Fas42’s Stereo ‘Magic’

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Rubber feet aren't there to ameliorate vibration, they are to provide some grip between the chassis and the surface upon which it's sitting, without marring said surface (in case it's furniture). I've never heard a steel case or any other kind, vibrating to the music unless it's left unscrewed. Power supplies don't add HF noise, though they might pass it, if the supply is minimally designed

 

Good anti vibration methods do matter. All you need to do is take a decent media player such as an Oppo out of a wooden cabinet and place it on a carpeted floor. If your system is good enough you WILL hear a difference. In that case take a piece of  anti vibration material a little larger than  the player and sit the player on it back in  it's cabinet.(e.g. https://www.jaycar.com.au/heavy-duty-sound-barrier-damping-material-improved/p/AX3680) There is an even thicker version available elsewhere.

Products such as " Herbies Footers" will also result in an improvement.

 Power supply rectifier diodes can and do generate HF switching noise , although good design and use of Schottky diodes , or very fast-, slow recovery diodes can also help to markedly reduce it.

Quality interconnects with double shielding of a high percentage covering can also result in  improvements, over similar less well designed interconnects but some old E.Es refuse to accept that.

[sandyk]

55 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

Yes, if you have poor contact at connection points, it will cause audible problems - but those problems won't sound like poor stereo imaging.

 It most certainly can do this !

Typical RCA sockets lose their grip on the plugs after repeated insertions.

 You should feel quite a bit of resistance when inserting the plug BEFORE the earth side makes contact, as well as the earth side of the plug also being a fairly tight fit and not easily turned in the socket.

 I have replaced quite a few RCA sockets that " lose their grip" and cause these problems .
 Sockets like in the photo may look good, but they don't like too many reinsertions !

[sandyk]

12 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

All we can do is keep the mating parts clean and tight (bend those RCA "skirts" inward and open the unit up and put a slight squeeze on those center pins)

George

 Unfortunately,. almost all modern versions of the Gold RCA sockets are no longer able to be pulled apart to retension the centre mating pins . They have to be replaced.

 

 Alex

[sandyk]

59 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

They mechanically move (consist of two parts sliding in/out each other). I must have a couple of them somewhere, but I actually don't use RCA any more.

 

https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/rca-connectors/4848884/

[sandyk]

23 hours ago, fas42 said:

Easy to hear why it went down so well - my HP laptop, alive again, has no trouble conveying the transient bite of the piano notes, just on the internal speakers.

 I don't know where they got the ".flac'' bit from as it's only 125Kilobits 44.1Khz !  

[sandyk]

6 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

straight wire with grain??

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231231055_Copper_Better_than_Silver_Electrical_Resistivity_of_the_Grain-Free_Single-Crystal_Copper_Wire

 

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, Paul R said:

But all in all, I would suggest speakers are much more important - at least to the listener -  than any other component of an audio system.

 Paul

 Yes, but many members also manage to obtain quite decent sound from their office/ PC secondary system.

 

Alex

[sandyk]

46 minutes ago, esldude said:

Results of Harman research doing exactly and precisely what you describe indicate you are very wrong.  Or maybe I should say completely wrong.  They haven't just theorized, they've done the experiment you described.  Didn't turn out at all the way you are saying.  Groups from audiophiles, students, people from multiple cultures, recording pros, highly trained listeners, all of them, every group could hear and differentiate between omni's, panels and good box speakers.  The results all lined up the same way with the same speakers coming out on top in all those groups.  

 

Speakers are quite simply the most important part of the playback chain.  It is a stunning bit of self deception to think otherwise.  A stupefying level of delusion.  

 

It's also a stupefying delusion to think that the source electronics don't matter,

 It doesn't matter how good the speakers are if the front end Is  a cheap laptop or a bog standard Mac Mini using basic USB !

[sandyk]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

Playing with Paul's beta DeltaWave software, already seeing the value of having good tools available - in the 8th copy samples provided by Dennis, it's easy to eyeball very significant distortion in the treble; something that the normal specs would indicate is impossible ... 

