Radio frequency interference sound in CD ripping?

[Windows X]

Today I heard something that was beyond my understanding. There’s a customer who asked me to build USB interconnects using Nordost Valhalla cables for his CD ripping project with AK320 + AK Ripper. Sound quality is superb like no others that’s for sure. However, he told me some CDs he ripped contains sound from radio station near his house.

 

I was like…..seriously? That’s digital data transmission sending pulses of 0 and 1. If anything, it should be 0 and 1 pulses sending with jitter affected by interference. It shouldn’t be possible to technically record sound from radio frequency through CD ripping. And the cable is only 10cm, very darn too short to have anything to be affected like that.

 

Have you guys heard such case before? I’ve been ripping CD from many devices and never find such case like this.

[MostlyGordon]

RF could get into the cable, but you how would he know it was the radio station? The station is analogue and should not be intelligible in a digital signal. Are you sure it's not coming from his amp / speakers during playback?

 

In any case a few turns of the cable through a toriod should suppress any RF.

[Iving]

I rip many CDs.

I have vague recollection got this kind of noise once. It was the CD.

Suggest check CD sample rate with your customer.

[yamamoto2002]

It is possible the stereo set is interfered with AM radio and the radio sound comes out from the speaker. but it is not recorded onto ripped music file and the radio sound is not repeatable.

In the past, my neighbor was amateur radio operator, and one day he tried to communicate to people overseas with his giant antenna of his garden , suddenly my computer keyboard (PS/2 not USB) started to type "mmmmmmmmmmm". I tell it to the neighbor and it stopped 🙂

 

I ripped thousands of CDs and a few of my ripping was failed. Sound data was full swing white noise from the some point of track toward the end. I think if ripping error occurred, almost always the result should be catastrophic, PCM data corruption has such propensity, something like analog sound mixing-like sound degradation does not happen with PCM digital signaling

[AudioDoctor]

Never... that shouldn't be happening if I understand the process correctly, even less so if he is getting an accurate rip confirmation.

 

I did have a headphone cable that would pick up a local radio station though.