Ron The Mon wrote:
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What are your musical evaluation methods?
Noise aside, is your digital playback musically better than your vinyl?
Ron The Mon
Tune-Dem Freak
Hi
Sorry, this has turned into yet another long post (if bored already, I'd advise using the scroll key to swiftly move onwards to the next posts). :-)
Ever since the 80's (when I had 12s/250/Isobariks) I've only ever used the foot tapping assessment method to assess HiFi components/systems; if it sounds totally 'fabulous' (in the traditional terms of bass, dynamics, etc, etc, etc), or perhaps sounds wonderfully clear and detailed (just for examples) but my foot isn't tapping, then it simply isn't playing music and thus I'd class it as being junk (as an example of same, IMHO 'unoptimised' digital volume controls - i.e. ones without an attenuator to get them working in the 'sweet zone' - had just that effect on me; might as well have just chopped my feet off and switched on the TV, instead). :-P
As mentioned in the above posts, I've about 4 FRIWO units running in my lounge (and several others elsewhere in the building) but these are really there for radio reasons (and as you say, less noise doesn't necessarily mean more music) but I did also like that they were less likely to have any influence to the music. At the worst, they could make no difference at all, but they certainly couldn't do any harm to the sound, but though I interned comparing them, I assumed it would be pointless as the electrical route from the FRIWO sockets to the HiFi sockets was a long one and thus I doubted that it would matter (as the noise would be dispersed).
Much later than all of that, I changed my switch (from a GS108+FRIWO to a D-Link managed switch) I eventually noticed the system didn't sound as tuneful (I say eventually as these days, it's mostly used for AV sound, so it took a wee while for me to realise something was not quite right) and as all I'd changed was the switch, I tried routing the Linn+NAS through a GS108+FRIWO (which was just plugged into that same D-Link switch) and to my very great surprise, it sounded more musical, so there's definitely something interesting going on with all this.
The reason I typed a fuller story was that all the folks to whom I recommended try a FRIWO (for their GS108) had their switches plugged into the same double socket as also fed their Linn systems and I did know (for sure) that the FRIWO puts out a vastly smaller quantity of noise than almost every other plug-top supply that I have tried, so I reckoned it
might be worth a shot. I've always stated that I had no idea whether it would make a difference (if anything, I've 'played it down' by suggesting it likely wouldn't make any difference) but to my surprise, the feedback was very positive. Based on that feedback, my initial assumption was simply that the mains noise (from these awful wall-wart supplies) was getting into their system via the mains cable (and somehow then getting into the delicate audio stages) but in my case, the switch is quite electrically distant, so for me to also hear a difference likely means that there's more too it than just that, so that is what I eventually plan to investigate in more depth.
The power supply in my D-Link switch (it's an internal one) is actually not bad (in terms of noise on its DC output; there's less ripple than with a FRIWO MPP30 on a similar load) but it does put some noise back into the mains system (though as I say, it's so far away that it'll be negligible by the time it propagates to my HiFi mains sockets) so it's all now a bit of a mystery that needs some further 'poking' to get ones head around, so here are some of my plans forward (listed in no particular order):
1. Try feeding the D-Link with a FRIWO MPP30 and see if it makes any difference to the foot tapping factor.
2. Try measuring noise Ethernet cables, then if detectable, seeing if there's any difference between D-Link (original PSU) and a GS108+FRIWO
3. If I can measure noise at that point, see if I can filter it (ferrite rings, in line inductors, etc, etc).
4. Measure noise and ripple at the output of the buck converter within a small Netgear switch (of the same series)
5. Do same for my D-Link
6. See if I can improve a Netgear and see if it makes any difference to the tunes (the Netgear ones are cheap, so no worries if I break it in the process).
7. If 4, 5 and 6 provide anything interesting, I'll then try improving my D-Link switch.
Note that these switches are built to minimise cost and that if you look at the devices used to derive the different internal Voltages, the specification sheets propose designs. Most suggest optional components (typically an inductor) can improve regulation and reduce noise, but when you think about it, a switch manufacturer would assume these to be a waste of money - as it really shouldn't matter in such an application - and omit them. I'm not saying that's the reason why switches might sound different, but it's something worth investigating to see if it is a factor (and that noise is getting up the Ethernet cable and into a DS, for example).
I've recently procured some active probes (needed as my spectrum analysers have 50 Ohm inputs) so these will be a useful addition to my testing facilities (which are getting rather OTT and all based on HP / Agilent kit) but I need to find a plug-in module to measure lower frequencies (my analysers are both equipped with the 10 MHz to 21 GHz plug-in). I've a few other cool ideas for measuring all this, but I'll not get into that now as it'd take many more paragraphs to outline them; I'll wait until I have tried them and - possibly - found something worth typing about.
Bri :)
PS Answering the second question is also complicated as I reckon it depends on the media (particularly it's age and thus its origin; analogue master tape or digital master). In general, I'd say that for any recording from the analogue days, an LP12 can very easily blow a CD rip into the dust (particularly given the quality of equipment some of the studios used to transfer analogue to CD, back in the very early digital days). In fact, back in 1999 I ripped a few 1975-1985 vinyl albums (using a studio mastering processor) and recently, I found a couple of examples on a CDR (sadly, most were lost when a HDD failed back in 2001) and I converted them to FLAC. I then compared them to rips from the original CDs and the LP12 rips were massively more musical (and that was on my 1999 LP12/Ekos/Arkiv/Lingo; likely they'd be even better on a current high-spec' LP12). That said, current material is natively mastered digitally and thus it simply makes sense that once digitised, you want to remain the digital domain; transferring a digital master to vinyl can only make it worse in terms signal degradation, timing degradation and noise. I'm from the olden days (when the Linn lemon posters were up in the shop) but these days, I just use a DS as it's just so much more convenient (my 1500 vinyl albums and my LP12 have been in storage for about 16 years; my lounge is mostly glass and thus I simply lack the wall space to have racks of albums).