Yeah, my description of the suck-out wasn't very good. In my mind I had the impression of a gentle downwards slope starting ~40-50Hz, peaking ~80KHz [Edit: I meant 80Hz, of course], and then coming back up from 100Hz onwards.

Hey, not bad considering I was using widely-spaced discrete test tones and only my ears! (I really need to get hold of a calibrated test microphone, Earthworks or something, at some point.)

Anyway, the LF is now much better. But I still need to work on the extreme-LF... I need more!

Mani.

Hey Peter, my comment here obviously didn't trigger your memory of applying the filter7 notch. Oh well...


I've just applied the Unity setting to filter7, and indeed the LF is much, much better. Nice 'tweak'.

However... over here, I'm still missing the really low-LF stuff. I've only tried a few tracks though, and it could well be that these simply have no real low-LF to begin with. (Or it could be that I really need to get the NOS1a and PC back in the main room and use short ICs.)

Mani.

+1...

Mani.

Yep agreed, that'll give you an 'apples vs. apples' comparison.

The only thing missing would be the affect of the dedicated earth, i.e. not connecting the mains earth through the centre tap, but having the mains earth on the primary and the dedicated earth on the secondary (with a double-pole RCD or RCBO on the output for safety). Even if the balanced transformer is negatively affecting transients, this might be off-set by the positives of using a dedicated earth.

So you're probably best doing a 3-way comparison.

FWIW, over here I currently have things set up as follows:

- 63A D-curve MCB in CU to 15KVA isolation transformer (with 16A RCBO on output), with dedicated earth bonded to secondary Neutral, powering all linear power supply equipment
- 20A MCB in CU to 5KVA balanced transformer (with 16A RCBO on output), with dedicated earth bonded to centre tap of secondary, powering PC SMPS

I have a 'noise sniffer' (rated at 100Hz to 2MHz) which generally goes ballistic anywhere near a SMPS. I've tested the balanced transformer itself, and it reduces the PC's SMPS noise a little. But with my current configuration (1x isolation transformer and 1x balanced transformer), no PC SMPS noise seems to be getting through to the power strip that powers the (linear power supply) equipment. Even on it's most sensitive setting, with the hifi system in full swing, the sniffer registers '0'.

Mani.

Hi Paul, I would have tried this a while ago... but just couldn't figure out an 'apples for apples' comparison. And what I'm talking about is the dedicated earth.

Here at my place, I'm getting 0.5V potential difference between my dedicated earth and my house's AC mains earth. The resistance is 5M Ohms, so there's very, very little current flowing between the two. I'm assuming they can be considered pretty well 'isolated'.

So the two scenarios are 1) with the transformer in place (for the sake of simplicity, let's just consider a non-balanced transformer here), and 2) without the transformer:

1). I can bond the dedicated earth to the Neutral of the secondary to effectively create a 'new' TNS mains network... totally (with the caveat above) isolated from the house's AC mains.

2). In this case, what do I connect the dedicated earth to? The house's AC mains earth? Seems a bit pointless to me. And also we need to bear in mind that here in the UK, we usually use TNC-S mains which means the AC mains earth is bonded the Neutral at the entry point. So I suppose the only option is to go for a T-T network. But there's now a potential difference between the Neutral and the dedicated earth - what affect does this have, if any?

So, I suppose what I'm saying is that yes, it would be easy to compare using a transformer with dedicated earth against no transformer and no dedicated earth. But I can't see how you could really compare using a transformer with dedicated earth against no transformer but still using a dedicated earth.

What am I not seeing here?

Mani.

Actually mine are identical to yours (my sig was out of date and stated nervousness =30 and not =1 as it really is). No issues here with hyperthreading on or off - everything works fine (and this is without a RAMdisc, which I haven't used for quite a while now because I haven't got around to reinstating it yet).

FWIW, I actually prefer the sound of hyperthreading ON. It's a cleaner sound, and the bass is more tuneful. But if anyone finds W8 too clinical-sounding, hyperthreading OFF will probably cure this. It's not to my liking but might well be to others' liking.

Mani.

Bloody hell Paul... I hope it all proves worth while. Looking forward to getting a chance to hear in person at some point.

