Wessel Dirksen wrote:
My position is based on a wealth of experience
where the intangable "that could never be the case" factor seems to
regularly make very obvious audible differences that can't reliably
be measured with test sines, chirps, noise etc, but can be "measured"
with normal music which much more complex. (usually it is very
obvious after you improve multiple intangables) I believe that we
don't accurately know what's going at the level of electron flow
through wire or any conductor. Ask an amp guy. They will tell you
that PCB design is also very weird in this way.

Any amp guys out there?

Wessel,
I have been designing PCBs for a long while and I have to tell you, there is
no black magic involved. To make a good design it is essential to understand
the circuit perfectly and to analyze the current flow from/to the source to
each consumer(sink). This is not easy, and most people forget to observe the
most important thing: the flow back in the ground line to the supply.

It has nothing to do with "levels" in fact no levels exist. And electrons
are *not* comparable to water molecules or whatever you imagine, because
they have no mass and they are *small*. They will not form eddies on corners
or jumps in diameter as hydraulics or gasses, (even if there is an "eddy
current", which is caused by an electromagnetic field like all current
flow). In fact the flowing electrons distribute evenly and smooth in the
conductor, because they repel themselves mutually, unless we have very high
frequencies(skin-effect). Electromagnetic fields will govern the flow
absolutly.

Even if there is no current flow, all electrons are already continuously
moving according to their temperature at a very high speed and not only
that, they are also "jumping" instantanously. All these things can be
measured and calculated.

All properties of a conductor can be measured precisely and put into
numbers, the transmission-line theory covers even very high frequency
behaviour (irrelevant for audio).
--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy