The Contour System – Directional Wiring of Audio Parts

Thanks for your kind words of support, millercarbon!

@millercarbon
As unlikely as it sounds there really may be a point where its more feeling than hearing.

You know, I came to the same conclusion. A person feels audio anomalies with some "sixth sense", but not with hearing. Otherwise, audiophile puzzle doesn't add up.

@ausaudio
Unfortunately someone has presented you with false knowledge. Those familiar with precision measurements and precision equipment are well aware of the impact of wires on measurement and regularly compensate for them. If they did not, no RF measurement would be accurate. There are enough references in the physical world, to act as calibration sources for something even as simple as wire.

ausaudio, you didn’t fully understand the post you quoted. Circuit design solutions for calibration of measuring devices also rely on the fact that the conductors inside the devices are linear. Think about it.

I doubt he understands anything, fully or otherwise. Your description was perfectly clear and irrefutably logical.

The part about feeling goes with the way you describe cassettes or old 78s. The one time I heard a 78 on a gramophone was some years ago but I still remember the feeling. In audiophile terms the sound was just as crappy as you would expect. But the way I have tried to describe it, it is like our systems when they are really good create the illusion of the singer being there in front of us in the room. When we do this with analog in particular the illusion can be tingly-real. With the gramophone it is more like the singer is in there. Listening to it is like, there's a person somewhere in there singing, and I'm hearing it through this metal and stuff. But she's in there!

Or if you ever did the can with string thing as a kid, you can totally tell it is a real person and not a recording on the other end. The old telephone calls were like that too. Not this cell phone BS we have today.  

Very hard to explain in terms of anything we can measure. Very easy to understand in terms of things we know and feel. Another example I like to use, if you see a trout in a brook the image of the fish is distorted by the water, by the waves, by sunlight glint and glare off the water, silt and whatever else might be in the water, but yet with all of that you know for sure you are looking at a trout. A real live trout.

As opposed to if you take a picture or video of a trout, and look at it the same way, there is no doubt which is which. The video however good is never gonna be confused with the fish. Probably no amount of pixel or wavelength counting will ever figure this out, but we do it with ease.

Something is going on, whether it is with tubes needles or the direction of wires or whatever, something somehow improves or shortens the link, the connection between things. Between us and them. Sorry, but it really is hard not to get metaphysical about it.

@ausaudio....good point...;) 👍

@millercarbon
The one time I heard a 78 on a gramophone was some years ago but I still remember the feeling.... With the gramophone it is more like the singer is in there. Listening to it is like, there's a person somewhere in there singing, and I'm hearing it through this metal and stuff. But she's in there!

I agree 100%. Successful 78 recordings sound extremely realistic on the gramophone, and I feel that no electrical system can so accurately copy the effect of a live presence during a performance as a mechanical gramophone. In this paradoxical situation, again, our misunderstanding of the properties of electricity and human perception can be traced.

Or if you ever did the can with string thing as a kid, you can totally tell it is a real person and not a recording on the other end. The old telephone calls were like that too. Not this cell phone BS we have today.  

When using old dial phones, it was possible to evaluate the sound of audio systems and determine which wire sounds better. This is despite the fact that the frequency response of the telephone line was 500-3000 Hz. To me the situation is similar to that of a gramophone and suggests that the presence effect is completely independent of the frequency response.

.....with all of that you know for sure you are looking at a trout. A real live trout. As opposed to if you take a picture or video of a trout, and look at it the same way, there is no doubt which is which...

Again, I agree with you. In my experience, visual perception determines whether an object is alive or inanimate by some principle similar to hearing. I spent several years researching the distinctive features of b/w analog photography which to me is by far more live than modern digital one, and found out a lot of interesting things. the main one is the lens elements and even simple glasses, have directivity.

The window glasses directivity can also be used in audio. After you choose the position of the window glass and fix it so as the picture outside the window is closest to the live one, then the sound of the system becomes more lively too, especially if the system is located next to the window. All our feelings are somehow connected. And probably there is no escape from metaphysics here.

The glass directionality experiment is easy to perform by looking in different ways through any little peace of glass.