Listen to your Room and make your #stereo sound better!
11/05/09 13:17
Many high end audio enthusiasts spend countless hours and a fist full of dollars in order to get the ir stereo system to sound as good as possible. The right source, the right preamp and amplifier all way out to a great pair of speakers. Next the pain staking search for interconnects and speaker wire begins and in most cases it never, ever ends.
Oddly enough when you walk into the listening rooms of most audiophiles you see some very strange things. Big glass coffee tables, bare hardwood floors, high backed listening chairs in rooms that have reflective surfaces like windows to the left of the system and something less reflective to the right like drywall. All this despite the thousands spent on equipment and accessories. The most overlooked component of a stereo system is the room itself. A $10,000 stereo in the right room can easily outperform a $25,000 system in the wrong room. If you don’t address the room you’re listening in you are literally wasting your money!
Ideally you want a rectangular room with the seated position a third of the way into from the rear wall and your speakers a third of the way out into the room. If when you do this you are sitting closer than 7 or 8 feet from the speakers, try towing them in towards your listening position. The only problem with this is that there might be a lack of bass sitting that close. This setup is less than ideal so you can try and make the best of the situation by moving your listening position and the speakers further away from each other. There are two things you’re trying to avoid here. First you don’t want reflections from the wall behind you to make it back to your listening position, so the closer you are to that wall the more of a problem this will become. This is also why high backed listening chairs are a bad idea.The other problem occurs when you back your speakers into a corner. Bass frequencies are not as directional as midrange and high frequencies, when the speakers are too close to a wall they tend to be amplified causing the bass to be boomy and lack dynamics. This is especially true when speakers are right up in the corner of the room. The problem can sometimes be so bad the the extra bass actually masks the midrange and the system can sound dark and murky.
So, what can you do in small room? Well there are quite a few things you can try. A bookshelf behind your listening position will break up the high frequencies and prevent them from reaching you. There are also sound panels you can buy to diffuse the high frequencies as well. If you have too much bass in a room a large cardboard box full of chopped up foam rubber and shredded newspaper. If this works you can either buy some bass traps or decorate the cardboard box to match your decor!
Another problem that plagues rooms both large and small is first reflections. When sound hits a hard surface it bounces off and speeds up. These sounds then travel to your listening position arriving just before or just after the direct sound coming from the speakers. This will rob you of focus and detail. If you were to place a mirror on the side wall and move it to a position to where you can see the speaker while sitting in your listening chair, this would be a good place to put a sound absorbing material to prevent these first reflections from reaching you.
So now that we’ve eliminated reflections from the side walls and the wall behind you, all we have left are the floor and ceiling. Since there’s not often many things we can do with the ceiling lets make sure that there’s carpet on the floor. If there’s no carpet it might be time to invest in an area rug. All this is designed to stop stray frequencies from bouncing around your room and arriving at the wrong time. The overall goal is to limit all but the direct sound coming from the speakers.
Bottom line you can get a much bigger bang for your audio buck by addressing problems with the room you’re listening in!
Oddly enough when you walk into the listening rooms of most audiophiles you see some very strange things. Big glass coffee tables, bare hardwood floors, high backed listening chairs in rooms that have reflective surfaces like windows to the left of the system and something less reflective to the right like drywall. All this despite the thousands spent on equipment and accessories. The most overlooked component of a stereo system is the room itself. A $10,000 stereo in the right room can easily outperform a $25,000 system in the wrong room. If you don’t address the room you’re listening in you are literally wasting your money!
