[daglesj]

I've been using ferrites inside my PCs for years.

I have ferrites on all the power leads going in the HDDs and DVD drive and also a large one clamped around the main power lead just before the plug into the motherboard. Also smaller ferrites on all the auxilliary power leads to the motherboard.

I also filter the power through two mains filters before it hits the Corsair PSU.

Clean power means a happy PC.

Enermax make PSUs with lots of extra mains filtering and ferrites in.

By the way, ferrite cores are not magnetic. Just made of a similar substance.

 

[mrarroyo]

I have been using ferrite's on power cords for years, a blacker background has been the biggest difference I have heard. Not a night and day difference btw.

 

[leeperry]

"blacker background" is a door wide opened to placebo

I've got a bunch of clipsable ferrites that are exactly the right size to fit my cd1k cable...but I can't hear a difference

I also have one of these things on the PC power plug/ADSL connection, it's said to filter a hell lot of EMI/RFI:

 

[mrarroyo]

"blacker background" is a door wide opened to placebo

...

You may be correct, regardless I like it!

Besides, if it sounds good, it is good.

 

[daglesj]

The thing is the junk they filter or absorb may not be in an audible band but whilst you cant tell if its helping, it may help something else in the system to get a cleaner signal.

The more junk you can filter out the better all round.

 

[leeperry]

except for digital...for instance regular ferrites are no good for TMDS signals(HDMI/DVI): http://www.scapro.se/text/murataemidvi.pdf

Quote:

A major issue is that the addition of an EMI filter, for example, can cause waveforms to lose their shape, making faithful data transmission impossible.

Quote:

DVI transmission rates are in excess of 1.6Gbps, and if ferrite beads are added to signal lines, not only is the extraneous noise component eliminated, but also the frequency components that make up the signals to be transmitted!

 

[Linyanti]

Thanks again for all of the suggestions. I took the ferrite cores that I had around the power lead to the hdd's and could not pick up any paper clips with them. But I was able to make a compass spin. Probably just the ferrite in it. left it off the hdd power and did not notice any change.

I have to agree with one of the posters above that the sound is "Darker" with all the ferrite. The soundstage is more precise. This is kind of nicer with the tube amplification from the Ming Da headphone amp that causes so much "air". Music continues to be strong. I really stopped listening to music the last few years. Now I have on Aimee Mann, been listening to Forever Faithless, Dazed and Confused Soundtrack. Then I had Stan Getz (Artistry of Stan Getz: Verve Years) using the loudspeakers with the computer as the source and my daughter said that guy knew how to play a trumpet. I guess those lessons were not wasted.

Some interesting things from the other links people were kind enough to post are that maybe PCIe is not the best interface for soundcards. I have read some good links that PCI interface may be superior for music. Also going all the way out of the pc for DAC could help. I also do not notice any noise difference between the headphone out and the right and left out.

I also read how some of the players would notice more noise when doing certain moves in a game. That person had a crossfire setup. This leads me to further believe in my hypothesis that these huge wattages going to the videocards is doing something.

After all the work of putting in Iron there is only a tiny thump when the game starts and the sound has gotten very nice with no problems the rest of the game. And again zero problems just listening to music.

Thanks again.

 

[daglesj]

The thing to remember with PCI-e soundcards is their designs are often kludged PCI to PCI-e designs. In that their original design and spec was for PCI but then they were adapted to work for PCI-e.

This is passing though.