Mains filter test results
 

Roderick Stewart wrote:

Just for the record, I've worked in broadcasting for 38 years

And just for the record, most FM radio stations sound pretty poor. Radio
1 is compressed so much it has a dynamic range of about 2dB. Radio 2 is
generally OK, Radio 3 sounds very good apart from the music...

Commercial radio is just as compressed as Radio 1... and TV sound is
positively dire these days. The "let's compress everything to within an
inch of its life" mentality has seen to that. We've got digital stereo
and multichannel sound on TV these days ffs, why why why?

About the only thing that isn't compressed is Sky Movies 1-3 with the
Dolby Digital soundtracks.

You may have reached a "decision" that my home AV setup cannot
possibly perform well, based only on my written description of it,
but my own appraisal of it is based on listening, watching, and
comparing. Let's apply some logic please - evidence first, *then* the
conclusion.

Based on the fact you're running audio through the TV for starters.

Are you running the audio from your DVD player through the TV? If so,
what do you do about Dolby Digital or DTS soundtracks, which require a
digital connection between the source and amp/decoder?

But the bottom line is that if it sounds fine to you then great. From
the way you've described it, it wouldn't sound "fine" to me.

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

Mains filter test results
 

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:22:45 +0000, Glenn Richards
wrote:

"I then switched the power cable on the amplifier to use the Isotek
cable. Immediately there was an improvement in dynamics, percussion in
particular had much more presence and depth".

Which would make perfect sense, as by taking out RF interference what
you've done is lowered the noise floor. You may not be able to hear RF,
but if your amplifier is trying to reproduce it then it's increased the
noise floor, which will result in the dynamic range of the system being
reduced.

Which is why you shouldn't design an amplifier with a ridiculously
extended frequency range.

Mains filter test results
 

Hi,

"Glenn Richards" wrote in message
...
Roderick Stewart wrote:

Just for the record, I've worked in broadcasting for 38 years

And just for the record, most FM radio stations sound pretty poor. Radio 1
is compressed so much it has a dynamic range of about 2dB. Radio 2 is
generally OK, Radio 3 sounds very good apart from the music...

Commercial radio is just as compressed as Radio 1... and TV sound is
positively dire these days. The "let's compress everything to within an inch
of its life" mentality has seen to that. We've got digital stereo and
multichannel sound on TV these days ffs, why why why?

All of this has *nothing whatever* to do with anyone's ability to hear
or listen, and everything to do with market forces. What's your
point? Radio sounds crap, so Roderick can't hear?

You may have reached a "decision" that my home AV setup cannot
possibly perform well, based only on my written description of it,
but my own appraisal of it is based on listening, watching, and
comparing. Let's apply some logic please - evidence first, *then* the
conclusion.

Based on the fact you're running audio through the TV for starters.

So what? I also run DVD audio through the TV. It's a totally
separate signal path to the audio that goes to the 5.1 system, and
has no impact on it at all. It just means that the kids can watch their
Dora the Explorer DVDs without faffing around with multi-channel
audio. When I want the full monty, I can just switch between audio
paths. Easy peasy.

But the bottom line is that if it sounds fine to you then great. From the
way you've described it, it wouldn't sound "fine" to me.

How can you possibly know this? It's a completely baseless
assertion. The fact that a bit of wire goes from the DVD player
to the telly doesn't mean a thing. You're basically saying that
anyone who uses a fully wired SCART lead is listening to
sub-standard audio. It isn't so.

Regards,

Glenn.

Mains filter test results
 

In article , Glenn Richards
writes
Roderick Stewart wrote:

Just for the record, I've worked in broadcasting for 38 years

And just for the record, most FM radio stations sound pretty poor. Radio
1 is compressed so much it has a dynamic range of about 2dB. Radio 2 is
generally OK, Radio 3 sounds very good apart from the music...

!When in hole stop digging!

.....thats not Rod's doing is it?....


Commercial radio is just as compressed as Radio 1... and TV sound is
positively dire these days. The "let's compress everything to within an
inch of its life" mentality has seen to that. We've got digital stereo
and multichannel sound on TV these days ffs, why why why?


Well thats not Rods fault either ?..

