Why!? Please Tell Me Why!

[GUTB]

3 minutes ago, Speedskater said:

From a flow diagram this is completely correct. DC power, AC power and signals all flow from source to load.  However this description won't fit into Maxwell's Field/Network Theory or Ohm's/Kirchhoff's Circuit Theory's. So if we are going to discuss how an interconnect system works rather than what it accomplishes, we need to use one of those two theories and Circuit Theory is a lot more convent to this type of discussion.

 

I'm willing to discuss theory, its just that conspiracy theories about manufacturers and press fooling audiophiles are hard to tackle.

[Solstice380]

Damn how I hated Thevenin circuit analysis in EE101.  And most of my career ended up being in electronics in some way.

[Daverz]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

 

I'm willing to discuss theory, its just that conspiracy theories about manufacturers and press fooling audiophiles are hard to tackle.

 

No conspiracies among manufacturers and the press are necessary.  Upton Sinclair explained this decades ago: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

[PleasantSounds]

10 hours ago, Summit said:

 

An audio signal is a flow of electricity!!

 

What do you think the audio signal consist of if not a flows of electricity? Why use a bigger amp to drive insensitive speakers if not because they can output more power, current and voltage?

 

Then how do you explain radio?

[marce]

8 hours ago, Albrecht said:

The thread is a troll....  There has been a lot of discussion surrounding all sorts of things in this thread. For heaven's sake, don't add fuel to trolls, and stay out of discussions of things that you don't know anything about....

What like getting signals down wires and traces....

[jabbr]

13 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

I'm willing to discuss theory, its just that conspiracy theories about manufacturers and press fooling audiophiles are hard to tackle.

 

As long as manufacturers and press stick to subjective impressions there is a lot of latitude in the prose descriptions than are reasonable. Peoples opinions are their opinions. People hear what they hear and like what they like. 

 

When writing uses  technical language then it becomes subject to technical criticisms. Kind of like when I tried to help my teenage daughter with her math homework — she’s a great writer and debater — but math is math. She tried to argue with me about the answers. Similarly in physics, there are definitions and equations. Statements that you might read as sounding very reasonable become totally ridiculous if the rules of Physics are employed. You know the Maxwells equations and all the other equations. SPICE and the other modeling software etc.

 

No conspiracy theories.

[Speedskater]

15 hours ago, GUTB said:

I'm willing to discuss theory, its just that conspiracy theories about manufacturers and press fooling audiophiles are hard to tackle.

Why do you think that there is a conspiracy theory involved?  Each has their own vested interest reasons for supporting audiophile myths.

[Summit]

12 hours ago, PleasantSounds said:

 

Then how do you explain radio?

 

Okay, radio, is a method of transmitting electrical energy from one place to another without using any wired connection, so it work very different than sending the audio signal with a speaker cable. The equipment that sends out a radio wave is called a transmitter and the equipment that receive the signal is called a receiver.

 

Radio waves consist of electromagnetic energy, which is a combination of electricity and magnetism. Radio waves have a speed, length, and frequency. The speed is how fast the wave travels between two places. The wavelength is the distance between one wave peak (crest) and the next peak. Frequency is the arrival rate each second, measured in (M)Hz.

 

A radio wavelength is normally hundreds of meters whereas their frequency can be millions of hertz, meaning that millions of waves arrive each second. Radio waves are ultra-fast and travel by the speed of light, 300 000 km per second.

[Sal1950]

On 4/26/2018 at 10:37 AM, mordante said:

Better would be to remove religion and sports from education.

Can't agree with that but way past time we removed college scholarships for how will you can throw a football or make a basket. Scholarships should be given for academic achievements only. In school kids should be encouraged to learn, not train for the slight possibility they'll make it to pro sports.

[PleasantSounds]

12 hours ago, Summit said:

 

Okay, radio, is a method of transmitting electrical energy from one place to another without using any wired connection, so it work very different than sending the audio signal with a speaker cable. The equipment that sends out a radio wave is called a transmitter and the equipment that receive the signal is called a receiver.

 

Radio waves consist of electromagnetic energy, which is a combination of electricity and magnetism. Radio waves have a speed, length, and frequency. The speed is how fast the wave travels between two places. The wavelength is the distance between one wave peak (crest) and the next peak. Frequency is the arrival rate each second, measured in (M)Hz.

 

A radio wavelength is normally hundreds of meters whereas their frequency can be millions of hertz, meaning that millions of waves arrive each second. Radio waves are ultra-fast and travel by the speed of light, 300 000 km per second.

 

OK so you cleverly manipulated electricity into the EM waves. Let's leave it at that.

