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Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

A few points

Current doesn't flow through wires. Current is a calculated value and is a scalar quantity. It has no direction or speed. So, essentially current is not alternating in an AC circuit. Only the electrons are alternating direction.

Electrons don't "flow" in audio circuits. They wiggle back and forth at very slow speeds, about a meter per hour, and they wiggle back and forth according to the audio waveform so they move on average only about a millionth of an inch at a time. Net velocity of electrons is zero. So you really can't say they're flowing. Electrons are the charge carriers, the current is a function of the number of electrons in a cross section of the wire. When electrons travel on one of the two wires + and - they travel in the opposite direction on the other wire.

The energy that exists outside the wire is not the signal. The energy outside the wire is the electric and magnetic fields, I.e., Poynting vectors. The signal is the electrons. I say it's the electrons because that's what causes the speakers to emit sound ultimately. The electrons moving back and forth in the speaker voice coil on the + and minus wires produce an alternating magnetic field that interacts with the speaker permanent magnet to push and pull the speaker diaphragm back and forth according to the audio waveform transmitted by the amplifier.

Almost everything else is a red herring.


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