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RE: True ...

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andyr

M

In Reply to: RE: TG Audio speaker cables and directionality posted by geoffkait on May 18, 2022 at 16:43:00

If as you say, Geoff, the electrical signal going down the wires is AC ... so the current actually reverses - then I agree with your last paragraph.

However, yes I believe that - since the music signal is AC - the voltage at the +ve spkr terminal keeps changing from +ve to -ve and back to +ve ... but I can't make the mental jump to believing that this causes the current to change direction.

Andy

Follow Ups:

Man and woman - geoffkait 13:11:07 05/23/22 (0)
The current and voltage are both calculated OR measured numbers. They don't reverse direction since they are scalar quantities. Think of the two wires + and - like man and woman. You can't get a baby without both man and woman, right, they both carry different but complementary parts of the baby's DNA. Same with the two wires in the AC circuit, they each provide exactly half of the audio waveform as alternating electric field.
OK, here is the real lowdown - geoffkait 16:09:18 05/19/22 (0)
The trick is seeing that the "electrical signal" IS the "music signal." Actually I should say it's the alternating electric field e part of the "electrical signal" that interacts with the permanent magnet on the speaker diaphragm, thus producing the entire waveform - each wire + and - transmits half the waveform as *alternating electric fields*. There are also alternating magnetic fields m. These fields e and m are produced by the moving charges (electrons) that wiggle to and fro on the + and - wires. One wire handles the push, while the other handles the pull. If you accidentally reverse + and - wires on the speaker terminals you will reverse polarity of that speaker.
The voltage is also a calculated number and has no direction, it's also a scalar quantity, like current. Neither one is a vector.
The amount of current - which is a calculated number - is a function of how many electrons can travel x distance so obviously thicker wire can support higher currents. It's a little misleading to call the speaker cable or any circuit AC since current is a calculated number, current doesn't alternate, it has no direction. It should be called alternating electron circuit. I have refrained from getting into power density and Poynting vectors as that unnecessarily complicates things. Although the e and m fields are associated with the Poynting vector.
So, it takes both wires + and minus to make the system work, they are not a signal wire and a return wire as Bob Crump stated. There is no "audio signal" or "music signal" other than the e field part of the electromagnetic wave. The speaker cable is acting like a push-pull force that moves the speaker diaphragm in and out according to the "audio waveform" generate by the amps.
This description of how the "audio signal" is transmitted over speaker cables implies that for best results orient both wires such that their best sounding direction is toward the speakers. You can forget about the electrons traveling in the opposite direction. But you don't have the two wires oriented opposite to each other as Bob indicated. That defeats the purpose of controlling directionality of the wire off the big spool.

Edits: 05/19/22 05/19/22 05/19/22

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