 

 While this software may be useful in helping to diagnose some kinds of problems, it can't replace good listening skills and high quality playback systems, as evidenced by the fact that some were unable to readily  pinpoint the differences, and a few even preferred the added distortion of the 8th copy., which perhaps suggests the possibility of their systems lacking a little in the upper HF area, or the masking of very low level HF detail by excessive wideband system noise?

[sandyk]

11 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The step forward is to identify what is happening in a captured waveform, which tells us what the electronics are getting wrong - matching what the ears are hearing. 

Frank

That is incorrect.

Unless you have access to the original MASTER recording ,it is simply not possible to definitely tell what is wrong with the waveform. You can  only try and make educated guesses.

As for your phone line where noise drowns out everything, I presume that you are talking about downloaded Digital Audio files ?

 If so, esldude and quite a few others will insist that if the saved 1s and 0s are correct, then it shouldn't matter one iota  !!!

 

Alex

[sandyk]

5 hours ago, fas42 said:

My Telstra line's a pile of poo at the moment - a couple of wires resting against each other, vaguely touching each other, somewhere out there. 

https://mrtelco.com/blog/top-5-common-phone-line-faults-affecting-landline-adsl

[sandyk]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

Thanks Alex, I've been the rounds - we have 3 handsets here, and plugged straight into the Telstra wall socket using 2 different short cable lengths, nothing else in the picture, the crackling is savage.

Frank

 Do you have only one socket ?

 Have you taken the cover off and checked for green Verdigris ?

A common cause is the use of a wet mop when cleaning.

[sandyk]

18 minutes ago, STC said:

 

You can post but just stick to the thread and OP.  

 

How big of you !

It's clear that you wish your thread to come to only one conclusion, which is the one you want it to be, and will ruthlessly remove any on topic replies that don't lead to this desired conclusion.

 

[sandyk]

10 minutes ago, STC said:

 

That was your original message which you censored yourself. 

 

I was referring to my post in my thread which was mentioned here. 

 

  It is my right to edit my own posts to make their meaning clearer. 

 You are Censorship crazy as I just made quite obvious, and will ruthlessly remove all replies that weaken your arguments.

 What we apparently need here is the ability to remove posts on request to Admin provided that he agrees to the reasons for the request, and the OP does NOT have the power to remove posts willy nilly that are legitimate replies, and meet all forum requirements.

[sandyk]

42 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

I note the VTL Siegfried, the monoblock version of the above stereo unit, can pump out 650 watts into 5 ohms - a touch more grunt, could one say?

 

You would need to turn the air conditioning on at full blast in summer which would drown out low level detail unless it was used in Sound Reinforcement applications or to entertain the cows down in the bottom paddock. 

 

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, fas42 said:

For those who want to be reminded of what the energy of live music is like, here is a good sample, showing how easy it is to convey such even on a YouTube clip - I pulled this one up in seconds, but there are plenty more to delve into; this captures what I'm after in the presentation ....

 

 You must have a highly active imagination.

With a total bit rate of 1,513 kbps for the Video AND Audio at 1280 x 720 there is very little bandwidth left for the Audio. 

[sandyk]

7 hours ago, charlesphoto said:

I went to a friends the other day to listen to his new rig - Hegel H190 and B&W 702's and SVS subwoofer. I had to constantly turn it down on him - the sub actually made me physically ill feeling, and the whole thing just sounded disorganized and veiled and fatiguing. He had zero optimizations going on (power, vibration, etc) and the source was an SSD drive into the USB of an Oppo BD player. The sound had enormous scale and was very full of course, but almost impossible to follow any single instrument. It could reproduce that pounding attack one gets down at front at a live rock show (my little 35W amp won't do that) but couldn't do, say,  the detail and PRAT of a small jazz ensemble  in Rudy Van Gelder's living room. 

 

  I also use an Oppo in my main system, but typical USB from a computer to it is far from the best way to go about it unless you use a USB Regen with a low noise PSU, preferably derived from a battery and a high quality USB cable.

