The Contour System – Directional Wiring of Audio Parts

Anton - you set out the pass mark, you’ve done lots of work, so what was the result? Is directionality easy to hear as MC says, to the extent of 80-90% correct identification in blind tests?

If I had said “an automatic gearbox is better than a manual, therefore streaming is better than vinyl” you might have had a point. But I didn’t so you don’t.

From the article: “Subjective measurements can be considered reliable if one expert or several experts in a blind test have estimates repeated in, say, 80-90% of cases.”

So that’s the pass mark for directionality having an effect. Any results?

Also, as the Audioholics guy is saying just now on his video, the differences between speaker cables measure at below 0.06dB.  Utterly impossible for the human ear to detect. If one cable to another has so little effect, will turning the same cable around have the 10x greater effect needed for any audible difference to be heard when blind?  Really?

Thanks for posting those links - fascinating.
All subjective I know. To my ears the Youtube version sounds like it is the same as the one found on Qobuz labelled as a hi-res remastering. You can find on Qobuz the same piece without that remastering badge and at red book and when I asked my daughter’s young and very musical ears which of these two she preferred she said the standard res version sounded “fuller and richer”.  She also thought the Youtube copy sounded closest to the hi res badged version we found.  (The youtube was airplayed to the system so was red book). 
We then played the same piece from your website. Sorry to say, the two young faces and my old face in the room screwed up - “yuk”. Nobody liked the noise, nor the sound. One comment was “it sounds ancient and like it’s being played through a sock”. 
Only opinions and everyone has their preferences.  My family is not conditioned to the vinyl sound, for sure. 
But the point must be that when differences between youtube, Qobuz, and masterings, and vinyl copies are so large, how can the tiny effects of wire directionality matter much?  No amount of wire fiddling is going to clean that dull and noisy vinyl...

Don’t think so... let’s see. We listened to the youtube, web-linked, and 2 Qobuz versions of what (as far as I can tell) the same performance. Can’t know for sure.  Each was sent to the same rig by Airplay at 44/16. Three inputs sounded very similar with only my daughter able to claim hearing a distinction between the youtube and Qobuz versions. All of us very easily heard a very substantial difference between them and the uploaded vinyl version. Expressed as a preference, none of us enjoyed listening to that version due to the noise, and the lifelessness (to our ears).  So I did try to talk about inputs, only.  And then wondered if the difference between a recording of a vinyl play and a digital stream can be so great, why are we worrying about wire directionality?

I get it, I really do! For the same sort of reasons, I only build and ride steel-framed bikes - I would never want to own or ride a carbon fibre framed bike. I’m only interested in my sailing boat - I’d never want a jetski. I only brew and drink real ale and I never touch Budweiser or other cold and fizzy synthetic apologies for a proper drink. My car is a manual - an auto just feels wrong. All these are preferences and there are substantial measurable differences between them. In every case the carbon fibre frame is stronger and lighter than the steel; the jet ski is faster and more reliable than the sailboat; the lager is more consistent and thirst-quenching than the ale; the car computer makes better and quicker gear changes than I ever could. No question. Nor is there any question that the digital stream is measurably better in every way than the vinyl; simply much closer to the master than vinyl can ever be, and a difference so great that no wire tweak can get close to addressing it. But like bikes, boats and beers, there’s no accounting for taste.