--
Tony Sayer

Mains filter test results
 

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:58:56 -0000, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

In article , Tony sayer wrote:
"I then switched the power cable on the amplifier to use the Isotek
cable. Immediately there was an improvement in dynamics, percussion in
particular had much more presence and depth".

Which would make perfect sense, as by taking out RF interference what
you've done is lowered the noise floor. You may not be able to hear RF,
but if your amplifier is trying to reproduce it then it's increased the
noise floor, which will result in the dynamic range of the system being
reduced.


Glenn,

do you live somewhere like Brookmans Park or Holme Moss?. Never known a
bloke to be troubled by so much RF!......
--
Tony Sayer

I think most technical "problems" with domestic gear are the product of a
lively but uninformed imagination. Also possibly the fact that a lot of
people never seem to outgrow their childhood instinct of believing what they
are told without questioning it provided they are told often enough by
people with the appearance of authority. Those that remain technically
ignorant but take up technical hobbies then spend their lives trying to
solve problems that don't exist. Either that or they keep on applying the
wrong remedies to problems that are of their own making because the
equipment hasn't been installed or set up correctly. I wonder how many
people who worry about RF actually know anything about it?

In my living room I have two PCs, one of them a wireless laptop which
normally lives on the same shelf unit as all the audio and video gear. The
wireless access point is only about 3 metres away, and just next to it is
the base station of a cordless phone, and my mobile phone is a similar
distance away on another shelf. Sometimes there are several other PCs in the
house if I am building or testing them for other people. The AV signals from
several disk recorders go through a SCART switch box and through about 5
metres of SCART cable to the TV set. I *think* all the TV and AV audio still
goes through the TV set before going back along several metres of phono
cables, but there's such a tangle of wiring which has been changed and added
to over the years that I'd have to check out the details, but certainly lots
of very ordinary cable. The kitchen is just next door and contains a fridge
with a thermostat, and there is another mains-switching thermostat on the
living room wall for the central heating.

And there isn't a single unwanted click, hiss or splat on the speakers from
any of this, ever. I can switch the amplifier to an unused input, turn the
volume control fully clockwise and put my head right in front of one of the
loudspeakers and hear nothing at all.

So why am I missing all the excitement? Everybody else seems to have to
tinker about solving endless technical problems with their hi-fi, but I just
connect everything together and sit back and enjoy the music without
worrying about anything, and it all works. The only problem I have that
*might* be RF based is that the radio-controlled wall clock tries to reset
itself at least once a day and is more often wrong than right, but there are
plenty of other gadgets that tell the time so it's not really important, and
if it annoys me once too often I can replace it with something from Ikea for
less than a fiver.

Quite so - and Glenn Richards lives in a village in the wilds of
Gloucestershire, hardly a hotbed of RFI!

OTOH, his house appears to be filled with PCs and routers, so maybe a
little more skill applied to the *generation* end of the EMC equation
might help his hi-fi?
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

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On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 11:25:07 +0000, Glenn Richards
wrote:

tony sayer wrote:

We didn't worry about setting up a blind test at this stage, as my
concern was simply to find out whether there was a difference,
perceived, psychological, whatever.
Ah!, If your after the feel good factor going to church on Sundays or
an old s/hand bible might achieve that!.....

Nope. Committed atheist, and have been ever since I was old enough to
know what it meant. (So about age 7 then...)

Really? And yet you believe in 'cable sound' in the absence of any
reliable and repeatable evidence that it exists? Fascinating.....

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

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On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 10:27:32 -0000, "Glenn Booth"
wrote:

Hi,

"Glenn Richards" wrote in message
...
Roderick Stewart wrote:

Just for the record, I've worked in broadcasting for 38 years

And just for the record, most FM radio stations sound pretty poor. Radio 1
is compressed so much it has a dynamic range of about 2dB. Radio 2 is
generally OK, Radio 3 sounds very good apart from the music...

Commercial radio is just as compressed as Radio 1... and TV sound is
positively dire these days. The "let's compress everything to within an inch
of its life" mentality has seen to that. We've got digital stereo and
multichannel sound on TV these days ffs, why why why?

All of this has *nothing whatever* to do with anyone's ability to hear
or listen, and everything to do with market forces. What's your
point? Radio sounds crap, so Roderick can't hear?

You may have reached a "decision" that my home AV setup cannot
possibly perform well, based only on my written description of it,
but my own appraisal of it is based on listening, watching, and
comparing. Let's apply some logic please - evidence first, *then* the
conclusion.

