That night and day thing the cable skeptics fear...

[nick_charles]

Originally Posted by sejarzo

I just took a look at a picture of the back of the Linn player, and it does have a three conductor IEC........so JustPhilbo's thought is spot on. There is a good reason that most consumer audio gear doesn't have a three-prong IEC and cord, but only a two-conductor.....to prevent ground loops and noise!

earwicker7, do you have a DMM or continuity tester? See if all of the cables you have used have the ground pin on the wall plug connected to the corresponding contact on the IEC end.

Linn is of course a UK brand and all our home electric plugs are grounded three pin types from TVs down to kettles, we also put fuses in the plugs, easier to replace

[earwicker7]

Originally Posted by sejarzo

earwicker7, do you have a DMM or continuity tester?

No, I don't.

[earwicker7]

Originally Posted by sejarzo

I have to be blunt: if you were experiencing that level of hiss in your system without the miracle power cable, something was wrong. The player might be designed to be totally quiet, but how can you be certain that there isn't a bad connection from signal ground to chassis ground in your player due to a component that is faulty after a power surge or something like that?

I think people might be misinterpreting the levels that I'm speaking of. The B-52 is an EXTREMELY loud headphone amp, capable of pushing cans quite a bit further than most. I never listen to it at half level unless it is a really quiet recording. If I were to do so, I would have to strain to hear the hiss, and it would only be audible during silent sections. The hiss is very obvious at full blast, but I'd be willing to bet that the B-52's full blast is three or four times as loud as most headphone amps (it certainly is much louder than my HeadRoom Balanced Desktop). Full blast on a B-52 is immediate hearing damage.

This is about an audio obsessive. 99% of people probably wouldn't have even noticed the hiss until it was pointed out. But I'm looking for perfection, and I am a firm believer in low level details being the heart of music reproduction.

[JustPhilbo]

Here is an interesting read from HDTV magazine HDTV Magazine - HDTV Forum - View topic - Grounding - hum, noise bars, interference


Annoying Ground Loops

Most consumer equipment does not have the ground pin but some do and depending on your application may be the source of a ground loop. First step is to understand that every electronic product must be referenced to a common point we call ground. This can be floating, very common, or referenced to the AC power or an antenna cable. For this example it is floating and an antenna cable is not being used in the system. So lets say you have a component audio system and your CD player is one of those hi-end jobs and has a three pin AC cord and this is plugged into your wall outlet. It runs to a preamp and from there across the room to power amplifiers which also have the 3 pin AC plug and they are plugged into a different wall outlet. More than likely this system will have a hum problem due to a ground loop. The ground of the interconnect cables creates the correct reference point between the components. Like most consumer products the CD player and amps have tied the circuit and case to the ground pin of the AC plug. This creates another ground connection using the house wiring between them. This creates a ground loop between the interconnect cables and the house wiring and ground current is divided unequally between them. This is what causes the hum because the circuits no longer have a clear ground reference for the signals connected to them. This is easily resolved by defeating one of the ground pin of one of the plugs. Another method, quite rare, is that one of the units has a ground switch that will disconnect the circuit ground from the case. This will eliminate the ground loop while retaining RF shielding for the circuits because the case is grounded via the AC cord. Even if you disconnect the ground pin on a unit the case is still performing RF shielding provided you have at least one unit in the system connected to AC ground. With that information you can also see why you would not want to float a system where you want the best performance. You would not have any RF shielding.

[nick_charles]

Originally Posted by earwicker7

No, I don't.

If I were a gambling chappie my money would be on expectation bias.

How about doing the test I suggested earlier ?

So far there are lots of explanations or solutions for a problem that so far has not been empirically proven and may not exist at all.