But there are also other media: for example you can transmit audio signal over a piece of rope, or in the end through the air. 

If audio signal was just a flow of electricity and nothing else,  you'd have to plug electrodes in your  ears to hear anything...

 

[marce]

3 hours ago, PleasantSounds said:

 

OK so you cleverly manipulated electricity into the EM waves. Let's leave it at that.

 

 

Just one point, electricity is EM Waves.

Made some tin can headphones, years ago, a large tomato tin (commercial) to catch the sound and two normal cans on a frame for the headphones!!! Sound quality was probably not audiophile and the mechanics of keeping the strings taught whilst minimising vibration attenuation required some large frame work. It started off over one of the kids home-work projects and just expanded. It was cool though listening to string based audio. It was Heath Robinson in the extreme.

Interestingly we probably have Edison to blame for all this for finding a way to record vibrations in a medium...

I would say an Audio Signal is just Good Vibrations

[Summit]

3 hours ago, PleasantSounds said:

 

OK so you cleverly manipulated electricity into the EM waves. Let's leave it at that.

But there are also other media: for example you can transmit audio signal over a piece of rope, or in the end through the air. 

If audio signal was just a flow of electricity and nothing else,  you'd have to plug electrodes in your  ears to hear anything...

 

 

You can’t listen to an (electrical) audio signal directly. The audio signal needs to be transformed in to sound wave by a transducer (I.e. driver/woofer) for us to hear it. A loudspeaker or headphones job is to convert electrical signals in to sound.

 

Most loudspeakers operates by the same principle as a microphone, but in reverse. A microphone is a transducer that converts sound waves into an electrical signal while a loudspeaker has one or more transducers that converts the electrical signal into sound.

 

Transmitting audio over a piece of rope works by completely different principals and mechanisms and the SQ is really poor   

[mansr]

1 hour ago, Summit said:

The audio signal needs to be transformed in to sound wave by a transducer (I.e. driver/woofer) for us to hear it.

A sound wave is a type of audio signal.

[vmartell22]

11 hours ago, mansr said:

A sound wave is a type of audio signal.

Ok  - not sure how we got into this - in this context (audio devices) an "audio signal" is actually an electrical signal with sound information encoded in it. 

 

An a sound wave is that you speakers generate (when a device decodes that audio signal) or what excites you microphone to generate an electrical signal...

 

To call a sound wave an audio signal is confusing at best - and not a common practice in this context (audio devices)

 

Oh well... cable debates of any nature always end up really weird after the first 15 pages... then they die down... then we start again with another thread... 

 

 

v

 

[Ralf11]

what we really need is A Mathematical Theory of Communication

[gmgraves]

13 minutes ago, vmartell22 said:

Ok  - not sure how we got into this - in this context (audio devices) an "audio signal" is actually an electrical signal with sound information encoded in it. 

Except that it's not "encoded" at all! An audio signal is simply a voltage that varies at an alternating audio rate. It's that simple. 

[vmartell22]

1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

Except that it's not "encoded" at all! An audio signal is simply a voltage that varies at an alternating audio rate. It's that simple. 

 

Well, that is encoding - we are expressing information using a different medium - you are thinking of encoding in the CS sense. But I do think we agree - so will leave it at that !

 

 

v

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

An audio signal is simply a voltage that varies at an alternating audio rate.

Or a current, light intensity, pressure, mechanical displacement, or just about any physical property. Or an analogue or digital modulation of a carrier signal of any of the above forms.

[fas42]

A communication system, well, communicates ... an old style telephone call from the other side of the world can communicate that Beethoven's 9th is happening, in some fashion, at the "transmission" end ... what the fuss is about is how accurate that communication needs to be, to satisfy various people ...

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Or a current, light intensity, pressure, mechanical displacement, or just about any physical property. Or an analogue or digital modulation of a carrier signal of any of the above forms.

Well, yes, but I was addressing vmartell22's specific statement about the nature of an audio signal!

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Well, yes, but I was addressing vmartell22's specific statement about the nature of an audio signal!

As was I. A signal does not have to be in any way electrical.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, mansr said:

As was I. A signal does not have to be in any way electrical.

Is there some way that we could make these exchanges a little more pedantic and persnickety? They aren't nearly there yet!

[ralphfcooke]

Well, as far as I can see, no-one has introduced quantum in the thread yet.

[Allan F]

10 hours ago, ralphfcooke said:

Well, as far as I can see, no-one has introduced quantum in the thread yet.

That would require a quantum leap in the tone of the discussion.

[Ralf11]

https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.02685