PS Audio Noise Harvester

Speco's test was as intelligent as a chess game where you calculate how to mate the king with your first move. And then you say it is impossible and no further testing is needed..."Case closed".

And then people agree..."Now that's a real test!". Then speco gets proud. It is like looking at little monkeys who found some measurement devices...

Spec should be a little proud, that was a solid test. Noone ever claimed it was conclusive or, in and of itself, eliminated the need for further testing. But it was simple and straightforward, as the best tests tend to be. The fact that his point was clearly made when the NH failed with flying colors is just icing on the cake.

Perhaps you're just a bit jealous, because spec's test actually qualifies as a test and yours doesn't. To date, spec's experiment is the ONLY valid test of the NH available to all, if I'm not mistaken. Clearly spec has something that ES does not: intellectual discipline.

Seeing you disparage spec's efforts when the logic of his methods and quality of his results was infinitely better than your own is, frankly, puzzling.. but in an irritating sort of way.

Shoo! Pesky mosquito!
 
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Pardon me if I ignore anyone stupid enough to bypass a fuse or lift an AC ground. Hopefully I'll still be around to sue them if their little problem catches my house on fire too.
 
Perhaps you're just a bit jealous, because spec's test actually qualifies as a test and yours doesn't. To date, spec's experiment is the ONLY valid test of the NH available to all, if I'm not mistaken. Clearly spec has something that ES does not: intellectual discipline.

Everyone in this forum are jealous, why else are they skeptics? They are like little kids who feel left out because they want to play too. But they aren't able to because they lack something. So instead they spend their time trying to prove that the other kids are having placebo. It makes them feel better about themselves because it helps them ignore their own disability.

Skeptics who try Noise Harvester and don't hear a difference want to make themselves believe it doesn't make a difference. They blaim something else instead of themselves.
If they have a problem they don't want to get reminded of it. If they get reminded of it they get angry at someone else, they should get angry at themselves and fix their problems instead.

Seeing you disparage spec's efforts when the logic of his methods and quality of his results was infinitely better than your own is, frankly, puzzling.. but in an irritating sort of way.
Skeptics always wanted a double blind test but now when it passed they say it isn't valid anymore. They never wanted it to pass, they wanted it to fail.

Shoo! Pesky mosquito!
If you don't like the truth you want it to go away...
 
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T-Brian started a thread about speco's noise harvester test.
http://psaudio.com/account/forum/view.asp?catID=1&forumID=1&topicID=4384


Mr. McGowan is still showing himself to be ignorant on the subject of spectrum analysis.

On the subject of spectrum analysis:
Our buddy ExtremeSkeptic shows his ignorance as well. A simple spectrum plot will show quite handily any change in the volume of a particular frequency. A spectrogram shows when volume changes occur - the timing as he calls it.

A spectrum analyser is also capable of showing the phase relationships of the various frequencies - the group delay by its proper name. Changes in the group delay are responsible for such things as "crisp" sounds. If the group delay is munged, the lower frequency components will be out of sync with the higher frequency components of a sound. This results in "muddy" or "squishy" sounds.

The biggest contributor to group delay problems are the crossover and the speakers. Noise doesn't contribute at all, except in so far as noise will make anything hard to hear.
 
T-Brian started a thread about speco's noise harvester test.
http://psaudio.com/account/forum/view.asp?catID=1&forumID=1&topicID=4384

The biggest contributor to group delay problems are the crossover and the speakers. Noise doesn't contribute at all, except in so far as noise will make anything hard to hear.
The background noise audiophiles talk about isn't the noise from the system when no music is running through it... All systems have a dead black background when the music is paused, if not, then it shouldn't be allowed to be sold.

The background noise audiophiles talk about can't be heard until it is gone. It just sounds like the background is blacker and quieter, but you can't hear it in the first place. The reason for this is improved clarity of the sounds, it gives the illusion of a blacker background. If you remove AC noise from entering the system it makes the power supply work better which increases the resolution and clarity. It also reveals more low-level detail. That's why audiophiles call it blacker background.
 
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I have only bypassed the fuses of the gear plugged into Premier Power Plant.

The Premier Power Plant regulates voltage, not current. The user's manual and specifications say nothing about providing individual current limitation or individual over-current protection to its power circuits. That's what the fuses in the gear are supposed to do!

The PPP does have a master circuit breaker. So what? The electrical outlets in your home have circuit breakers too -- I hope -- and yet, the equipment manufacturers still put individual fuses in each device. Why do you think they do that?

Look, here's the thing. I'm not saying you have to be a wimp. I understand taking risks and breaking rules. I do it myself. I do my own home wiring. I do my own electronics repair, which sometimes means testing live circuits. I regard every "no user serviceable parts inside" label as a joke.

