System Noise has a larger negative effect on sound reproduction.....

[fas42]

That's excellent, Roger, because it's identifying where the confusion is.

I agree 100% with the point that there is noise in the cables, and the RFI and EMI are another form of noise. However, that noise is not passed through to the audio in its raw form, otherwise you would actually hear it as a identifiable sound on a silent track. What that noise does, and it's real, is disturb the operation of the audio circuitry, it no longer works totally correctly, as per the specs that the manufacturer of the chips states, and the maker of the audio component asserts. That outside noise is not modulating the signal in some straightforward way; it's actually making the circuit behave badly, not work to specs. Distort in other words. Remove that disturbing, outside noise; the circuits heave a sigh of relief, and get back to working as they should ...

Frank

 

[Robh3606]

System Noise has a larger negative effect on sound reproduction.....
in high end systems than the distortion present in those systems .

True or false?

I don't have issues with either one. I don't understand why either of them should even be an issue in a well set-up system. There is simply no reason why anyone should have to tolerate objectionable noise or distortion in a system even more so in a "high end system". If there is something is broken.

Rob

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I don't have issues with either one. I don't understand why either of them should even be an issue in a well set-up system. There is simply no reason why anyone should have to tolerate objectionable noise or distortion in a system even more so in a "high end system". If there is something is broken.

Rob

This. There is still plenty of "distortion," and I suppose we can object to it if we want, but it is the inability of transducers, as they exist today, to mimic reality. Our objections are pretty pointless. The stuff in the middle, between the transducers? An audibly transparent path doesn't even have to be all that expensive.

Tim

 

[RogerD]

This. There is still plenty of "distortion," and I suppose we can object to it if we want, but it is the inability of transducers, as they exist today, to mimic reality. Our objections are pretty pointless. The stuff in the middle, between the transducers? An audibly transparent path doesn't even have to be all that expensive.

Tim

Shhhhh:b

 

[fas42]

This. There is still plenty of "distortion," and I suppose we can object to it if we want, but it is the inability of transducers, as they exist today, to mimic reality. Our objections are pretty pointless. The stuff in the middle, between the transducers? An audibly transparent path doesn't even have to be all that expensive.

Tim

Of course, this is what I dispute. The low level clues all exist -- well, almost always exist, Adele's '21' is testing my belief in that, these recording engineers are getting clever enough to blow off their entire lower limbs with a single shot these days, it seems -- to get the illusion happening: the speakers don't interfere with these especially important elements of the sound. What does mangle that information is the electronics: I am totally convinced that cheap speakers and sorted out electronics will trounce the expensive speakers and standard issue electronics every time -- on the "bad" recordings!!

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Of course, this is what I dispute. The low level clues all exist -- well, almost always exist, Adele's '21' is testing my belief in that, these recording engineers are getting clever enough to blow off their entire lower limbs with a single shot these days, it seems -- to get the illusion happening: the speakers don't interfere with these especially important elements of the sound. What does mangle that information is the electronics: I am totally convinced that cheap speakers and sorted out electronics will trounce the expensive speakers and standard issue electronics every time -- on the "bad" recordings!!

Frank

We know. Against the collected experience of the history of professional and hobbyist audio, you believe.

Tim

Tim

 

[fas42]

We know. Against the collected experience of the history of professional and hobbyist audio, you believe.

Tim

Tell you what, Tim. If you had a recording, and you heard it achieve a certain quality in playbook on your own system, and then took that same recording and played on another system where it didn't sound as good: it sounded distorted, and lacked in just about every area of music playback which counts. You then tried it on another system with the same result, and you did this over and over again, for months, and years on end, on systems over a huge range of cost and supposed abilities. Would your conclusion therefore be that the poorer playback on these other systems must be correct, because statistically that made sense?

Frank

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

If I had your experience and had acquired it through your tweaks on your system and making the comparisons you've made, I would, no doubt, believe what you believe. I thought you were trolling once, but that was long ago. I believe you believe.

Tim

 

[bblue]

I don't think I'd ever use ferrite on analog cables. Digital, perhaps, if I was trying to tame down some internally generated noise from getting out to the rest of the system, but only then.

It would seem that ferrite wouldn't make any difference at audio frequencies, but along a cable carrying analog, looping the cable through a ferrite barrel will, to varying degrees depending on the ferrite size, frequency range and the type of cable, change the inductance of that cable -- technical term a 'bump' in cable impedance -- that will cause aberrations in the audio signal being carried. How it sounds also varies dramatically for the above same reasons. I'd expect the worst case to be with balanced cables (shielded or not). If shielded properly you shouldn't need the concept of ferrite in the first place. In an unbalanced but shielded quality cable you shouldn't need it there either.

