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An Edifying Journey ...


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Just playing a cheap, rip off CD - one of the very useful tools I have at hand, http://ariemm.blogspot.com/2016/01/cd-wanted-country-ballads-24-greatest.html

 

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Every track is a needle drop - pops and crackles coming through nicely, 😉. What's useful is seeing if the full, "vinyl", and "country", richness is in place - every track is unique as a SQ experience, because of how it was recorded, how it was transferred to the vinyl, the care taken to capture the needle drop, etc.  The better the playback, the more one can focus on each such "area of interest", as a separate exercise.

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Update on the tweaking - still wasn't happy with the isolation of the mains filtering used so far, when plugged into a 'public' socket - that is, next door to one used for the TV and other bits - and also on a circuit used by the fridge, and wall SMPS supplies ... as mentioned before. So, used distancing again, but this time on the plugged in arrangement as last used. Lots of cable, neatly organised in a pile, to do the job.

 

So far, very good. All positive signs - especially noting sense of scale in classical pieces seems to have lifted several notches; with no downsides, that I can pick as yet.

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Well, overall reaction to adding the distancing is a ... hmmm. SQ was not holding; I now have another scenario, which is giving me varying results ... with lots of, depending. To summarise, not really progress ...

 

Snubbing of the mains circuits in the house is still making too much of a difference ... going round in circles for a bit ... finally, a snubbing arrangement that appears to be a genuine gain. But lots more experimenting needed, to get a better handle on it.

 

If I get it wrong, things like very old, big band recordings just don't work - one has to nail the filtering, to allow tracks of this sort of thing to deliver the punch that they're capable of.

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This is audiophile geeky in the extreme, but I love it.  Awaiting delivery of my Edifier S3000Pro speakers which will replace my Edifier S1000DB speakers.  I really liked my S1000DBs but I'm looking for something with a bit more oomph and the Aptx HD is a bonus, as is the Kleer wireless between each speaker.  I hate cables and this probably confirms that I'm only a wannabe audiophile.  I considered resurrecting my old Mission Cyrus 2 amp, which still works perfectly, and replacing my Mission 780 bookshelves which are in need of repair but I think I'll park that for now and revisit again in the future.  For now the S3000Pros will have to do.  I'll probably not spend as much time as you finding the perfect setup but I will keep an eye on this thread.  Keep us posted.

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Will do ... my shtick is to get value for money out of gear - which is easier than ever to do these days.

 

If one is after what I call convincing sound, then unfortunately one has to spend a lot of time on it - gear straight out of the box still hasn't got all the engineering right, whether it's Edifier; or equipment at the expensive end.

 

Watch out for wireless technology - my gut feeling is that the implementation of such isn't as sorted as it should be yet; and that you might find out that cable connections will still give you better SQ.

 

Cheers!

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Just played this album - ex-library; some bad scratches, from which the less than 'best' DVD reader ensures the production of very bizarre noises at times ... must do a better clean up of this, one day ...

 

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Great recording, '87, '88 - the blat of the trombone is superb, and in a huge acoustic - this is one of the more impressive "chop off your end wall, and attach your room to the concert hall" albums, and was nicely done by the Edifiers ... but, it still required that the mains power circuits in the house be optimised, to get best tone - so, more work needed, to refine the noise filtering ...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Okay, for a bit of fun I recorded the Edifiers playing some 1930's big band music - I posted the cover earlier in this thread - started recording from the, ahem, kitchen, and moved directly in front of the speakers, a couple of feet away. End of one track, you can hear the TV also running, then next - moved through a couple of rooms - you hear Bev at one point - and finished up in front of speakers again.

 

This was done on a $50 smartphone, with AGC switched off; didn't clip - so volumes should be correct, relatively speaking.

 

 

 

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Still fiddling with working out best arrangement of mains cords between wall socket, and filters - yesterday tried this after playing through several CDs of other material,

 

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, and was not happy. My feeling was that the mains isolation between DVD player and active speakers was not enough, so added a great length of cabling between their feeds ... okay, much better - the driving beat, meaning more current draw, was likely causing too much noise to be injected, in spite of my efforts so far to minimise interaction.

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The DVD player is acting up - sounding like a TT, with pops coming through quite regularly, on CDs that were okay on previous playings - having trouble reading, IOW. Dirt on the laser? Pulled the lid, awkward access to the lens - cotton bud dipped in isopropyl alcohol to give it a wipe ... wahhh?? "Blue ink" on the tip - what's this??!! Polished it dry - hurriedly tried it; phew, still working!

