This should be a good one to follow.
Cable direction. Any bets on how many posts until it unravels?
Cable direction. Any bets on how many posts until it unravels?
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.
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.
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- 70 posts total
Good work. Directionality is easy to hear, even in stranded cables which you point out are never as clear as solid core. However it is so much work to unsolder and reverse wires I have always just left things alone. With fuses however it has been easy to hear with one way obviously better than another. So much so that the first Synergistic Blue fuse I ever tried, I knew within the first minute it was the wrong way! The sound was just as you described, less clear and tonally correct. Reversed, and everything snapped into focus, with incredible detail and beautifully accurate tone and timbre. If there is that much difference in the one inch of a fuse, I can only imagine what can be achieved with everything going the right direction. You say you were able to do this all the way down to the level of tube pins and RCA plugs? Incredible! That is the one thing missing from this very understated low-key article. If the difference I heard from just one inch of fuse was carried out across every wire in every part of the amp, I have to think the final result would be mind-boggling in ease and clarity, with a truly holographic 3D presentation. Which it better be, for the time it takes to get there! |
If there is that much difference in the one inch of a fuse, I can only imagine what can be achieved with everything going the right direction. You say you were able to do this all the way down to the level of tube pins and RCA plugs? Incredible! Yes, EL-AL-AZ German 1938 tube sockets can be easily disassembled. Then pins are tested the same way as wires, then sorted and marked, at the end new sockets with correct pins directions are assembled. As for RSA, I use handmade ones https://www.backtomusic.ru/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/cons.jpg. They are made the same way - first directions of old metal blanks are determined, then details of the plugs are lathed according to their direction and finally the plugs are assembled with right parts direction. If the difference I heard from just one inch of fuse was carried out across every wire in every part of the amp, I have to think the final result would be mind-boggling in ease and clarity, with a truly holographic 3D presentation. Which it better be, for the time it takes to get there! The thing is more complicated than it seems to be. When you orient the first few conductors in a good amplifier, the gain in clarity is as high as possible. If you continue to pick up directions from more and more conductors in the amp circuit, the quality gain begins to slow down. I think there are several reasons for this: 1 - There are limits to any perfection, and the sound tends to this limit exponentially. The further you go in your search, the more difficult it is to get a proportionate result. 2 - A person quickly gets used to the good and ceases to appreciate it. 3 - The more transparent your system sounds, the more difficult it is to find a recording that is at least somewhat commensurate in quality with your audio system. From some point on, you start to hear all the mistakes of sound engineers, musician kicks and other interference that is not noticeable on the average audio systems and it is very annoying. So the vast majority of recordings become uninteresting, but the little rest is revealed in such unexpected, astonishing colors that I am still quite puzzled how it ever could be. |
- 70 posts total