Ideally you want a rectangular room with the seated position a third of the way into from the rear wall and your speakers a third of the way out into the room. If when you do this you are sitting closer than 7 or 8 feet from the speakers, try towing them in towards your listening position. The only problem with this is that there might be a lack of bass sitting that close. This setup is less than ideal so you can try and make the best of the situation by moving your listening position and the speakers further away from each other. There are two things you’re trying to avoid here. First you don’t want reflections from the wall behind you to make it back to your listening position, so the closer you are to that wall the more of a problem this will become. This is also why high backed listening chairs are a bad idea.The other problem occurs when you back your speakers into a corner. Bass frequencies are not as directional as midrange and high frequencies, when the speakers are too close to a wall they tend to be amplified causing the bass to be boomy and lack dynamics. This is especially true when speakers are right up in the corner of the room. The problem can sometimes be so bad the the extra bass actually masks the midrange and the system can sound dark and murky.
So, what can you do in small room? Well there are quite a few things you can try. A bookshelf behind your listening position will break up the high frequencies and prevent them from reaching you. There are also sound panels you can buy to diffuse the high frequencies as well. If you have too much bass in a room a large cardboard box full of chopped up foam rubber and shredded newspaper. If this works you can either buy some bass traps or decorate the cardboard box to match your decor!
Another problem that plagues rooms both large and small is first reflections. When sound hits a hard surface it bounces off and speeds up. These sounds then travel to your listening position arriving just before or just after the direct sound coming from the speakers. This will rob you of focus and detail. If you were to place a mirror on the side wall and move it to a position to where you can see the speaker while sitting in your listening chair, this would be a good place to put a sound absorbing material to prevent these first reflections from reaching you.
So now that we’ve eliminated reflections from the side walls and the wall behind you, all we have left are the floor and ceiling. Since there’s not often many things we can do with the ceiling lets make sure that there’s carpet on the floor. If there’s no carpet it might be time to invest in an area rug. All this is designed to stop stray frequencies from bouncing around your room and arriving at the wrong time. The overall goal is to limit all but the direct sound coming from the speakers.
Bottom line you can get a much bigger bang for your audio buck by addressing problems with the room you’re listening in!
Making #DVD Audio Discs from CD's
11/05/09 13:15
I have seen several forum posts regarding making DVD Audio from CD’s and/or the value of increasing the bit depth and sampling rate of .wav or .aiff audio to make 24 bit versions of the files. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that even though the resulting files have more data representing the audio the apparent quality won’t be any better because you can never improve upon the source material. In a perfect world this would be true. Unfortunately when it comes to optical media like CD’s and DVD’s there are other factors at work.
Working in a Hi Fi stereo shop for some years I began to notice that inexpensive CD and DVD players seemed to be better at reading scratched media than their higher quality counterparts. Upon doing some research on the subject I realized that cheaper players employ more error correction. This is because they use cheap transports and other cheap components that don’t read the media and interpret the data as well as higher quality players, and so more error correction is needed. In other words whenever you play a disc some of the data that is encoded is lost and either replaced by silence when it’s just a sample or two or dither noise when more than a few samples are lost. It’s this dither noise that causes the “harshness” or “digital grit” that audiophiles complained about when the CD format was first introduced.
High end audio manufacturers soon realized that by making more rigid transports and dampening the vibration caused by the spinning disc the laser could to a better job of reading the disc. They also found that by reading the disc more than once and comparing the results(oversampling), and taking steps to ensure that the samples play back in the correct order(jitter correction), less error correction will be needed and the sound is dramatically improved.
When you take the 16 bit 44.1 Khz file you extracted from the CD, resample it up to a 24 bit 96 Khz file and burn it as a DVD Audio disc, you are not actually improving the quality of the audio. However by having more samples there to represent the audio even if twice the samples are lost, there are still tons more left available to recreate the original audio. If you are a person that listens to music as an activity, and by that I mean you’re sitting the correct distance from properly towed in speakers in a room that has been optimized for listening to music there will be quite a noticeable difference. If you’re listening to music as you do housework, or listening on plastic computer speakers this is not something you even need to consider.
