The Contour System – Directional Wiring of Audio Parts


Hi guys!

The topic is about subjective homemade research of conductors directivity. I know most people don't believe in such phenomena so probably the story is not for them but for those who find it unbearable to listen to imperfect sound of chaotically directed wires and components.
As for me, I hear direction difference distinctly. The matter started from interconnect cables quite long ago, after a while I added to my research inner wiring of loudspeakers, then discover the importance of mains cables direction. After all I decided to find the directions of all the wires and components of my pretty vintage DIY tube mono SE amp and after everything had been done I drew a resulting schematic and wrote the article. It was in 2005, I have translated it in English only now. Hope you will find the article useful or just enjoy it.
Here is the Link: https://www.backtomusic.ru/audio-engineering/theory/contour-system.
anton_stepichev
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?
What part of
If you can't hear it then it doesn't matter. To you.

do you not understand?


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?
@Millercarbon
Once having done all the work to map and sort you probably could build an amp that would far outperform what anyone would be able to get from the same parts any other way. Have you built complete amps for sale? Or is this more of an intellectual pursuit?

Thanks for the good, Millercarbon.
I make no amps or anything else for sale, all this is just intellectual pursuit, as you said.


@russ69
I must admit I have trouble hearing directional changes. How does that mater on an AC circuit?

Perhaps you need to enable some logic here. Directivity is detected in electrical circuits with AC and no current at all (think of tube grid). Starting from here for a well educated radio engineer there are only two logical moves:
- There is no directivity at all.
- Directivity is a property of conductors that has only an indirect relation to electromagnetism and acoustics. When we listen to music, along with acoustic vibrations, we feel some accompanying vibrations, which, judging by their subjective manifestations stated above, cannot be detected by any measuring devices. It's anything but electricity.

I believe that since quite a lot of people around the world claim that they hear the direction, it does exists. It is also clear that it is not easy for a person to identify this phenomenon against the background of other manifestations of the audio signal from the first time, and sometimes after even many attempts.

If you want to learn how to hear this phenomenon, then I would advise you to build as simple as possible a mono tube amplifier and listen to it through a bare broadband speaker without a housing. Another option is to buy an old tube receiver from the 1930s and use its amp and speaker as a wire tester after removing from it all the parts related to the RF circuits.
On such equipment, the direction can be heard very clearly. Start tests with the speaker cables, listen through them to the music that emotionally affects you the most and at first focus on long tests - more than a minute in one listening session. I am sure that if not immediately, then after a while you will be quite normal to navigate the subtleties of the sound. Many people have come this way, and so have I.