I once had an "audiophile" sales person in a showroom almost hit me in anger, after confronting him on his loudspeaker cables that had arrows on them pointing out which way the cable should be connected to sound best.
As any EE knows from linear elements course A, a linear two-port network is reciprocal. If it is not reciprocal it is not linear.
The simple conclusion is that if it matters how you orient the cable, then it has distorsion.
Treating the cable as a two-port network is oversimplifying the system by ignoring that audio cables often (undesirably) act as antennas.
Directional cables have the shield disconnected at one end to ensure there is no LF current path through the shield, thus minimizing mains hum picked up by high-impedance instruments.
Of course, balanced cables (where the shield is exactly a shield, and not also a signal path) do not have this problem.
I would hope someone who did datacenter cabling would be able to explain that the color coding system has a meaning to humans and not to the electronics in a calm and coherent manner to an honest inquiry.
Additionally, labels on datacenter cabling tends to be less cryptic like "DCX-IN-FQP_9".
Maybe. But if a smartass comes in to where I work and tells me how wrong I am based on their shallow understanding of the domain I am likely to become frustrated.
Jesperwe said they confronted this salesperson about the cables. They then lectured the salesperson on theory. There’s no indication a question was asked with an honest desire for the answer.
When a conversation becomes a confrontation nuance is the first casualty. Jesperwe and the salesperson may have been participating in completely different conversations from their perspectives. Without more information I can’t draw a further conclusion beyond jesperwe participating in (or instigating!) a confrontation with a retail salesperson.
I had hoped that my last sentence made it clear that this was all meant to be the same kind of engagement with the ridiculous premise that occurred in the linked article, but you seemed to take it earnestly.
As any EE knows from linear elements course A, a linear two-port network is reciprocal. If it is not reciprocal it is not linear.
The simple conclusion is that if it matters how you orient the cable, then it has distorsion.