Working in a Hi Fi stereo shop for some years I began to notice that inexpensive CD and DVD players seemed to be better at reading scratched media than their higher quality counterparts. Upon doing some research on the subject I realized that cheaper players employ more error correction. This is because they use cheap transports and other cheap components that don’t read the media and interpret the data as well as higher quality players, and so more error correction is needed. In other words whenever you play a disc some of the data that is encoded is lost and either replaced by silence when it’s just a sample or two or dither noise when more than a few samples are lost. It’s this dither noise that causes the “harshness” or “digital grit” that audiophiles complained about when the CD format was first introduced.
High end audio manufacturers soon realized that by making more rigid transports and dampening the vibration caused by the spinning disc the laser could to a better job of reading the disc. They also found that by reading the disc more than once and comparing the results(oversampling), and taking steps to ensure that the samples play back in the correct order(jitter correction), less error correction will be needed and the sound is dramatically improved.
When you take the 16 bit 44.1 Khz file you extracted from the CD, resample it up to a 24 bit 96 Khz file and burn it as a DVD Audio disc, you are not actually improving the quality of the audio. However by having more samples there to represent the audio even if twice the samples are lost, there are still tons more left available to recreate the original audio. If you are a person that listens to music as an activity, and by that I mean you’re sitting the correct distance from properly towed in speakers in a room that has been optimized for listening to music there will be quite a noticeable difference. If you’re listening to music as you do housework, or listening on plastic computer speakers this is not something you even need to consider.
Dirty Sales Tricks used by retail outlets.
11/05/09 13:13
The “Repack”
Sometimes, for what ever reason a customer returns something that isn’t broken. They got cold feet or their spouse disagreed with the decision to make this purchase. More often then not this customer will get a refund minus a restocking fee. This fee usually ranges from 10% to 20% of the purchase price of the unit. The rationale here is that the product is now technically used and can’t be sold again as new. This is completely fair as long as the unit is actually sold to the next customer at a discount! My second day on the job I was shown how to do a “Repack”. Basically I was shown how to place everything back in the package in such a way that it looked factory sealed. This was done so that the item could then be sold again as new and for the full price. Some even go so far as to open the box from the bottom when they remove product for demonstration purposes. I have actually seen demo equipment that’s been on the sales floor for over a year, cleaned up, repacked and sold as new! You can sometimes spot a repack. Manuals will be dog eared and creased, tie wraps around cables won’t match. If you’re thinking you can even look at the box if you can see two layers of tape on either the top or the bottom there’s a good chance it’s a repack!
The Warranty Shuffle
Things always seem to break down just as the warranty expires! In some cases, if a shop has a good relationship with the distributor they can ask to have something fixed under warranty even though the warranty has recently expired. Sometimes this works out for you and the shop passes the savings on to you. Sometimes they tell you that there’s nothing they can do because the warranty has expired. Then after having it fixed under warranty, charge you an arbitrary amount in order to make some quick cash!
Sometimes, for what ever reason a customer returns something that isn’t broken. They got cold feet or their spouse disagreed with the decision to make this purchase. More often then not this customer will get a refund minus a restocking fee. This fee usually ranges from 10% to 20% of the purchase price of the unit. The rationale here is that the product is now technically used and can’t be sold again as new. This is completely fair as long as the unit is actually sold to the next customer at a discount! My second day on the job I was shown how to do a “Repack”. Basically I was shown how to place everything back in the package in such a way that it looked factory sealed. This was done so that the item could then be sold again as new and for the full price. Some even go so far as to open the box from the bottom when they remove product for demonstration purposes. I have actually seen demo equipment that’s been on the sales floor for over a year, cleaned up, repacked and sold as new! You can sometimes spot a repack. Manuals will be dog eared and creased, tie wraps around cables won’t match. If you’re thinking you can even look at the box if you can see two layers of tape on either the top or the bottom there’s a good chance it’s a repack!
The Warranty Shuffle
Things always seem to break down just as the warranty expires! In some cases, if a shop has a good relationship with the distributor they can ask to have something fixed under warranty even though the warranty has recently expired. Sometimes this works out for you and the shop passes the savings on to you. Sometimes they tell you that there’s nothing they can do because the warranty has expired. Then after having it fixed under warranty, charge you an arbitrary amount in order to make some quick cash!