 

Will check shortly if anything's changed in behaviour, on this new day ...

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Ummm, still having reading 'pops' - though perhaps not as bad - will see how this looks, over a few days ... burnt CDs in part, a reburn may sort some recordings.

 

A positive, though this may be wishful thinking 🤪, is that sound has improved a bit - a bit Bigger, so to speak. While I was fiddling inside the DVD unit, I took the opportunity to tidy up a couple of things, like alignment of internal parts, and sitting of cables - and especially, improved the physical damping of the optical plug in the back. If it is "now better", what was the actual thing I did that made it so? Was it one thing, or every, thing? ... One could go mad trying to work out a precise cause/effect hierarchy - so I don't, 😉. It's like tidying up a house - where exactly was the "right thing" that was cleared up that made you feel really comfortable being in the room ... and why does it matter? 🙂

 

 

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Sound was still too influenced by mains noise, and the likely problem now was the DVD player, because the mains path for it was much shorter - from the previous exercise. So, added a long path to its power feed - which was getting back to the situation I had some weeks ago, where the mains had been carefully optimised for the best possible result; with effectively a dedicated circuit. This had to be very carefully done - adding extra length in a casual way, as a quick experiment, ruined the SQ; full care had to taken with the laying of the cord - as always.

 

With a bit of fine tuning, this worked well - an "Organ Spectacular" recording, of classical works with full orchestra could be run at good levels - was easy to hear the feet of the organist bouncing around the pedals, and other extraneous noises; while retaining good tone from the orchestral instruments.

 

So, my dilemma is to introduce the filtering effect of distance, without using a visually unimpressive, non aesthetic method - yet to be resolved ... with this type of tweaking, if the addition or variation is not done with as much care and attention as anything else in the playback chain, then the effort is basically wasted - a poorly executed tweak is classic one step forwards, three steps back movement - and the real value of what was achieved can very easily be missed.

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As mentioned elsewhere, slight misstep ... SQ went flat, and I spent a bit of time chasing down the cause. Turned out to be very little - plastic of the power cord extension had moved enough, from normal activities in the house, to be touching another bit of the plastic - redid the laying of the cord, and now fine ...

 

Is this good enough, yet? No ... adjusting the loading of sockets on other parts of that circuit showed gains could be made - as was evidenced before ... still haven't got isolation working to the level of noise impact being inaudible.

 

But, not worried ... this is a very, very old problem - has been with me for decades, and has yet to be got completely under control ...

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Playing around with combinations, of arrangements of filtering - plenty of backwards steps ... this can be very frustrating; an easy solution is to dedicate an extremely clean power feed, individually, to the components - but that's not the point; the aim is to have the system perform well, while the noise on the mains sockets is still present.

 

After a number of false steps, finally got a better config ... I'm using a CD of truck drivin' tracks, which easily separates things - a track which is particularly telling is this precise version of the song,

 

 

The guts and power drive of this mix should come across brilliantly, with complete clarity - a highlight cut.

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Okay, happy now to say that distance solves the problem, largely - was getting less than best results at times, but wasn't sure how the exact combination of configuration of things and amount of warm up was adding to the equation. The DVD player powers down automatically after some period - how much did this contribute to the sub-par SQ at times? Anyway, it turns out that allowing the rig to sit idle for too long definitely causes a highly significant quality drop; but the filtering now appears to be working at an acceptable level - multiple SMPS supplies to electronic gear, and the fridge, are running off the same mains circuit - and are having negligible effect, at the current state of tune.

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Just to correct a comment I made elsewhere, which I had wrongly read from the CD cover,

 

The track was not "The Lonely Bull", but this one,

 

 

Same album, I think - but, for whatever reason the sonics of this specific track is very borderline ... the sense of this YT clip of it is not improved by hearing it from CD, over a good system - the general AM radio quality of it is 'preserved' in the master, it seems.

 

 

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Managed to lift the quality a notch, by focusing on how I was organising the very, very long mains lead to the DVD player - this would be a static issue ... showing how critical it is to get absolutely everything right with the power input side of things - the same mains circuit is still feeding very nasty stuff, like the fridge and switching supplies in ordinary consumer AV gear.

 

This was using an early 80's DGG string quartet CD, mentioned before, to monitor progress ... with this one, string tone goes scratchy with the slightest misbehaviour of the chain; reduction of replay noise has to be spot on, for this album to 'work'.

