The Contour System – Directional Wiring of Audio Parts

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.

bluemoondriver you have a very creative, flowery, and expressive literary style, approach, and content but what you have suggested, expressed, and explained is what is known as a "faulty analogy" so I suggest you pursue, explore, and investigate the basics, fundamentals, and foundations of elementary logic.

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.

@bluemoodriver, thanks for your attention to this complicated topic. We need to clarify something about the difference and hierarchy of values in music now.

You talk about the technical characteristics of the surface-noise and frequency response - but the wires and their direction do not affect these things. Only indirectly, when the recording is lively enough to involve you in listening, there is an involuntary effect, when the noise and the frequency response curve seem to recede to the side and stop interfering with listening, and the music comes out to meet you.

A good musical performance has a certain direct message to the soul that practically does not depend on the noise level and the linearity of the frequency response, otherwise no one would have listened to 78 records and CD cassettes before. This is a very subtle substance that is formed during a live performance, consisting of many elusive things - musical intonations and shades. This substance is hierarchically the most valuable part of music, it makes you a music lover, makes you tap your foot to the rhythm or takes you to the clouds. As soon as your perception begins to confidently distinguish it from everything else, you begin to look for only this component of the music in any record. They say in rock, people are looking for the Drive, in jazz - the liberation of the soul, in classical music - voices of angels.

I have been researching this phenomenon for many years, trying to highlight it from the music so that the music will capture you even more. However, the selection of these subtle things almost always occurs at the expense of technical characteristics, it is extremely difficult to combine Hi-Fi and Music itself. So, according to my records, you do not need to judge the technical capabilities of vinyl, you can no problem playback vinyl linearly and without clicks, you just need a new record, an MC cartridge and a standard RIAA preamp.

The potency of the music itself is another matter. My recordings pull out the soul of the artist, he opens up to you much clearer than the options on YouTube. It is at this point that I would like to draw your attention.

So how do you like the singing of Heifetz violin and what about the difference? Perhaps your system is not open enough due to its complexity and the use of AirPlay, try an simplier system. Often Internet recordings sound more lively and clear directly from a mobile phone, no matter how strange it seemed to you.

Anton, "...your perception begins to confidently distinguish it from everything else..."

Differences in SQ can only be confidently distinguished by properly run blind testing.
If you are not testing blind, your results are personal and subjective and therefore not useful.