Bullshit Buzzwords that induce people to buy.
11/05/09 13:12
Here are some examples of jargon, buzzwords that mislead or are meaningless.
Musical
Quite often when a salesperson wants to convey that product X is better than product Y that costs quite a bit less, and there is no real difference, they will claim that product X is more “musical” I guess it’s not really a lie, I’m sure the extra money they want you to spend is music to their ears! Whenever you hear the word musical used in a description of an audio product just substitute the word bullshit and you’ll do just fine.
Noise Floor
A huge amount of products are sold on the premise that by reducing the amount of noise present you’ll hear more music. The idea being that if you get rid of noise, small details will become more apparent to your ear and the music will sound better. Hey it makes sense right? Less noise equals more music. The unfortunate thing is that more often than not they’re SAYING they are lowering the noise floor when in reality they are using a device that is widely used in the recording industry called a compressor. A compressor is like a super fast robot that turns up the volume when things are quiet and leaves the sound unchanged when the music gets louder. This has the effect of making anything processed in this way to sound more detailed and live. However it limits the dynamic range of the music so the difference between the loudest sounds and the softest sounds is in some cases dramatically reduced. A good example of this is commercials on TV. Ever notice how they sound louder than the shows you are watching? The people who produce these commercials employ compression to achieve this effect. It is also used to make dialogue in movies crystal clear despite all manner of other sound effects happening at the same time. When you employ compression to Jazz, opera and classical music all of which avoid using compression in the recording and production of the music, it works astonishingly well, the subtle aspects of the music jump out and tickle the ear drums. The problem comes when you want to listen to some good old rock and roll. Crunchy overdriven rock guitar is already as compressed as you can make it and still have it be pleasing to the ear. Compress it any more and it turns to mush! Long story short, if you like to rock out with your system occasionally be very careful with products that claim to “Lower the noise floor”
High Bandwidth
This one isn’t used as much as it used to be, but you never know when it will creep up again. All this means is that the product in question can reproduce very high highs and very low bass. Since most audiophiles are at least pushing 40 years of age it is unlikely that many can hear a frequency higher than 18 or 19KHZ. This is because most people begin to lose the ability to hear the very highest frequencies by the time they reach age 40. You would also require a room that allows you to sit up to 28 feet away from the speaker to most accurately reproduce 40Hz let alone 20Hz!. That’s a pretty big room as most sound experts will tell you that it is good to have the speakers away from the wall at least a few feet and it is also ideal to have some space between you and the wall behind you! So keeping all this in mind a sound system that can reproduce sounds from 20Hz up to 50,000 Khz is not worth paying extra money for! In fact it may cause problems! You see your speaker system will try to reproduce any signal you send it and this can have a negative effect on the overall sound you’re hearing from the speaker. For instance if a woofer has to slow down to try and reproduce something at 20 Hz it can’t simultaneously reproduce the rest of the signal as faithfully and so this becomes a detriment to the sound. Basically it’s like part of the music you can hear is being masked by a sound your speakers can’t even reproduce!
High Resolution
I have seen some speaker wire and interconnects described as being “High Resolution”. Good quality speaker wires and interconnects can have a positive impact on the sound but they can’t raise the resolution! A CD plays back at a higher resolution than an MP3 because more information derived from the original recording is present and available to recreate the music. An up sampling digital to analog converter takes digital information and converts it to a higher bit rate in the digital realm before converting it to the analog sound you hear, thus raising the resolution. Cables merely transfer a signal from one place to another with varying degrees of accuracy they cannot raise the resolution of the sound.
Musical
Quite often when a salesperson wants to convey that product X is better than product Y that costs quite a bit less, and there is no real difference, they will claim that product X is more “musical” I guess it’s not really a lie, I’m sure the extra money they want you to spend is music to their ears! Whenever you hear the word musical used in a description of an audio product just substitute the word bullshit and you’ll do just fine.
