As far as unidirectional cabling which is mentioned, I respond thus:
Why would one use a unidirectional cable (no such thing really unless it is made of semiconductor material) on a bus (usb) that is NOT unidirectional?
Electrons and holes will flow equally well through a conductor in both directions. Electrons flow from negative to positive and holes which are equal in strength flow from positive to negative. In either case they WILL take the path of least resistance. Cable construction certainly can have ideal frequency ranges due to things such as capacitance and inductance as well as impedance and certainly do have a possibility of affecting things audibly (not to mention exotic speaker cables which blew up some amps final stages) but only a semiconductor or tube can have unidirectional flow, forward biased in one direction (requiring 0.55v to 0.7v to bias depending on material) and reverse biased in the other
When free electrons move from one conductor's atom to the next, they create a hole which moves in the opposite direction with equal force. If it were possible to create a unidirectional conductor which flowed better in one direction, it would quickly cease acting as a conductor since the holes left by the free (valence) electrons thus making the atom positively charged and seeking electrons in the opposite direction would be inhibited. You'd wind up with a bunch of atoms missing free electrons in the valence and this would happen within microseconds of the music starting. Holes should NOT be confused with positrons which are the anti-matter equivalent of electrons. I'm sure some manufacturer will sell some cable in the future for 20,000 dollars per foot which claims to use positronic flow rather than electronic. Oh yeah, and don't touch anything made of antimatter, you'll be obliterated.
I'd rather see people's efforts go more into putting pressure on music companies as it were, to lessen the amount of crappy sounding recordings which are painful instead of misleading marketing and exponential markup for cables and rocks which do nothing. When I was a young man, most of my vinyl sounded mediocre (crappy) compared to my Telarc, MFSL, Direct Disc recordings and such. It has been no different in Digital except the lack of surface noise, ticks and pops and lack of pre-post groove echo creating an artificial sense of perceived depth and "air", yup distortion and coloration. To eliminate the pre and post groove echo would have rendered a 12" recording to hold 6 minutes per side. In Analog, Reel To Reel that was not taken from vinyl was the best medium by far. I also do not forget the tubes with their microphonics and bad output transformers creating euphonic coloration but it is distortion nevertheless. One man's distortion is another man's musicality. A digital recording need not sound like crap and a 16 bit done correctly can sound wonderful. I have CD's from the eighties that sound good. The conversion to analog is where things vary so much not to mention a 16 bit recording should be properly dithered.