As for the Linn, this is a CD player created by a guy who was convinced that just having a passive digital clock in the same room as a turntable would degrade the sound

[earwicker7]

Originally Posted by JustPhilbo

Here is an interesting read from HDTV magazine HDTV Magazine - HDTV Forum - View topic - Grounding - hum, noise bars, interference


Annoying Ground Loops

Most consumer equipment does not have the ground pin but some do and depending on your application may be the source of a ground loop. First step is to understand that every electronic product must be referenced to a common point we call ground. This can be floating, very common, or referenced to the AC power or an antenna cable. For this example it is floating and an antenna cable is not being used in the system. So lets say you have a component audio system and your CD player is one of those hi-end jobs and has a three pin AC cord and this is plugged into your wall outlet. It runs to a preamp and from there across the room to power amplifiers which also have the 3 pin AC plug and they are plugged into a different wall outlet. More than likely this system will have a hum problem due to a ground loop. The ground of the interconnect cables creates the correct reference point between the components. Like most consumer products the CD player and amps have tied the circuit and case to the ground pin of the AC plug. This creates another ground connection using the house wiring between them. This creates a ground loop between the interconnect cables and the house wiring and ground current is divided unequally between them. This is what causes the hum because the circuits no longer have a clear ground reference for the signals connected to them. This is easily resolved by defeating one of the ground pin of one of the plugs. Another method, quite rare, is that one of the units has a ground switch that will disconnect the circuit ground from the case. This will eliminate the ground loop while retaining RF shielding for the circuits because the case is grounded via the AC cord. Even if you disconnect the ground pin on a unit the case is still performing RF shielding provided you have at least one unit in the system connected to AC ground. With that information you can also see why you would not want to float a system where you want the best performance. You would not have any RF shielding.

Guys, I know what a ground loop sounds like!!! It's a hum, not radio-like (fluctuating) interference.

[earwicker7]

Originally Posted by nick_charles

How about doing the test I suggested earlier ?

My computer is on the opposite side of my apartment, I'm not sure if I have enough cable to reach it. It's not a laptop either

I'll see if I can figure out a way to do it.

[nick_charles]

Originally Posted by earwicker7

I think people might be misinterpreting the levels that I'm speaking of. The B-52 is an EXTREMELY loud headphone amp, capable of pushing cans quite a bit further than most. I never listen to it at half level unless it is a really quiet recording.

I never listen to my M^3 at above 1/4 level unless it is a really quiet recording, even then at half volume it is really loud into 580s. At no point however do I have any noise problems, ever.

If I were to do so, I would have to strain to hear the hiss, and it would only be audible during silent sections. The hiss is very obvious at full blast, but I'd be willing to bet that the B-52's full blast is three or four times as loud as most headphone amps (it certainly is much louder than my HeadRoom Balanced Desktop). Full blast on a B-52 is immediate hearing damage.

So it is a problem that isnt actually a problem in the real world at all ?

This is about an audio obsessive.

No argument here

99% of people probably wouldn't have even noticed the hiss until it was pointed out. But I'm looking for perfection, and I am a firm believer in low level details being the heart of music reproduction.

So lets see if I have this straight. A power cable makes a night and day difference to 1% of people who are actively listening for defects at super high levels and who would never even listen at the levels where any difference would be audible since they would instantly burst their eardrums ? ...but knowing that a difference can exist at these theoretical levels are happy to invest in kit to solve this problem that isn't by most rational criteria a problem as such .

[earwicker7]

Two points...

1. I have a very resolving, high power setup. It's possible that people don't know what I'm referring to (most people seem to be drawing a blank) when I talk about the digital noise because their system doesn't put stuff under a microscope like mine does. I don't hear the same music when I listen to my HeadRoom Desktop setup; it's a sweet setup, but things are much less resolved on it.

2. The digital noise reduction compound is patented. I'm not a patent lawyer, but doesn't there have to be some evidence that it does what it says to get a patent?

[earwicker7]

Originally Posted by nick_charles

So lets see if I have this straight. A power cable makes a night and day difference to 1% of people who are actively listening for defects at super high levels and who would never even listen at the levels where any difference would be audible since they would instantly burst their eardrums ? ...but knowing that a difference can exist at these theoretical levels are happy to invest in kit to solve this problem that isn't by most rational criteria a problem as such .

Well, the night and day reference was specifically aimed at the fact that you can make the noise disappear, which (IMO) is proof that power cables can change the sound. I wouldn't say there was a night and day change in actual performance during normal listening, although there seemed to be a small amount. It just proves (to me, at least) that power cables can have SOME effect on sound, which seems to a big bone of contention.