Noise Floor
A huge amount of products are sold on the premise that by reducing the amount of noise present you’ll hear more music. The idea being that if you get rid of noise, small details will become more apparent to your ear and the music will sound better. Hey it makes sense right? Less noise equals more music. The unfortunate thing is that more often than not they’re SAYING they are lowering the noise floor when in reality they are using a device that is widely used in the recording industry called a compressor. A compressor is like a super fast robot that turns up the volume when things are quiet and leaves the sound unchanged when the music gets louder. This has the effect of making anything processed in this way to sound more detailed and live. However it limits the dynamic range of the music so the difference between the loudest sounds and the softest sounds is in some cases dramatically reduced. A good example of this is commercials on TV. Ever notice how they sound louder than the shows you are watching? The people who produce these commercials employ compression to achieve this effect. It is also used to make dialogue in movies crystal clear despite all manner of other sound effects happening at the same time. When you employ compression to Jazz, opera and classical music all of which avoid using compression in the recording and production of the music, it works astonishingly well, the subtle aspects of the music jump out and tickle the ear drums. The problem comes when you want to listen to some good old rock and roll. Crunchy overdriven rock guitar is already as compressed as you can make it and still have it be pleasing to the ear. Compress it any more and it turns to mush! Long story short, if you like to rock out with your system occasionally be very careful with products that claim to “Lower the noise floor”
High Bandwidth
This one isn’t used as much as it used to be, but you never know when it will creep up again. All this means is that the product in question can reproduce very high highs and very low bass. Since most audiophiles are at least pushing 40 years of age it is unlikely that many can hear a frequency higher than 18 or 19KHZ. This is because most people begin to lose the ability to hear the very highest frequencies by the time they reach age 40. You would also require a room that allows you to sit up to 28 feet away from the speaker to most accurately reproduce 40Hz let alone 20Hz!. That’s a pretty big room as most sound experts will tell you that it is good to have the speakers away from the wall at least a few feet and it is also ideal to have some space between you and the wall behind you! So keeping all this in mind a sound system that can reproduce sounds from 20Hz up to 50,000 Khz is not worth paying extra money for! In fact it may cause problems! You see your speaker system will try to reproduce any signal you send it and this can have a negative effect on the overall sound you’re hearing from the speaker. For instance if a woofer has to slow down to try and reproduce something at 20 Hz it can’t simultaneously reproduce the rest of the signal as faithfully and so this becomes a detriment to the sound. Basically it’s like part of the music you can hear is being masked by a sound your speakers can’t even reproduce!
High Resolution
I have seen some speaker wire and interconnects described as being “High Resolution”. Good quality speaker wires and interconnects can have a positive impact on the sound but they can’t raise the resolution! A CD plays back at a higher resolution than an MP3 because more information derived from the original recording is present and available to recreate the music. An up sampling digital to analog converter takes digital information and converts it to a higher bit rate in the digital realm before converting it to the analog sound you hear, thus raising the resolution. Cables merely transfer a signal from one place to another with varying degrees of accuracy they cannot raise the resolution of the sound.
Hifi Trickery. 95% of HiFi is BS!
11/05/09 13:09
Shopping for High End Audio? Choosing the right components can be a daunting task at the best of times. So many conflicting theories and ideas about what sounds good, and what sounds less than good. Salesmen spewing out well rehearsed phrases and using sales techniques that are designed to sell you expensive product which will ultimately do nothing to enhance your enjoyment of music! The purpose of this web site is to expose some of the tactics used by the Hi Fi industry to rook you into a cycle of diminishing returns where good money chases bad money right down the drain!
“Sales Tactics” deals with the ways in which stereo salesmen confuse you into buying things that may not be right for your system in your room at home. Some of these you will recognize, some will have you scratching your head and saying “So that’s why they do/say that!”. The second section “BS Buzzwords” is reserved for confusing jargon. These are the buzzwords and catch phrases that are often used in Hi Fi ads to get you interested in certain products. These words when you really analyze them, are often misleading or meaningless.