What I don't do is when taking a risk, I don't deliberately defeat the backup systems protecting me from the consequences of that very same risk! When I do home wiring, I know that I'm not as experienced at it as a professional electrician, so I follow the electrical code even more rigorously and with larger safety margins than the professional would. If the code says "at least two inches clearance" I make it four. I also meter-check for shorts before repowering the panel, which a pro, confident of not making any wiring errors, might not bother to do. When I have to test live electronic gear, I double-check the chassis ground continuity first and I make sure I'm not grounded myself.

Your carbon-fiber fabric is a serious risk. Engineers who design the arrangement of components inside a device know that some components put out heat when in operation. To allow for this they include heat sinks, air spaces for convective heat transfer, and ventilation. All of which are defeated by wrapping those components in polyester-and-carbon-fiber fabric.

The danger you're flirting with is called "thermal runaway." A component that produces heat, that cannot transfer its heat to its surroundings fast enough (say, because it's been wrapped up in fabric), will get hotter. A component that's running hotter often has to "work harder" to do its job. For instance, heat can change the magnetic permeability of a transformer core, making it less efficient and therefore causing it to produce even more heat.

Normally, this effect is balanced by the fact that when a component gets hotter, its higher temperature increases the rate of heat transfer to its surroundings. Where the curve of temperature vs. heat transfer rate crosses the curve of temperature vs. heat output rate, an equilibrium temperature is reached. However, if those curves never intersect (say, because the component has been wrapped up in fabric), it just keeps getting hotter instead, until something fails (e.g. ignites or melts). That's thermal runaway.

The mathematics of thermal runaway are nonlinear. It's possible for the first few degrees of temperature rise to take hours, then the whole thing heats up to failure in a few minutes.

If that's a risk you're willing to take to make your sound sound better, fine. But taking out the fuses is piling risk on top of risk. It's the difference between doing a risky trapeze acrobatic move, and doing it without a net. If you don't have a readily positioned fire extinguisher and smoke detector as I recommended, then it's like doing it without a net and with sharp spikes on the ground. If you live in an apartment, then it's like doing it without a net, with the spikes, with several innocent little babies strapped to your body.

Smoke detector.

Fire extinguisher, rated A/C or A/B/C.

Put. The. Fuses. Back.

I checked; it turns out you can buy gold-plated fuses. I was hoping there might be a business opportunity there for you. Buy case loads of fuses for a few pennies each, send them to a gold plating shop for a few more pennies each, then sell them to your fellow audio buffs, who are struggling with the same problem of fuse noise, for $10 or $20 each.

Actually there might still be a business opportunity, buying already-gold-plated fuses, which are apparently used mostly by yachters and car stereo buffs, and selling them into your market at a premium. Even better, go to the fuse manufacturer and ask whether they could manufacture a vibration-resistant fuse. If they say "yes, but they'd cost a lot," you're in business. If they say, "what do you mean, fuses aren't affected by vibration," all the better: you can now market the very same fuses as "vibration-resistant, recommended for high-end audio" at an even bigger markup. (If you price them at $189.00 each, people will know they're getting something special, and they'll be better able to hear the improvement in their sound.)

There, I've taught you some Simple Physics that you'd probably overlooked, saved you and possibly others from a horrible death by electrocution or fire, and given you the key to riches as a bonus. My good deed for today is done. (Yay, I can now go out and sin for the rest of the day!)

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
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@Myriad: Why bother? ES does not understand what you are saying anyway, and if he does, he'll just tell you that his gear only responds to "advanced" physics.

ExtremeSkeptic's nick should have been ExtremeGullibility...
 
@Myriad: Why bother?

Human compassion, I suppose. I'm not trying to convince him to stop wasting money on junk he doesn't need. (After all, if everybody did that, the world's economy would collapse.) I'm just trying to convince him not to kill his neighbors.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
The background noise audiophiles talk about isn't the noise from the system when no music is running through it... All systems have a dead black background when the music is paused, if not, then it shouldn't be allowed to be sold.

The background noise audiophiles talk about can't be heard until it is gone. It just sounds like the background is blacker and quieter, but you can't hear it in the first place. The reason for this is improved clarity of the sounds, it gives the illusion of a blacker background. If you remove AC noise from entering the system it makes the power supply work better which increases the resolution and clarity. It also reveals more low-level detail. That's why audiophiles call it blacker background.
And once again, ExtremeSkeptic misses the point. I was talking about the influence of noise on group delay, and ES goes off on a tangent apparently triggered by the word "noise."

If the noise that your system produces is in any way overpowering enough to mask the group delay effects of the crossover and speakers, them your system is producing so much noise that you couldn't hear the effing music, never mind any subtle effects that group delay changes might cause.
 
T-Brian started a thread about speco's noise harvester test.
http://psaudio.com/account/forum/view.asp?catID=1&forumID=1&topicID=4384


Mr. McGowan is still showing himself to be ignorant on the subject of spectrum analysis.

