Unfortunately, not much more to report - too many tussles with other parts of the household in the interim, having things go wrong seems to go in cycles! The only real progress with the audio is that I have started experimenting with adding some interference reduction measures, which appear to be helping matters - the CD player, as I would have expected, seems to be the more susceptible - meaning, it needs an extremely clean electrical environment for there not to be obvious degradation. Wireless phones, as in mobiles and home units, are as bad offenders as they have been in the past, and I have yet to find a definitive solution for this in general - perhaps only a 100% thoroughly re-engineered system will be completely immune from audible effects ...
The system currently hovers between conjuring and non-conjuring - if all the stops are pulled out then the quality constantly delights, I can put on a CD I haven't heard in years and it's a real pleasure, the texture of the sound draws me in and immediately there's a skip in my step. But, it only takes something like a mobile phone operating in the house to cripple that, the injection of the accompanying electrical disturbance is enough to contaminate the low level detail, and the speakers become very obvious, they don't "disappear".
Also, I really must get cracking and do some proper recordings of the system playback, and upload - at the moment I can get stuck too easily in Round Tuit territory ... more effort is needed!!
Friday 22 January 2016
Monday 4 January 2016
A More Ambitious Upgrade - Part 16
Okay, time for a quick recap ...
I'm satisfied I've got the combination of NAD CD player and integrated amplifier, and simple Sharp shelf speakers over the first hurdle: if enough care is used to control the electrical environment around it then it conjures, very nicely. At the moment I'm playing a EMI 1964 opera CD, lovely full rich sound that expands as far anyone could want, with the speakers totally "invisible" - and the same goes for a real roughie, like the original Rolling Stones London album, played yesterday; the sound completely lifts out of the speakers.
But, I've got fixed volume, so to speak - I still haven't resolved the final solution for this, which will require trying at least one better quality potentiometer - on the To Do list. And, as I've experienced over and over again, external and possibly mutual electrical interference are problematic, the "good stuff" is only wrought when all sorts of "silly" fudges are organised for the electrical items in the house - this is a pain(!), and must be properly sorted by adding filtering and shielding as appropriate. Plus, the fixed volume I'm using is not pushing the amplifier into areas where it is substantially stressed - will the quality sustain for continuously elevated levels, like modern, heavily compressed pop?
What is very significant, is that from cold turn on the sound is highly competent, very little warm up time, if any, is necessary for satisfying replay to be had - and, almost no component substitution has been done so far: no electrolytic capacitors replaced, no swapping of other passive, and active parts done; not even the power supplies have been touched. So, there is plenty of manouvering room to enhance quality further - this is an excellent sign, the potential appears to be there for some impressive reproduction capability ...
I'm satisfied I've got the combination of NAD CD player and integrated amplifier, and simple Sharp shelf speakers over the first hurdle: if enough care is used to control the electrical environment around it then it conjures, very nicely. At the moment I'm playing a EMI 1964 opera CD, lovely full rich sound that expands as far anyone could want, with the speakers totally "invisible" - and the same goes for a real roughie, like the original Rolling Stones London album, played yesterday; the sound completely lifts out of the speakers.
But, I've got fixed volume, so to speak - I still haven't resolved the final solution for this, which will require trying at least one better quality potentiometer - on the To Do list. And, as I've experienced over and over again, external and possibly mutual electrical interference are problematic, the "good stuff" is only wrought when all sorts of "silly" fudges are organised for the electrical items in the house - this is a pain(!), and must be properly sorted by adding filtering and shielding as appropriate. Plus, the fixed volume I'm using is not pushing the amplifier into areas where it is substantially stressed - will the quality sustain for continuously elevated levels, like modern, heavily compressed pop?
What is very significant, is that from cold turn on the sound is highly competent, very little warm up time, if any, is necessary for satisfying replay to be had - and, almost no component substitution has been done so far: no electrolytic capacitors replaced, no swapping of other passive, and active parts done; not even the power supplies have been touched. So, there is plenty of manouvering room to enhance quality further - this is an excellent sign, the potential appears to be there for some impressive reproduction capability ...
Sunday 3 January 2016
A More Ambitious Upgrade - Part 15
Regarding the robustness of the sound quality, and awkwardness at this point of tuning, as mentioned in the previous chapter - I have a real issue with a mobile phone at the moment: switched on, even at the other end of the house it is coupling in some manner to the system, most likely via the mains power cabling - and results in the sound deadening. A flatness, major drop off in sparkle occurs, the particular interference, distortion mechanism doesn't create noise in the usual sense, but turns the sound into a much duller, "smaller", 2D version of the event - one loses interest quickly, the "life" has been sucked out of the music ...
This has been the case with all my system experiments so far in our age of the wireless phone, and it is very difficult to cure - by far the easiest solution is to simply turn off, fully, all such phones; but in this day and age this is not really a reasonable approach. A fully comprehensive solution I have not yet devised ... something for the future to sort out ...
This has been the case with all my system experiments so far in our age of the wireless phone, and it is very difficult to cure - by far the easiest solution is to simply turn off, fully, all such phones; but in this day and age this is not really a reasonable approach. A fully comprehensive solution I have not yet devised ... something for the future to sort out ...
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