We’re not trying to ruin what can be a fun and rewarding hobby. However, once you put all the BS aside you can concentrate on what will really and truthfully help you enjoy your music.
Sales Tactics
Tell em’ what they’re gonna hear!
Let’s see if you find this familiar. You’re in a stereo shop sitting in front of a stereo system. Before he puts the music on, the salesman describes for you what you’re going to hear. He then puts on a selection of music, and before you can really even begin to enjoy it, he then describes what you’re hearing. The salesman then turns the music off and proceeds to tell you what heard! This is a very old trick that uses the power of suggestion to lead you to the foregone conclusion that you should buy whatever the salesman is trying to sell you. This may even be a subtle form of hypnosis! Once the music has started to play, if the salesperson begins to talk simply turn to them, look them right in the eye and say “would it be alright if I just listen to the music”?
“Audiophile” Recordings
You ever notice that most “Audiophile” recordings are very sparse arrangements featuring very few instruments? When I think back to my days working in a stereo shop and remember the music the owner used to love to use to sell equipment. It was always, a single vocal, and a single guitar or a Holly Cole song featuring her voice, a standup bass and some sparse piano. Another shop in town used to use a recording of Japanese Taiko drummers, nothing but drums. There is a very good reason for this. The more you have going on in a recording the harder it is to accurately reproduce. So the thing to do is bring your own demo music with you and make sure to bring some more complex layered music with you and use that as part of your comparison. Always bring a good selection of music that you listen to when you’re out shopping and auditioning audio. Ask yourself, why would you ever evaluate a stereo system with music you’ve never heard before? You see I know from experience that the sales staff in Hi Fi shops will tweak the systems to sound great playing their chosen demonstration music. So if you use their music to evaluate a system the whole presentation has been staged, it’s a foregone conclusion and you will be misled.
Fatal Comparison
When you walk into a High End Audio shop for the first time, the staff checks out your shoes, your watch, your clothing in order to “qualify” you. This process determines what is likely to be in your wallet! Then the fun begins! If a salesman decides that you can afford the best stereo in the shop, he’ll let you have a listen to that system first. Nothing else you hear that visit will compare. Every other system you do listen to during that visit to the shop is reinforcing the idea that you should buy the highest priced system in the shop. If you have so much money that you don’t care that’s fine. If not, you may want to shop around or at the very least leave the shop and come back on another day with fresh ears and simply refuse to listen to any system or component that is out of the range of what you’d like to spend. Another good practice is to ask what things are selling for before you listen If the price is out of line with what you’d like to spend, ask to move on to something more affordable. If the salesman refuses, they are wasting your time and it is time to leave.
“Bad Recordings”
The function of a stereo system is to playback music whether it be a Vinyl Record, a CD or whatever. So then assuming that you’re listening to music that you enjoy, if the sound of the playback is Bad, bright, dark, or in any way less than ideal, it’s the fault of the stereo system NOT the recording itself. Whenever this happens during a stereo demonstration the salesman will attempt to blame the recording and then insist that he play you a “better recording”. If you are in fact buying a stereo system for your personal enjoyment, shouldn’t it sound good playing the music that you actually listen to? If the salesperson insists on using their demonstration music simply say “ I have a better idea, let’s try to find a system that sounds good playing this music, because this is what I listen to”!
“Sales Tactics” deals with the ways in which stereo salesmen confuse you into buying things that may not be right for your system in your room at home. Some of these you will recognize, some will have you scratching your head and saying “So that’s why they do/say that!”. The second section “BS Buzzwords” is reserved for confusing jargon. These are the buzzwords and catch phrases that are often used in Hi Fi ads to get you interested in certain products. These words when you really analyze them, are often misleading or meaningless.