 It may have been far more revealing to have saved the music to USB memory and plugged that into the Oppo instead.

Incidentally, in my case Coax SPDIF from my Oppo 103 is then sent into a higher quality DIY DAC.

 

Regards

Alex

[sandyk]

5 minutes ago, fas42 said:

... when I get together with the audio friend down the road we do zero about the room

 

 You will NEVER get optimum quality  from ANY system unless you do at least a small amount of reflection control, including directly behind the speakers in a typical room. 

[sandyk]

33 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Chris says it better than I can.

 

 

 

If you are going to quote other people, at least have the courtesy to post a link to the thread where you took the quote from, so members and readers can see if it applies to the present thread. 

 Chris also advised that members should avail themselves of the IGNORE THIS TOPIC button

 Perhaps you should try that ?.

[sandyk]

I repeat :

 

Chris also advised that members should avail themselves of the IGNORE THIS TOPIC button

 Perhaps you should try that instead ?

 Although I often disagree with Frank, I do find some of his posts of interest.

[sandyk]

1 minute ago, semente said:

 

It's his thread.

 

 Agreed .

 Those who disagree with what Frank is saying can always ignore the thread, as there isn't much you can really add to what many others have already said, and the thread will then eventually disappear from view .

 Ever considered that Frank may just need to talk to somebody ?

Frank does seem like a very nice and cheerful guy.

[sandyk]

22 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I've always assumed some kind of pharmaceuticals were ingested...

 Tom

 Can we please not go back to replies like this, even if meant as a joke ?

 Think of it as some of us being on Probation.

 Alex

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, Confused said:

An interesting post.

 

If I look at my own system, I can see this in two different ways. 

 

Firstly, my Devialet amp mitigates the need for many interconnects.  Indeed, it is possible to run it just with mains in & wifi, so all that is left to connect is speaker cables.  Picking up on some of Franks earlier posts re problems with switches and  potentiometers  etc.  the Devialet has none.  Volume, tone control & switching is pretty much all solid state electronic.  It also has a pretty robust AES/EBU (XLR) input.

 

So some progress maybe?  Or maybe not?  On the other hand, I use SOtM's sMS-200Ultra and tX-USBultra.  Well regarded by some for sound quality, but I have to say that the SOtM kit has just about the worst & flimsiest USB sockets I have ever encountered.  Just how much this matters for "sorting SQ" I am not sure, but it does offend my engineering sensibilities a little. Plus it does seem a little crazy plugging in a £100 USB cable into a socket that probably cost £0.05p.  It is just a little annoying.

 FWIW, I have had to replace numerous gold plated RCA sockets over the years that gave intermittent problems. The majority of them are poorly constructed and do not like too many reinsertions.

[sandyk]

6 hours ago, fas42 said:

Yes. An integrated system, a simple system will climb up many steps on the SQ ladder, automatically. Solid state switching is the way to go; it's all about eliminating connections that rely on metal to metal pressure, with air present. Unfortunately, it will always be the last key connection that hasn't been "sorted" that will undermine everything else - this rule remains absolutely unshakeable.

 That is simply not true. All Solid State switches have an "ON" resistance which needs to be taken into account. The closest you will get to that ideal is using solid state devices to operate Telecommunications grade relays such as in the .pdf at the link.

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/105262.pdf

Even this results in a few problems due to capacitance between PCB traces which often need to be relatively long, and can then reduce HF separation, especially if the same relay is used for left and right channels in a stereo system, even if you connected the cables directly to the PCB instead of using RCA sockets. This is still the case even if you place an "earth"  track between the PCB traces due to the close proximity between traces.

[sandyk]

39 minutes ago, fas42 said:

The best ones for the job use mercury, and how long will they be around ... ?

 I presume that you are referring to something like a Clare mercury wetted contact relay.?

 They are expensive, bulky, often only have single contacts and were often used in switching applications in Telecommunications.

 I wouldn't call them ultra reliable either.