Based on the fact you're running audio through the TV for starters.

So what? I also run DVD audio through the TV. It's a totally
separate signal path to the audio that goes to the 5.1 system, and
has no impact on it at all. It just means that the kids can watch their
Dora the Explorer DVDs without faffing around with multi-channel
audio. When I want the full monty, I can just switch between audio
paths. Easy peasy.

Me three and - guess what? - I can discern no audible difference
between the signal paths when they're level-matched and I don't *know*
which is switched in. Not 'high end' perhaps, but an Alps pot into an
Audiolab 8000P driving Tannoy 633s isn't too shabby.

But the bottom line is that if it sounds fine to you then great. From the
way you've described it, it wouldn't sound "fine" to me.

How can you possibly know this? It's a completely baseless
assertion. The fact that a bit of wire goes from the DVD player
to the telly doesn't mean a thing. You're basically saying that
anyone who uses a fully wired SCART lead is listening to
sub-standard audio. It isn't so.

Richards is heavily into baseless assertions - he even thinks he can
hear differences among cables..........
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

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----------------------------------------------------------
** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY **
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com

Mains filter test results
 

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Nope. Committed atheist, and have been ever since I was old enough to
know what it meant. (So about age 7 then...)
Really? And yet you believe in 'cable sound' in the absence of any
reliable and repeatable evidence that it exists? Fascinating.....

Put it this way...

I've never seen or heard any evidence of the existence of God, Allah, or
any of the other 101 different deities worshipped by various religions.
All I've seen are kooks stamping their feet and waving their arms around
going on about "miracles" and "the second coming" etc etc. And any
so-called "miracle" can usually be explained by science, if not now then
eventually.

On the other hand, I've heard quite clear and reproducible differences
between the sound of different cables, both interconnect and speaker
cables. The first time being in a hi-fi shop, when a friendly assistant
demonstrated the difference between a freebie and a Sonic Link Pink,
knowing full well I wasn't in a position to buy anything at that stage
(this was during my student days). At the time I was a hardened sceptic
as far as cables were concerned, and indeed was still using freebie
cables in my home system. So I wasn't expecting to hear any difference
at all, and was somewhat amazed when there was indeed such a big difference.

But if you say you can't hear a difference between cables, I believe
you. I believe anyone that says they can't hear a difference. I've known
people that couldn't tell the difference between a £99 midi system and
£4k worth of separates (my last g/f for example).

But I don't believe you if you say "there is no difference", because
clearly there is.

In a recent post I mentioned I'd tested the upper limit of my hearing,
which was somewhere past 22kHz. I'm also cursed with perfect pitch,
although I'm not sure if that has any bearing.

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

Mains filter test results
 

tony sayer wrote:

Just for the record, I've worked in broadcasting for 38 years
And just for the record, most FM radio stations sound pretty poor.
Radio 1 is compressed so much it has a dynamic range of about 2dB.
Radio 2 is generally OK, Radio 3 sounds very good apart from the
music...
....thats not Rod's doing is it?....

Pass. He said he worked "in broadcasting". So I was merely making an
observation about what broadcasting is like these days.

--
Glenn Richards Tel: (01453) 845735
Squirrel Solutions http://www.squirrelsolutions.co.uk/

IT consultancy, hardware and software support, broadband installation

Mains filter test results
 

In article , Glenn Richards
wrote:
Just for the record, I've worked in broadcasting for 38 years
And just for the record, most FM radio stations sound pretty poor.
Radio 1 is compressed so much it has a dynamic range of about 2dB.
Radio 2 is generally OK, Radio 3 sounds very good apart from the
music...
....thats not Rod's doing is it?....

Pass. He said he worked "in broadcasting". So I was merely making an
observation about what broadcasting is like these days.

Average output quality of broadcasting stations is the product of the
efforts and opinions of many people. I only mention my connection with
it to make it clear that I have had plenty of experience of what a large
variety of audio equipment is capable of sounding like, not to mention
live music of course, so I think I know what I'm hearing. Some people's
only experience of music is through boxes in their living room, and
their only knowledge of what those boxes are doing is through very
non-technical articles in hi-fi magazines, but that's not me.

Rod.