We’re not trying to ruin what can be a fun and rewarding hobby. However, once you put all the BS aside you can concentrate on what will really and truthfully help you enjoy your music.
Sales Tactics
Tell em’ what they’re gonna hear!
Let’s see if you find this familiar. You’re in a stereo shop sitting in front of a stereo system. Before he puts the music on, the salesman describes for you what you’re going to hear. He then puts on a selection of music, and before you can really even begin to enjoy it, he then describes what you’re hearing. The salesman then turns the music off and proceeds to tell you what heard! This is a very old trick that uses the power of suggestion to lead you to the foregone conclusion that you should buy whatever the salesman is trying to sell you. This may even be a subtle form of hypnosis! Once the music has started to play, if the salesperson begins to talk simply turn to them, look them right in the eye and say “would it be alright if I just listen to the music”?
“Audiophile” Recordings
You ever notice that most “Audiophile” recordings are very sparse arrangements featuring very few instruments? When I think back to my days working in a stereo shop and remember the music the owner used to love to use to sell equipment. It was always, a single vocal, and a single guitar or a Holly Cole song featuring her voice, a standup bass and some sparse piano. Another shop in town used to use a recording of Japanese Taiko drummers, nothing but drums. There is a very good reason for this. The more you have going on in a recording the harder it is to accurately reproduce. So the thing to do is bring your own demo music with you and make sure to bring some more complex layered music with you and use that as part of your comparison. Always bring a good selection of music that you listen to when you’re out shopping and auditioning audio. Ask yourself, why would you ever evaluate a stereo system with music you’ve never heard before? You see I know from experience that the sales staff in Hi Fi shops will tweak the systems to sound great playing their chosen demonstration music. So if you use their music to evaluate a system the whole presentation has been staged, it’s a foregone conclusion and you will be misled.
Fatal Comparison
When you walk into a High End Audio shop for the first time, the staff checks out your shoes, your watch, your clothing in order to “qualify” you. This process determines what is likely to be in your wallet! Then the fun begins! If a salesman decides that you can afford the best stereo in the shop, he’ll let you have a listen to that system first. Nothing else you hear that visit will compare. Every other system you do listen to during that visit to the shop is reinforcing the idea that you should buy the highest priced system in the shop. If you have so much money that you don’t care that’s fine. If not, you may want to shop around or at the very least leave the shop and come back on another day with fresh ears and simply refuse to listen to any system or component that is out of the range of what you’d like to spend. Another good practice is to ask what things are selling for before you listen If the price is out of line with what you’d like to spend, ask to move on to something more affordable. If the salesman refuses, they are wasting your time and it is time to leave.
“Bad Recordings”
The function of a stereo system is to playback music whether it be a Vinyl Record, a CD or whatever. So then assuming that you’re listening to music that you enjoy, if the sound of the playback is Bad, bright, dark, or in any way less than ideal, it’s the fault of the stereo system NOT the recording itself. Whenever this happens during a stereo demonstration the salesman will attempt to blame the recording and then insist that he play you a “better recording”. If you are in fact buying a stereo system for your personal enjoyment, shouldn’t it sound good playing the music that you actually listen to? If the salesperson insists on using their demonstration music simply say “ I have a better idea, let’s try to find a system that sounds good playing this music, because this is what I listen to”!
Killing the Buzz - Eliminate Noise from your stereo or home theatre.
11/05/09 12:44
There are many reasons why you might get a hum or buzz from your stereo system or home theatre. So let’s so through some possibilities and see if we can kill that buzz once and for all. We’ll start by turning on all the components in your system.
Can you hear the hum on all sources?
By Source I mean anything that plays media or allows you to receive media. Some examples are CD or DVD players, Radio Tuners, Turntables, Satellite Receivers or Cable TV boxes. Is the hum constant when you switch from your DVD player to your Satellite Receiver or cable box? Is the hum still there when you switch to the radio? If you have hum all the time no matter what source you are using, the hum is likely the result of a ground loop. If the hum is only present on one source, try plugging that one piece of equipment into a different wall plug that is on a different circuit in your home and see if that fixes the problem. If this doesn’t help, try using a different set of audio cables between the problem piece of equipment and your receiver.
