQ balanced cables, on the cable's box and on our website. The shield is never used as a conductor. All AQ cables with XLRs have 3 conductors plus a shield, which is only connected at one end. One would have to reterminate both ends, more than once because the first retermination would not be the equivalent of the cold-weld (or resistance-weld in the past) by which AQ terminates cables.
Because directionality is "all about noise" (as my ad headline says, which has even been posted on some cable-fight forums this week, though of course not read by everyone), connecting more than one cable (or stereo pair for analog) between chassis voids the experiment. This is about as good an example as the subjectivists could ever hope for of how tests "disproving" what they know are rigged, of course not always intentionally -- though they might justifiably suspect that working towards a desired outcome prevented truly trying to isolate all variables to the extent awareness and technology allow. "Proving" that signal is not directional is not a test of whether conductor directionality exists or not.
Whatever an expert can or cannot measure with test gear, or whatever a listener can or cannot hear, I think can be best facilitated by a single cable, usable for S/P-DIF or analog (only some not-power dependent USB gear will even work with such an out-of spec not-a-USB cable). I recommend testing be done using two uninsulated and unshielded solid conductors (so as not to be concerned that not all strands run the same direction, the two solid conductors having been cut from a single conductor so that their relative direction is known), with identical plugs attached in the same manner, on both ends. This one wire, when tested, needs to be turned one way, and turned the other. Our experience is that directionality, as determined by using bare conductors, always yields a similar benefit for USB, Ethernet, HDMI, S/P-DIF, AES/EBU, FireWire, AC cable and analog.
For optical, directionality can be observed, but at present I am of the impression that this is due to slight variation in the angle and polish and excess glue, etc. in the termination process -- though I do not know enough to completely rule out that fiber-optic manufacture might not introduce some asymmetry in the impurities which scatter light, contributing to a smearing of the same data across time. There is partial correlation between dB loss figures and resulting audio performance in single-fiber Toslink cables -- however, our best Toslink cables have far more loss because there is less surface area for a multi-fiber cable. The improvement in a higher-loss multi-fiber cable is very simple, and one of the few times that a visualization tells the whole story. The enemy is not amplitude, it is dispersion over time due to the incoherence of the light source (an LED, not a laser), and so the smaller aperture of each fiber in a multi-fiber cable benefits from the reduced size of the aperture in a manner similar to how a pin-hole camera doesn't need a lens.
Definitely a stretch as an analogy, and a subject which is unbelievably and sadly political, climate change. Well of course the climate is changing, it always has. One of those long term changes is in precipitation per year. The top of Kilimanjaro is always below freezing. None of the loss of snow and ice atop Kilimanjaro is due to warming, natural or accelerated by man -- the loss is due to sublimation taking away more of the snow than new precipitation restores. Does this reality, and that it makes those who use the declining snow on Kilimanjaro as a poster-child for man caused climate look like liars, mean that therefor climate change is a lie?
No, in most cases, the "perpetrator" doesn't know about sublimation, sort of like not knowing that noise, not signal is at the core of directionality. And, while the claim that the snows of Kilimanjaro are melting is false, like the D-Tronics video that's the point of this thread is false, that doesn't mean that climate change isn't real, or that cables differences don't exist.
To DaveC: Thank you for mentioning As-Cast metals, and that amorphous materials are a different species. In the more fleshed out version of my discussion of directionality, I specifically mention the difference between As-Cast and drawn metals.
To FratzM: I cannot comment on the charged-ground system used by Synergistics, which some people have confused with my dielectric-biasing system, but I can explain that the DC potential applied to many AudioQuest cables is only a DC potential, not a current, and that as such (a not-changing electrostatic field), there is no intermodulation with the metal conductor, or with the signal. The reduction in distortion is only due to better forming the cable's dielectric, reducing the time-smearing caused by the fact that from one perspective, a cable is just a long capacitor.
And in case this is my swan song for non-measured results on this sub-forum, I want to reply to those who have speculated that it was easy to sell analog cables, but difficult to sell digital cables -- because the truth is very much the opposite. My theory is that in the analog domain, the people who didn't want there to be difference, that once they heard a difference, they acted on or dismissed what they heard as being simply LCR (even when many of the different cables had identical LCR) -- but in the digital domain, when people are surprised by what they do hear, they are much less likely to have a fall back position. They seem more likely to resort to accusations of inadequate listening methodology (which is a real problem on all sides), or they take on a scientist's perspective -- not meaning that they go on a scientific quest, but that they act on the empirical evidence as available and appropriate for them. This has also fortunately meant that many manufacturers with expertise in other areas, who were always cautious about cable recommendations and the politics of brand distribution, have to an astonishing degree made a point of demonstrating their own gear with AQ cables, and sometimes strongly recommending that their dealers do the same. We never had it so comparatively easy before digital.
That some of the designers of some of the world's best audio products recommend the cheapest HDMI or Ethernet cable, or any speaker wire of sufficient AWG, etc., only shows that there is disagreement within the audio community. There always was, and there always will be. Diversity is one of the most fundamental strengths of civilization.
Thank you, Bill Low
No I totally get directionality as it pertains to shielded cable systems. Especially noisy industrial environments. For me it's been heavy manufacturing.
To date I've conservatively architected and installed about 150 miles of structured cabling.
Directionality as far as grain structure of drawn copper is something else. Something that as far as I'm aware of has zero scientific literature as to preference and audibility.
XLR cable doesn't need an additional shield. It's -/+ and shield/drain wire to ground. It's the standard. What you are doing is not to spec and not needed. I've installed 250 foot runs for Mic's at venues seating 3000 and zero noise problems.
Why are you placing words in my mouth that I never uttered. This is a data driven design. The data is the data. It is what it is.
Ethernet isn't singled ended!
So I'm proposing a test/evaluation methodology with $2000 to a well deserving charity. A method where, to use your own words, " dumps far more RF garbage on the end it's connected to" works in your decided favor and you still won't step up?
Either I'm the idiot or you are in this scenario.
So you have yet another cable that won't meet spec in addition to your Vodka RJE's?
Link to the spec: www.kirkeo.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/node15/aes48-2005-f.pdf
Which for Ethernet delivered audio isn't even an issue since all connections can be removed without interruption in play back. In this demonstration you will see ALL network interfaces drop. They drop because all Ethernet cables are unplugged. So that's another leg knocked out from your chair you are standing on.
So my testing rig is still solid by your own very good point.
Post Edit:
Sentence deleted
Trolling and inflammatory. This won't be tolerated again
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