a_recording
Member of the Trade: Lachlanlikesathing
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- Mar 20, 2009
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Hi guys, I have a bit of a mystery that I am hoping someone with a bit more electronics know how can solve for me.
I have a HRT Music Streamer II+ with its RCA outs split, so that one pair of L/R RCA's goes to a pair of active desktop monitors and another pair of RCA's goes to my O2 headphone amp.
I've had this set up for some time, but recently after some really critical listening I started to feel that there was some distortion coming from the active desktop monitors that I could hear in the form of warbling in the bass notes and a 'bluntness' to the treble.
After connecting the monitors directly to the DAC without using split cables, I felt that the distortion went away. However I couldn't really confirm whether or not it was just a placebo to my ears, until I tried this test file with split cables and without: http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_imd.php There was a clearly audible warbling in the high frequency tone when using split cables which was not present when just using a direct RCA connection from DAC to the monitors' input.
There is no audible distortion on the O2 when using the split cables and at 1x gain. I do know that the HRT Music Streamer II+ outputs a signal slightly above line level (around 2.25v if I recall correctly).
Can anyone tell me why I am hearing this distortion when using the split cables? It sounds almost like splitting the cables is causing some part of the amp stage on the active desktop to overload. I am not necessarily looking for a solution, I'd just like to understand why the problem is there in the first place. Thanks!
I have a HRT Music Streamer II+ with its RCA outs split, so that one pair of L/R RCA's goes to a pair of active desktop monitors and another pair of RCA's goes to my O2 headphone amp.
I've had this set up for some time, but recently after some really critical listening I started to feel that there was some distortion coming from the active desktop monitors that I could hear in the form of warbling in the bass notes and a 'bluntness' to the treble.
After connecting the monitors directly to the DAC without using split cables, I felt that the distortion went away. However I couldn't really confirm whether or not it was just a placebo to my ears, until I tried this test file with split cables and without: http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_imd.php There was a clearly audible warbling in the high frequency tone when using split cables which was not present when just using a direct RCA connection from DAC to the monitors' input.
There is no audible distortion on the O2 when using the split cables and at 1x gain. I do know that the HRT Music Streamer II+ outputs a signal slightly above line level (around 2.25v if I recall correctly).
Can anyone tell me why I am hearing this distortion when using the split cables? It sounds almost like splitting the cables is causing some part of the amp stage on the active desktop to overload. I am not necessarily looking for a solution, I'd just like to understand why the problem is there in the first place. Thanks!