Still hearing the buzz?
Here’s another thing you can do if you have cable TV. Try removing the cable the comes into your home from the back of your cable box. If the hum goes away, the solution is simple, you need to make your way down to your local electronics shop and buy a device called a groundbreaker. This works very well and about 90% of the time eliminates the hum when you reconnect your cable box using one of these devices.
If none of this has helped, try checking all the cables in your system, if they are the ultra cheap cables that seem to be packaged with your average stereo equipment, you may want to try better quality cables. A higher quality cable will have better shielding that will be better at preventing noise from entering your system. There are also a wide array of power bar products that can help to kill the buzz.
Another possibility is that your have old or faulty wiring in your house. In large cities where there are many homes in close proximity the collective electromagnetic interference from all the electrical devices being used by your fellow citizens can kick up a lot of noise in your audio and video. For this type of situation a full blown power conditioner may be needed. There are many such products on the market.
There is also the possibility that something else in your home may be the culprit. Try unplugging lamps, switching off anything on a dimmer switch, neon lights and lava lamps are often problematic. Also try turning off anything with a motor or a fan as these can cause electromagnetic problems as well.
Other potential sources of hum and noise:
Faulty Power adaptors Ceiling Fans Air Conditioners, purifiers, ionizers Ceramic Heaters Humidifiers, Dehumidifiers Power Tools in use nearby Wireless Electronics
Once you have ruled all these things out only one possibility remains. You actual stereo or AV receiver may be at fault. Sometimes problems with the circuitry in your Stereo or Surround receiver can be the cause of unwanted noise!
Can you hear the hum on all sources?
By Source I mean anything that plays media or allows you to receive media. Some examples are CD or DVD players, Radio Tuners, Turntables, Satellite Receivers or Cable TV boxes. Is the hum constant when you switch from your DVD player to your Satellite Receiver or cable box? Is the hum still there when you switch to the radio? If you have hum all the time no matter what source you are using, the hum is likely the result of a ground loop. If the hum is only present on one source, try plugging that one piece of equipment into a different wall plug that is on a different circuit in your home and see if that fixes the problem. If this doesn’t help, try using a different set of audio cables between the problem piece of equipment and your receiver.
Still hearing the buzz?
Here’s another thing you can do if you have cable TV. Try removing the cable the comes into your home from the back of your cable box. If the hum goes away, the solution is simple, you need to make your way down to your local electronics shop and buy a device called a groundbreaker. This works very well and about 90% of the time eliminates the hum when you reconnect your cable box using one of these devices.
If none of this has helped, try checking all the cables in your system, if they are the ultra cheap cables that seem to be packaged with your average stereo equipment, you may want to try better quality cables. A higher quality cable will have better shielding that will be better at preventing noise from entering your system. There are also a wide array of power bar products that can help to kill the buzz.
Another possibility is that your have old or faulty wiring in your house. In large cities where there are many homes in close proximity the collective electromagnetic interference from all the electrical devices being used by your fellow citizens can kick up a lot of noise in your audio and video. For this type of situation a full blown power conditioner may be needed. There are many such products on the market.
There is also the possibility that something else in your home may be the culprit. Try unplugging lamps, switching off anything on a dimmer switch, neon lights and lava lamps are often problematic. Also try turning off anything with a motor or a fan as these can cause electromagnetic problems as well.
Other potential sources of hum and noise:
Faulty Power adaptors Ceiling Fans Air Conditioners, purifiers, ionizers Ceramic Heaters Humidifiers, Dehumidifiers Power Tools in use nearby Wireless Electronics
Once you have ruled all these things out only one possibility remains. You actual stereo or AV receiver may be at fault. Sometimes problems with the circuitry in your Stereo or Surround receiver can be the cause of unwanted noise!