Mani.

Hey Peter, try taking hyperthreading OFF with W8. In my setup, this brings the LF back up quite a bit and tends to smooth the sound overall. (I'm using processor scheme 'Core 3-5' with a 6-core CPU.)

Don't over-think this one... just try it!

Mani.

Hi VJ, I've been meaning to contribute to this thread for a while, but just haven't gotten around to doing any meaningful F-M comparisons. I'll rectify this in the next day or two.

For now though, I just use S=2, D=2, H=2 (i.e. all orange), which I feel is a good 'generic' setting that works well for most of the music I've tried.

Back with more soon...

Mani.

Hi Stanley, thanks for sharing. I've taken a look at the site you linked to and it seems you have two choices:

1. Blu-ray + CD
2. DVD-A + CD

For the CD, it says "features a new stereo album mix", which I suppose is what you referred to in your OP.

For the Blu-ray, it says "DTS-HD Master Audio stereo (24bit/96khz)".

For the DVD-A, it says "5.1 DTS Mix and High Resolution Stereo mixes" and "5.1 Lossless audio mix (24bit 96khz)".

So my take on all this is that if I want a 24/96 stereo PCM file, I will have to rip the 'DTS-HD MA' file from the Blu-ray or DVD-A, and then convert this to 24/96 PCM. This seems like a lot of work and additional expense (having to use DVDExtractor, or something.)

I'm interested in getting just the CDs, but am not sure from where. I've sent an email to Headphone Dust to ask them. Will let you know once I have an answer.

Mani.

Hey, it's been quiet around here for a while. So I thought I'd give an update on my interconnects.

I can't even remember in which thread I mentioned that I'd be comparing a bunch of ICs, having been told by Peter that my 10m ICs just wouldn't 'work' seeing as the XLR inputs of the Orelos are not balanced. Well, my comparison hasn't really panned out the way I was hoping. Before I left for a business trip last week, I asked for a pair of 'expensive' 2m RCA ICs to be given to me on loan to try out. Well they haven't arrived (not sure they ever will) and because my listening room was in such a mess (from trying the USB cable comparisons), I decided to just put the PC back in the basement, and the NOS1a in the basement 'studio' for now.

What can I say? The sound is great with the 10m ICs I bought through Juan. I mean, really, really great. If I was being really critical, I'd say there might be a very slight loss in dynamics compared to the 2m RCA ICs I was using before, but quite frankly any such loss (if indeed it is really there at all) is nothing compared to the differences between various recordings. And furthermore, there seems to be no attenuation of the HF at all (that I can hear, at least).

I'm not sure this will be a permanent set up. At some point, I think I need to try the PC in the basement and the NOS1a in the main room, with a 5m USB cable between them and 2m ICs to the Orelos. But this will require pulling up some floorboards again, something that I thought I'd never need to do again. Not a big deal, but crawling under the floors of a 130-year-old house isn't my idea of fun.

So for now, I'll continue using the 10m XLR ICs. They really shouldn't sound this good considering the non-balanced nature of the setup. But they do, and that's totally fine by me.

Mani.

Thanks Peter. I'll try this when I'm back in the UK next week.

Mani.

In my case, everything stayed in the same position - only the USB cables were changed.

Having said this, my NOS1a is now back in my little 'isolated studio' in my basement and I'm using my 10m ICs. I'm using the 5m USB cable to the PC (also in the basement, but not in the 'studio'). And the sound is very, very nice indeed. The studio cuts out a lot of RF as I had a semi-Faraday cage built around it - my mobile phone signal goes to zero as soon as I enter. I'm not sure if this shielding is contributing at all.

Mani.

Hmm. I wonder what's really going on with USB. I'm hearing quite obvious changes with different cables, you're not.

Whatever's happening, I'm just glad that one of my cables sounds particularly good, and it just happens to be the longest 5m one, which allows me to keep my PC in the basement.

Mani.

Hi Paul, have you tried any lengths between 0.25m and 5m? If you have, and all USB cables still sound pretty much the same... get yourself a more transparent pair of speakers... haha.

Mani.