Merry Christmas everyone. Hope to catch up with as many of you as possible in 2013.

Mani.

It's hard enough getting the SQ right when you're alive. I wouldn't want to be rolling in the grave... or should that be rock 'n' rolling in the grave?

Mani.

OK, a 2-way crossover then

"Fully booked", hey? Can't just be bug-fixing. Maybe there's another Noble prize winning feature coming our way. Not sure about anyone else, but I doubt I can handle another quantum leap in SQ. Well, if you insist...

Mani.

What's the single thing that you wish for in XX for 2013? Could be functionality or usability or SQ, or whatever. I'll get the ball rolling...

I wish for a fully customisable 3-way digital crossover integrated into XX.

That means the NOS1 will need to be upgraded to house 24 PCM1704 chips 

Mani

What I love about all these photos is that I can prove to my wife that I'm not all that crazy after all and that she should be happy with my positively moderate approach to this hobby.

Thanks guys!

Mani.

Hmmm...

In my office I use a PC with an i7-3770K CPU. The BIOS allows quite a lot of configuration. If I turn off all mobo USB devices in the BIOS (which I have), then no mobo USB devices show in Windows' device manager, i.e. you can't shut the devices off in BIOS and in Windows as there's simply nothing to shut off in Windows any more.

Mani.

EDIT: I need to learn to read Nick's post more carefully. The blue text is what has changed from his original list. So yes indeed, Nick used to suggest shutting devices off in the BIOS but has recently found that keeping them on and shutting them off in Windows instead is better.

Nick, did you mean enable here? I suspect you did as you mention that you were surprised. Anyway, let me know.

Cheers, Mani.

Well, as we're sharing...

I've recently set up a small 'studio' in my basement for my vinyl digitization project and taken most of my equipment down there. This leaves my listening room nice and clean... for photo opportunities!

(Incidentally, the speakers are much bigger in reality than they look in the photo. The room itself is 4m wide.)

Mani.

Thanks Gerd. I've placed an order on Amazon.

Mani.

This seems to be specific to gainclones. With all of my other amps, it makes no difference to the noise coming out of the speakers whatsoever if the NOS1 is connected or not.

Mani

I went away from an SFS setting of 430 a while ago and nowadays choose between either 2 or 60. With my regular setup it tends to be 60, just to take a slight edge off the sound. If I replace the anti-cables with other LS/IC cables or bypass the AC regenerator, I tend to switch to 2 because the sound is a bit too dull otherwise.

Mani.

A swinger? Works for me... but Satty's just not into it - as far as she's concerned it's me or no-one ;-)

OK, I've spent the last couple of hours playing around with a few things. I twisted my anti-cable LS cables by hand (not pretty but hopefully good enough). I also brought up my PurePower unit from the basement. This was NOT connected to the AC mains at all and was being used purely as a battery pack outputting 230V.

I tried 3 different amps - the Sauermann, the Sanders Magtech and the Berning 300B. There was nothing connected at their inputs. So, just the power cable from the PurePower 230V battery pack (Live and Neutral only - no earth) and the LS cable to the speakers. The speakers' internal bass amps were not connected and were off.

All 3 amps exhibited a similar amount of noise. But the noise had a slightly different 'quality' depending on the amp being used.

So, it's either the LS cables 'at fault'... or I need a quieter amp! My super-gainclones should be back soon and I'll be interested in hearing how much noise there is with them...

Mani.

Hi Paul, thanks for offering to do this - yep, I think it could be very helpful. Meanwhile, I've got a couple of other amps here that I'll try first, and I'd also like to try a few different LS cables and AC mains configurations.

Ultimately the noise is only just audible from the listening position, but if Peter and Bert have managed to totally eliminate it a few cm away from the speakers, then I should aim to achieve exactly the same. A 115dB/W system at full gain with virtually no noise - that's quite a tall order, but at least we know it is actually possible.

I'm having a bit of work done in my basement (a small 'studio' for my vinyl digitisation project) which should be completed by the end of next week. How does the week commencing the 12th of Nov look for you? Nick, are you interested in joining us if we can find a suitable date? It might be a good opportunity to compare the Sauermann amps with Bert's BD30 super-gainclones and Paul's amp (which I think you have as well, right?). Hell, we could throw in the Berning Siegfried 300B and Sanders Magtech for good measure. Let me know.

Mani.

Hey Peter, thanks for your ideas.


Who's been doing this? Maybe you think that when I say 'anti-cables' I mean LS cables or interlinks. I actually mean both. I have anti-cable LS cables and anti-cable ICs (both SE with RCA connectors and balanced with XLR connectors). All my anti-cables are ready-made commercial products.


The noise isn't affected by the BD30s being on or off. But I'm doing all of the investigation with the BD30s off.

One thing we can eliminate straight away is the NOS1-> Sauermann connection. The noise remains the same when the XLR IC is disconnected from the amps.


Thanks Peter. I'll try what you suggest and switch everything off at the AC mains consumer box.


Like I said, it doesn't matter whether they're on or off.

Thanks again for the ideas.

Cheers, Mani.

It's funny, but I think I could almost tell if it were a grounding issue just by the 'quality' of the noise... and I don't think it is. But I will explore grounding if all other avenues prove unsuccessful.


You're welcome any time Paul. My work load is very manageable for the remainder of the year, so just let me know when suits you. Also, Bert should be sending my gainclones back to me next week having had a couple of upgrades and caps installed. I'll be able to use them with PA engaged and make a fairer comparison with the Sauermann monos.

Cheers, Mani.