[jarnopp]

I believe that the RCA and XLR outputs are the same so if you hear any difference it would be entirely imaginary.

True if you are connecting to pins 1 and 3 (SE). But if conbecting to pins 2 and 3, you get double the power with double the amplification.

 

[Gefell]

I have a super important question as I'm leaning towards picking one of these up shortly.

Black or Silver?

P.S. No I'm not Paul.

 

[nwavesailor]

Silver for me.

 

[N Quarter]

Black for sure.

 

[GreenBow]

Was just looking over the ProAc Response 2DR speaker and thinking, 'Maybe if I had waited buying the Special Forty'. Although the 2DR are not a league ahead of the S40, but the dimensions are good for my desktop use. (If they are even ahead in many ways I don't know.) They are already £750 more than S40, having risen £500 since release early this year.

Feeling a little glum I put on some music, played straight into S40 speakers from TT2. Ride on Time by Black Box. EDM with lots of life, at 8.00am.

Oh crumbs - what was I worrying about.

i care less but the HD USB of tt is galvanic isolated, ground loops are issues involving power. I don’t have issues with either nor do I need a faraday cage or ferrets but I digress

I need to search more in this thread and see if I can find some @Rob Watts responses. Am way not up to speed on this. Please Mr Watts if you can offer any opinion on my situation below.

I found an excellent video to explain ground loops noise though.



I got that clear now. Hence partly why I thought galvanic isolation was meant to block this. I think there are other routes for it though. The TT2 blocks it on USB.

I have a quiet noise in my electrostatic Shure KSE1200 with TT2. It does away if I touch the TT2 case or the KSE 1200 case. It stops also if I touch anything on the system like my amplifier (not us use), or my DAB.

I can stop it by grounding TT2 case; or precisely one of the coaxial-in outer case. Now I am trying to work out why. I imagine the iFi Groundhog would stop it dead too.

What's strange about it is I swear it went away early evening. Am testing for this, but it's going to take a while. Maybe it's some daytime noise RFI floating around the ground plane, that the electrostats pick up. Maybe they are more sensitive. Or maybe they are causing a ground loop with the TT2, and causing noise. Grounding the TT2 works though. Plus odd that it seems to go away early evening.

I don't get it on my Hugo 2: unless the Hugo 2 is plugged in. Suggesting mains noise maybe, or ground loop. I don't get it with the charger and playing the KSE1200.

 

[Rob Watts]

You know how the TT2 USB input is galvanically isolated. Please does it mean that it should not be possible to get a ground loop within the TT2?

Sorry am newb on this stuff.

Or does it just mean something like it's not possible to get a ground loop through the USB?

No possibility of a ground loop via USB as TT2 USB does have galvanic isolation.

The isolation chip does fully isolate to many kV, so nothing to worry about...

But. There is always a But. In this case it is capacitive coupling of 2pF from the USB ground to TT2 ground. 2pF doesn't sound much, and for audio and most RF it is nothing to worry about. But at 2GHz 2pF is an impedance of 40 ohms; at 20 GHz you are looking at 4 ohms, so effectively the grounds are connected together at these frequencies.

But - I then add ferrites to isolate the grounds - in this case we are left with 200 ohm connecting impedance at 2GHz, so pretty much isolating the two grounds from your source to TT2.

Was just looking over the ProAc Response 2DR speaker and thinking, 'Maybe if I had waited buying the Special Forty'. Although the 2DR are not a league ahead of the S40, but the dimensions are good for my desktop use. (If they are even ahead in many ways I don't know.) They are already £750 more than S40, having risen £500 since release early this year.

Feeling a little glum I put on some music, played straight into S40 speakers from TT2. Ride on Time by Black Box. EDM with lots of life, at 8.00am.

Oh crumbs - what was I worrying about.






I need to search more in this thread and see if I can find some @Rob Watts responses. Am way not up to speed on this. Please Mr Watts if you can offer any opinion on my situation below.