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On 1/11/2021 at 11:01 PM, fas42 said:

Managed to lift the quality a notch, by focusing on how I was organising the very, very long mains lead to the DVD player

What do you mean by "organising"?  Are you referring to routing of the cable (distancing from other cables, for example), or maybe something like mains cable lifters?  I am struggling to envisage what you are up to here.  Note that I get the idea of using a long cable, a bit like an easy experimental version of having a dedicated mains feed for your audio kit, but I am struggling to understand what you are doing to the cable to avoid static issues.

Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade.  Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones.

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11 hours ago, Confused said:

What do you mean by "organising"?  Are you referring to routing of the cable (distancing from other cables, for example), or maybe something like mains cable lifters?  I am struggling to envisage what you are up to here.  Note that I get the idea of using a long cable, a bit like an easy experimental version of having a dedicated mains feed for your audio kit, but I am struggling to understand what you are doing to the cable to avoid static issues.

 

That can be the hard bit ... and extremely messy!! 😁 Yes, you have to stop the cable from touching the "wrong things", anywhere - and for a very long cable that can be an irksome thing to, umm, organise. From experience, natural materials like wood and related products like normal paper, and the ground, as in, real earth, etc, don't cause major problems - so, in one case I ran the cable outside an external door and had it wind its way through the garden a bit, before coming inside again - yep, nutty stuff like that! For another, I had it run back and forth along a stone floor, inside, over many metres, with each loop carefully spaced out so that it didn't touch another loop at any point. This is getting ridiculous - but the aim is to prove a point!

 

To try and rationalise this, I'm now using far more concentrated bundles of cable, where it loops back and forth in multiple rows, or coils over itself - spacing and not touching are achieved by using bundles of newspaper, à la mains cable lifters. Does it look silly? Of course it does 🤪 - but what is being tested is whether the technique works. How much spacing, how much thickness of paper? No hard and fast answers, but half an inch seems to be plenty. Does the coiling mean that coupling occurs, even though spaced? Possibly, but so far the results have been good - something to fine tune in the future.

 

The most important thing is that at no point should the cable touch itself, or any metal or plastic things!! Can't be emphasised enough -  a single 'wrong' contact point will undo everything, unfortunately - you have to be ultra fussy about this!! An easy way to test, or 'fix', a possible problem contact point is using a multiple folded paper towel or tissue, or, blob of Blu Tack - to space it ... means that it all looks quite bizarre 😵.

 

 

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Oh dear ... hit the gain barrier again, 🤪 - Bev just complained that the volume can't go up any more - on a classical tracks compilation, with some very nice, romantic, solo violin playing - "Well, it needs headroom - for when that monstrous orchestral crescendo turns up - elsewhere on the CD ..." 🙃

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Just noting some posts on enhancing, or otherwise of bass ... which reminded me of a CD played yesterday. Orchestral, at a quiet level; and replayed at a low gain setting  - there was a deep bass droning as part of the composition, from the double basses - a felt rather than heard sensation ... now, why on earth would someone want this to be more intense?!! Not for me, thank you! ... It was, Just Right ... and matched what I recall how such comes across in live performances.

 

You shouldn't be aware of, BASS!! ... unless it's meant to be there - and forms a key part of what the music is about, at that moment ...

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Also, again noting that there is still sensitivity to the mains ... this is a very good album I mentioned above for picking this,

 

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A favourite on this,

 

 

Not so good for picking things - a better one for doing this was, Track 13, "Car 67"

 

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On 1/14/2021 at 5:34 PM, fas42 said:

Yes, you have to stop the cable from touching the "wrong things", anywhere - and for a very long cable that can be an irksome thing to, umm, organise.

This begs the question of whether and how branch circuit wiring affects SQ.  The outlet is getting power from long, convoluted wires that are generally held in place along studs and joists inside the walls with metal staples, and run by / across / against many things.  The wires are clamped by plastic or metal when they enter and leave junction boxes, switch boxes etc.  They’re joined by wire nuts and connected to breakers and other devices by push-contact fittings, screw terminals etc.  They run through magnetic fields generated by multiple devices on the other side of those walls.

 

If you’re correct about the audible effects of any of these, we should be running dedicated mains feeds from pole or trench directly to our audio components.  Forgive me for being a bit skeptical, but the magnitude of these interactions seems like it should be rather small.  If it’s not, we’re all fooling ourselves.

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