On the subject of spectrum analysis:
Our buddy ExtremeSkeptic shows his ignorance as well. A simple spectrum plot will show quite handily any change in the volume of a particular frequency. A spectrogram shows when volume changes occur - the timing as he calls it.

A spectrum analyser is also capable of showing the phase relationships of the various frequencies - the group delay by its proper name. Changes in the group delay are responsible for such things as "crisp" sounds. If the group delay is munged, the lower frequency components will be out of sync with the higher frequency components of a sound. This results in "muddy" or "squishy" sounds.

The biggest contributor to group delay problems are the crossover and the speakers. Noise doesn't contribute at all, except in so far as noise will make anything hard to hear.


Yes DJ Paul shows how much he knows as he keeps calling SMAART a RTA. While it does have a RTA function it was in Transfer function mode for the test which is not a simple as a RTA.
 
If the background noise is so bad that it muddies the music then we would have seen that in the cohearance of the system. The red trace at the top. And again that didnt change one bit.
 
For those who would like to see the difference between aiff (CD audio) and mp3, here's a couple of pictures:

Verdi's "Requiem"
Verdi-wavvsmp3192kBit-spectrum.jpg

Judas Priest's "Hell Patrol"
Hellpatrol-wavvsmp3192kBit-spectrum.jpg

The big drop above 16kHz should bug the hell out of any golden ears audiophiles out there, though in truth they probably can't hear those tones.

The spikes and wobbles below 16kHz are the killers, though. That is lost information and compression artifacts that a golden ear could conceivably hear. The things that mp3 throws away are things that should be masked by other sounds. Those are exactly the things that a discerning ear should be able to hear, though, and that an audiphile should miss as "details and resolution." The compression artifacts should be annoying as hell, too.
 
BTW:
Would anyone like to explain why "Hell Patrol" doesn't appear to drop out until 18kHz? The answer should be pretty clear to anyone who knows how the transfer function is calculated. Seeing that effect can be a surprise if you aren't expecting it, but it follows logically from the math.
 
:eek: :eek: :eek: :jaw-dropp :eek: :covereyes :boggled: :jaw-dropp

I'd swear that was a parody, but it isn't. I'd rather try to explain color to a blind man than try to explain reality to anyone who'd buy that thing from machina dynamica. The blind guy would probably be interested intellectually, whereas an MD buyer would only be interested in maintaining his preconceptions.
See, you only say that because you're hung up on basic physics. This is advanced physics using quantum composite materials way beyond your understanding!

When will you people learn to think outside the box! :boxedin:
 
BTW:
Would anyone like to explain why "Hell Patrol" doesn't appear to drop out until 18kHz? The answer should be pretty clear to anyone who knows how the transfer function is calculated. Seeing that effect can be a surprise if you aren't expecting it, but it follows logically from the math.

Is it because of some sort of delay time?
 
The danger you're flirting with is called "thermal runaway."
You don't know how long I have spent to get proper airflow.

I checked; it turns out you can buy gold-plated fuses. I was hoping there might be a business opportunity there for you. Buy case loads of fuses for a few pennies each, send them to a gold plating shop for a few more pennies each, then sell them to your fellow audio buffs, who are struggling with the same problem of fuse noise, for $10 or $20 each.
I already tried Hifi-Tuning Gold fuse ($30) and didn't hear a difference. But the difference was huge when bypassing the fuse.

Put. The. Fuses. Back.
 
Engineering school has brainwashed you pretty good. Your beliefs are very strong and nothing will change your mind. You don't even want to try the Harvester without putting a microphone to it, that's a serious problem. You people are not normal. Any normal person would already have bought a Harvester after reading the first 2 pages, you know you can try it for 30 days and then return it. That way you can make up your own mind.

Nobody should believe anything someone else says because it is flawed, even me. How can you know the truth about something if you don't enter inside?

Paul McGowan said:
Line noise is always present to some degree. Basically, you can't measure line noise or its effects with a microphone and loudspeaker. You need an oscilloscope at a minimum and a spectrum analyzer is the best place to start.

Think of it this way: what he's doing is like a doctor trying to figure out what's right or wrong with someone without looking inside.

It's pretty simple, buy a Harvester for only 100 bucks and hear for yourself. Then come back and laugh at the brainwashed engineers like all audiophiles already do.
Guess who are the ones wasting their time and missing out on better audio? They sit there all day with simple measurement devices, it's their "job". Then they enter forums and make meaningless posts trying to "convert" someone by telling what they hear isn't really there, and he doesn't even need to try it because he already knows everything about everything because the microphone tells him so. Who are people going to believe? It's pretty obvious.
 
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Guess who are the ones wasting their time and missing out on better audio? They sit there all day with simple measurement devices, it's their "job". Then they enter forums and make meaningless posts trying to "convert" someone by telling what they hear isn't really there, and he doesn't even need to try it because he already knows everything about everything because the microphone tells him so. Who are people going to believe? It's pretty obvious.

The microphone is mighter than the ear.
 

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