I found an excellent video to explain ground loops noise though.



I got that clear now. Hence partly why I thought galvanic isolation was meant to block this. I think there are other routes for it though. The TT2 blocks it on USB.

I have a quiet noise in my electrostatic Shure KSE1200 with TT2. It does away if I touch the TT2 case or the KSE 1200 case. It stops also if I touch anything on the system like my amplifier (not us use), or my DAB.

I can stop it by grounding TT2 case; or precisely one of the coaxial-in outer case. Now I am trying to work out why. I imagine the iFi Groundhog would stop it dead too.

What's strange about it is I swear it went away early evening. Am testing for this, but it's going to take a while. Maybe it's some daytime noise RFI floating around the ground plane, that the electrostats pick up. Maybe they are more sensitive. Or maybe they are causing a ground loop with the TT2, and causing noise. Grounding the TT2 works though. Plus odd that it seems to go away early evening.

I don't get it on my Hugo 2: unless the Hugo 2 is plugged in. Suggesting mains noise maybe, or ground loop. I don't get it with the charger and playing the KSE1200.

So it sounds to me that this problem is mains hum and by touching the sensitive IEM you are getting a buzz coming through. This is due to the 100uA of leakage current coming from the mains PSU; this current flows out of the PSU, into TT2, then through your Shure and down to ground via the impedance of your body.

To solve it simply ground TT2 - connect a ground to the XLRs (pin1) or the phono ground, or any of the BNC inputs.

 

[GreenBow]

No possibility of a ground loop via USB as TT2 USB does have galvanic isolation.

The isolation chip does fully isolate to many kV, so nothing to worry about...

But. There is always a But. In this case it is capacitive coupling of 2pF from the USB ground to TT2 ground. 2pF doesn't sound much, and for audio and most RF it is nothing to worry about. But at 2GHz 2pF is an impedance of 40 ohms; at 20 GHz you are looking at 4 ohms, so effectively the grounds are connected together at these frequencies.

But - I then add ferrites to isolate the grounds - in this case we are left with 200 ohm connecting impedance at 2GHz, so pretty much isolating the two grounds from your source to TT2.


So it sounds to me that this problem is mains hum and by touching the sensitive IEM you are getting a buzz coming through. This is due to the 100uA of leakage current coming from the mains PSU; this current flows out of the PSU, into TT2, then through your Shure and down to ground via the impedance of your body.

To solve it simply ground TT2 - connect a ground to the XLRs (pin1) or the phono ground, or any of the BNC inputs.

Many many thanks.

I did check for a ground loop between coaxial from my DAB, to TT2. That didn't fix it. There was no other connection to other hifi, as TT2 is using RCA for speakers.

It's reassuring that you suggest ground the TT2. I had already done as you said with coaxial ground.

Since grounding TT2, there has been no other worrying side effects; everything running smooth.

I think the most elegant solution would be buy the iFi Groundhog. (I only found that buy searching hum, ground loop, on Head-Fi.) Am just not sure what to connect the groundhog to on the TT2. No spare USB or RCA. Maybe use the power jack, although am nervous of that.



XLR is not a bad idea. I could run one plug and attach only the earth (pin 1 as you say).

When Hugo is rarely playing and charging, a groundhog could run from any free port.

Many thanks for your time you give us. I am not well at the moment and just all this writing today is exhausting. Since you have you own life and bindings, I appreciate your help.

 

[Articnoise]

Many many thanks.

I did check for a ground loop between coaxial from my DAB, to TT2. That didn't fix it. There was no other connection to other hifi, as TT2 is using RCA for speakers.

It's reassuring that you suggest ground the TT2. I had already done as you said with coaxial ground.

Since grounding TT2, there has been no other worrying side effects; everything running smooth.

I think the most elegant solution would be buy the iFi Groundhog. (I only found that buy searching hum, ground loop, on Head-Fi.) Am just not sure what to connect the groundhog to on the TT2. No spare USB or RCA. Maybe use the power jack, although am nervous of that.



