"Ban" wrote in message
...
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.

This is what I was referring to with the "ask an amp guy" line. And may
perhaps explain why beefing up the ground connections to a loudspeaker
driver tends to improve overall damping properties.


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

Thanks for the informative reply.

I now realize that I had given the wrong impression in this thread in that I
never intended to imply that there was any kind of voo-doo involved, only
that electrical conduction is more that just connecting the dots and
measuring the impedance factors between those dots. I was not under the
impression that electrical conduction was actually measureable at this level
yet. Thanks for the input. A few questions if I may about your reply and
your field of study as it pertains to mine.

I have heard that paying attention to the pathway length (or overall mass of
a pathway) of certain areas of an amplifier circuit make audible
differences. In particular, grounding at certain areas and also important
current sensitive areas. An example would be how distributed are the ground
pathways throughout the circuit. This is really what I was implying, that
the "style" of laying out the PCB also lends a hand in things. Do you
believe this is true then or hogwash. I guess what I'm asking is if all the
dots are connected, is this enough, or do you have to pay special attention
to how they are connected to optimize results?

Second, from your perspective, do you believe that reducing significant
electrical transmission loss improves the transduction process in an EMF
setting such as a standard electro magnetic loudspeaker?

Wessel