There was a time where I went through and added ferrite clip-ons all over the place, from power to analog to digital. At the time I didn't really observe much difference. But a few weeks later after removing it all, it was quite surprising to hear the improvement in detail. Yes, certain recordings sounded less pleasing because you could hear distortion products with them. Well recorded source was much more obvious and enjoyable listening.

I got rid of my grounding issues, noise and variable sound (day to day type, attributed to emi and ground currents) by using Balanced Power conditioners from Equi=Tech. Feeding everything in the studio / listening room environment from the same balanced power and effectively grounding everything (via power cabling and shields) to the balanced power system ground common, which is also tied to earth ground.

At that point all odd behavior, random tics/pops, daily changes in audio and behavior simply stopped. The whole audio spectrum became much cleaner, larger and more defined, regardless of the source. This improvement was very ear-opening, because now it was much easier to hear the difference in IC and speaker cable characteristics, not to mention subtleties in different recordings that previously had sounded somewhat similar.

If you suspect emi/rf noise and grounding issues (or even if you don't) balanced power should improve the system significantly. I'd try it long before ferrite (though it is more expensive, of course).

The noise floor throughout my system is in the -135db range or lower . You can't hear *anything* at the speakers with nothing playing. Use the turntable and preamp with no record and it's around -86 db. Add the record, very clean with no clicks and pops, just smooth groove noise and it'll change to -70db AT BEST, but that is only in a limited LF range. Much better at higher freqs than the SNR would suggest. Tape playback electronics with no tape playing are at about -85db or lower, and standard 1/4" 2 track tape hiss is at best around -70db. It is also non-obtrusive for the most part.

--Bill

 

[RogerD]

There was a time where I went through and added ferrite clip-ons all over the place, from power to analog to digital. At the time I didn't really observe much difference. But a few weeks later after removing it all, it was quite surprising to hear the improvement in detail. Yes, certain recordings sounded less pleasing because you could hear distortion products with them. Well recorded source was much more obvious and enjoyable listening.


--Bill

The exact opposite of what my experience has been.

 

[bblue]

The exact opposite of what my experience has been.

Roger,
Are you in an RF Hot area? Radio station towers, UHF TV towers (especially) or microwave?

I am about 8 miles from a mountaintop with tens of millions watts TV + microwave. That was the main reason I tried the ferrite in the first place. I never had any audible decoded noise, but always felt it was there. The ferrite clips I tried (pretty good sized ones, maybe about 1" cube) didn't seem to change much in terms of consistency and stability.

Maybe it's a difference in cabling types or something?

--Bill

 

[RogerD]

Roger,
Are you in an RF Hot area? Radio station towers, UHF TV towers (especially) or microwave?

I am about 8 miles from a mountaintop with tens of millions watts TV + microwave. That was the main reason I tried the ferrite in the first place. I never had any audible decoded noise, but always felt it was there. The ferrite clips I tried (pretty good sized ones, maybe about 1" cube) didn't seem to change much in terms of consistency and stability.

Maybe it's a difference in cabling types or something?


--Bill

Hello Bill,

I am about 50 minutes from Mt. Rose which I think is about 11K foot in elevation(I'm at 4600), there is also a radio broadcast antenna area across the valley from me about 7 miles away. I really don't think that is a issue here. I might try and start a discussion here about the differences between clarity and detail, or inner detail. We take clarity in life for granted,because in most settings it's not an issue. When the front door bell rings, that's pretty much a given that's it's reality. In audio that kind of clarity is a degree of the absolute. In my experience the degree of clarity is a marker in a audio system for everything else,dynamics,speed,inner detail,resolution,transparency,tonality,imaging,soundstage,ect,ect.

So as our are Tim says nothing definitive and that's all right be me. I used these ferrites one by one over a 6 month period and the one thing that improved beyond a resonable doubt to me in my system was the level of clarity,everything else was icing on the cake.

I can't give a explanation for our opposite experiences,others might try but that is part of this hobby,we all look for reasons and try to understand what makes things the way they are.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

In my experience the degree of clarity is a marker in a audio system for everything else,dynamics,speed,inner detail,resolution,transparency,tonality,imaging,so undstage,ect,ect.

My experience as well, Roger, though I suspect we pursue it completely differently, as we seem to believe in different causes/origins.

Tim

 

[RogerD]

My experience as well, Roger, though I suspect we pursue it completely differently, as we seem to believe in different causes/origins.

Tim

There are different ways to skin the cat.

Tim I was parusing the web,because I figured someone might comment on "clarity":b. I found this by a unknown source,but it sums up my definition and use pretty well.