XLR is not a bad idea. I could run one plug and attach only the earth (pin 1 as you say).

When Hugo is rarely playing and charging, a groundhog could run from any free port.

Many thanks for your time you give us. I am not well at the moment and just all this writing today is exhausting. Since you have you own life and bindings, I appreciate your help.

To me it sounds like you have one, maybe two, problems with the mains power. The first problem can be fixed by grounding the TT2. The second issue that comes and goes during the day sound to me like DC offset on the mains and is common and is caused by led lights, SMPS, electrical engines and dimmers.

 

[GreenBow]

To me it sounds like you have one, maybe two, problems with the mains power. The first problem can be fixed by grounding the TT2. The second issue that comes and goes during the day sound to me like DC offset on the mains and is common and is caused by led lights, SMPS, electrical engines and dimmers.

Thank you for you input. I need to check this again. I was thinking about it again just today after corresponding with Rob Watts.

I was wondering if I was kidding myself that the noise went away. I am sure though. The noise seemed to be gone by 5pm, which seems early for main daytime heavy mains-electricity usage to stop. If it was that.

Anyway will keep it brief until I can check again. tonight.

There weren't actually two problems though. Just one noise:

• which is solved by grounding the TT2.
• that same noise seemed to go by itself by about 5pm, if the TT2 was not grounded.

 

[andrewd01]

Anyone use a PS Audio Powerplant with their TT2? I'd be interested in your experiences.

I have the P5, and I use it for my server. I do not plug the TT2 into the P5 because I don’t have the required cable (P5 has US sockets).
Since the TT2 has an intermediate SMPS and built in supercaps I figured the P5 is unlikely to make a significant difference. Maybe I should have a hunt through my spare cable box and see if I can find the required cable and test.

The main reason I bought the P5 years ago was for my Devialet D200 amp and it made a noticeable improvement for that amp. Since then I have moved houses and countries twice and the easiest place to fit the P5 in the current house was in the headphone system. I have not done any testing of the P5 in and out of the chain with my server.

 

[andrewd01]

Hi,

Question about TT2. I use macbook pro (Catalina) and Audirvana. I turn TT2 on and wait it to get started. Then i start Audirvana, choose TT2 (usb) and start playing music. Music sounds really weird, using headphone output, like it's being played too fast (speed). I shutdown Audirvana and start it again. Now everything is back to normal and music sounds fine. This happens every time also with Tidal desktop client. Anybody else has similar experience? It doesn't sound like a fault in TT2 but i am not sure...

Janne

Standard computers are a lot of faffing around in a hifi system. 10 years ago I used a mac and Audirvana because there was nothing else, but I wouldnt go near this setup now. If I was you I would just get a cheap audio server like an Innuos Zen mini or if you want to go even cheaper get a used Auralic Aries mini.

 

[andrewd01]

The black TT2 I ordered is out of stock so I am substituting the silver. Is there any sound difference? I heard the silver was brighter.

I would hold out for the black one for aesthetic reasons. Some hifi products look better in silver, but the TT2 is not one of them!

 

[Amberlamps]

I have a super important question as I'm leaning towards picking one of these up shortly.

Black or Silver?

P.S. No I'm not Paul.

Black, much nicer looking in my opinion, and it kinda hides the plastic windows, but in the end it all boils down to what you prefer, if unsure, go visit a dealer first.

 

[Gefell]

Black, much nicer looking in my opinion, and it kinda hides the plastic windows, but in the end it all boils down to what you prefer, if unsure, go visit a dealer first.

Closest dealer is 5+ hours away unfortunately. How sturdy is the black finish? Is it anodized aluminum? In my brief used searches ( I'm going to buy new), I noticed one that seemed to have chipped flakes of black missing along the edges, and it looked silver underneath.

 

[Whazzzup]

Just go with whatever you prefer you won’t think about it again