"Origin: Bells such as the type used in churches are large and loud. Their sound can be heard from a great distance. Bells sound a single, clear note so their sound is distinctive and not easily confused.
Before electric sirens and amplification systems, bells were a valuable means of signaling people and alerting of important events - like an impending attack. The bell and the message intended could be heard clearly over a large area.

Back in the 1910's, many companies were trying to get into the manufacturing and selling one the hottest items around, the phonograph.
One of those companies was the Sonora Chime Company.
This company started the Sonora Phonograph Company and used 'Clear as a Bell' as their slogan," touting the fidelity of their machine's sound reproduction.

 

[fas42]

Bill and Roger, I can certainly vouch from my own experiences that these at times seemingly bizarre variations in outcomes from tweaking in various area and ways are part of the deal when attempting to improve the quality of playback.

My take on that is, firstly a simplistic "everything depends on everything": when a particular aspect is "fixed" or altered, then it alters the balance between all the components consisting of the system, a new equilibrium or stability will reached between the elements. And you may find that this new balance is not to your liking. I have had the experience many, many times of supposedly making something work "better", and it in fact sounded worse: many times quite a bit worse. The number of times I've have gone forward, and then retraced my steps somewhat, gone forward yet again, and it's even worse again! The number of combinations and permutations rapidly spiral out of control: it's enough to drive a sane person mad. Which is perhaps what I am, at least to some degree ...

It's one reason I have been doing this type of stuff for years; you get worn out pursuing one line of experimentation, and take a rest from the whole business. I gave it all away for about 15 years at one point ...

One thing I have gained though, is a sense or instinct for what characteristics in the sound quality, the type of "distortion" so to speak, signal that progress is being made or not. To an outsider I might appear quite stupid at times, seemingly, deliberately, making the sound more obnoxious, and aggressive. However, there is a method to the "madness", the end result after a day or so, is the final determinant of success or failure.

One key indicator for me shines through, always: what's happening to "bad" recordings that I play (apart from Adele's '21' :b ). When they get better, everything gets better.

Frank

 

[fas42]

There are different ways to skin the cat.

Tim I was parusing the web,because I figured someone might comment on "clarity":b. I found this by a unknown source,but it sums up my definition and use pretty well.

Roger, you may be interested in somebody's version of this type of music: I have CD of Overtone Music; this is Tibetan, Indian bowls and steel drums played to evoke those extremely complex higher harmonics. This can be played at full volume on my system and it then produces that intense "sizzling", enveloping sensation inside your skull from the barrage of high frequency information. Just like the real thing: my wife has one of those very bowls to compare with ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

And one final thought: out of curiosity, again Roger and Bill, how sensitive are your systems to cell phone interference? I'm not talking hearing audible pops and crackles, rather that the high treble loses its sparkle, a certain dulling of the sound is immediately noticeable. May be very subtle, but certainly has been an issue for my system over the last year or so ...

Frank

 

[treitz3]

System Noise has a larger negative effect on sound reproduction.....

In high end systems than the distortion present in those systems .

True or false?

Hello, Roger. It depends on the system, incoming power, sensitivity of the speakers, wiring, isolation of components along with a myriad of other things IME. Many rigs I have heard, both public and private have one issue that mimics the system noise and that is ambient noise. The two seemingly and at times cancel each other out and offer, what I would call, a noise floor. The terminology I use may be incorrect but at most listening positions [unless in an extremely quiet room or with an exceptionally high level of sensitivity combined with bad power, electronics, no shielding, etc....] one can only hear the noise floor of a system if they strain to hear it. It becomes noticeable [IME] only when no music is playing and while the volume knob is high.

That said, when a low volume passage comes into play and the recording starts, the recording seemingly has a higher noise floor than the system [recording dependent, of course]. I know this is system dependent but for the most part, are my observations. From my meaning or interpretation of distortion within a system, the distortion of a system has more to do with an overall negative effect than a system noise. That is, if we are both on the same page as to the definition or description thereof.

Then one must entertain the effects of room distortions and how it affects the sound coming from even the lowest of system noises. So, basically everything effects everything. While I love the topic, a little more clarity IMO is in order.

In the meantime, enjoy the music.

 

[RogerD]

Ok let's call Roger's noise, low level distortion and then there's less confusion,maybe. So if I take Tim's comment about him disagreeing about what's responsible and my way of dealing with the specific problem,there's less confusion.

I think everybody has a good idea of what clarity is,you can have pages of discussion about other audiophile terminology,but clear as a bell to the large extent should mean clear as a bell.

Frank I have a copy of the soundtrack "Lost Horizon" which is pretty famous for it's Tibetan bells.

Also I don't let a cell phone anywhere near my equipment.

 

[RogerD]

And I have often wondered how some or most high end cable manufacturers can offer graduated levels of audible performance at such precise levels and charge accordingly. I'm glad I'm off that bandwagon.