Pundit
Post by harvey on Oct 27, 2021 21:35:47 GMT 12
Well that went better than expected. Apparently 'roll eyes' are not exclusive to the kids in the house.
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Pundit
Post by paulsaints on Oct 29, 2021 10:11:06 GMT 12
I recently came across this site: www.audiocheck.net/index.phpand used the Left / Right (Stereo) Sound Test. I was expecting to happily check my speaker cables but what I found was that while my speaker cables were all good, two commercial component-preamp leads were wired incorrectly internally. Would never have known without this site. Easily fixed at the dac end by swapping red / white to the opposite of what it should be, but it means two of my streams had the left/right inputs wrong for quite a while. Then thought I had better check the TT with a test LP (Analogue Productions "The Ultimate Analogue Test LP") and that was just fine. Anyway, I recommend the website at audiocheck - lots of interesting tests free directly from the website or you can even download the files for $US5 donation (they worked fine through iTunes, but I needed to import and export them in Audacity to work with Roon - no idea why but the conversion was easy). I guess what is scary is that while I expect I might make a mistake wiring something up or routing it incorrectly, finding commercial component leads wrongly wired was unexpected and disappointing.
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Pundit
Post by peter0c on Oct 29, 2021 10:39:19 GMT 12
The good news is that you didn't notice through normal listening!
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Post by michaelw on Oct 29, 2021 11:32:35 GMT 12
" two commercial component-preamp leads were wired incorrectly internally "
what were they ?
both changes wrong ? twice may be intentional.
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Pundit
Post by paulsaints on Oct 29, 2021 15:35:55 GMT 12
Both were at the cheaper end. One was a 3.5mm stereo to double RCA cable - the sort you would use to connect an airport express to an amp for iTunes streaming, and the other was an old style DIN to dual RCA which came with an A&R Cambridge A60 amp, which I was using from a nice Parasound PCM63 DAC to the amp. So neither was "high-end" but both were commercially produced rather than "home-made". So, not so much a commentary on these two cables, so much as a "don't presume your cables are wired correctly even if commercial rather than home made". I started out checking left/right expecting any errors would be in speaker cabling, and was quite surprised to find commercial cables wired wrongly - I hadn't been expecting that.
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Pundit
Post by paulsaints on Oct 29, 2021 15:37:18 GMT 12
The good news is that you didn't notice through normal listening! Yes, awkward to admit ...
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Post by michaelw on Oct 29, 2021 15:48:08 GMT 12
DIN lol
Was it an AR factory DIN ?
It's been so long since I played with an A60 I can't remember if it followed standard DIN wiring or not.
I know the DIN tape connections on my old Naim preamp did not match the colour coding of off-the-shelf DIN cables.
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Post by Citroen on Oct 29, 2021 17:20:19 GMT 12
Creek 4040 DIN not standard either.
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Pundit
Post by paulsaints on Oct 29, 2021 17:44:46 GMT 12
DIN lol Was it an AR factory DIN ? It's been so long since I played with an A60 I can't remember if it followed standard DIN wiring or not. I know the DIN tape connections on my old Naim preamp did not match the colour coding of off-the-shelf DIN cables. I don't think it was AR factory - there were several in the lot that came with the A60 (a while ago) and I just swapped in one of the others in the bag, which worked fine - it just took me 2 days to find the reason right and left were switched ...
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Post by RdM on Oct 29, 2021 18:51:09 GMT 12
Both were at the cheaper end. One was a 3.5mm stereo to double RCA cable - the sort you would use to connect an airport express to an amp for iTunes streaming, and the other was an old style DIN to dual RCA which came with an A&R Cambridge A60 amp, which I was using from a nice Parasound PCM63 DAC to the amp. So neither was "high-end" but both were commercially produced rather than "home-made". So, not so much a commentary on these two cables, so much as a "don't presume your cables are wired correctly even if commercial rather than home made". I started out checking left/right expecting any errors would be in speaker cabling, and was quite surprised to find commercial cables wired wrongly - I hadn't been expecting that.
I've come across generic cheap 3.5mm stereo to double RCA cables before that reversed the standard tip=L, ring=R, a handy mnemonic. And accidentally miss-wired my own DIN plugs, having several items here with them.
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Test Records Oct 29, 2021 18:53:18 GMT 12
- Edited Oct 29, 2021 19:04:30 GMT 12 by RdM
Post by RdM on Oct 29, 2021 18:53:18 GMT 12
Creek 4040 DIN not standard either.
Thanks;- that'll be handy to check, as I have one here with one channel noisy...
The neighbours recent Roberts STA-50 also used DIN. (and I made up cables for that - I must re-check, but I think it was correct, and that I'd made the mistake.) (and corrected it! - just one cable.)
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Post by Citroen on Oct 29, 2021 19:02:09 GMT 12
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Test Records Oct 29, 2021 19:06:23 GMT 12
- Edited Oct 29, 2021 19:43:03 GMT 12 by RdM
Post by RdM on Oct 29, 2021 19:06:23 GMT 12
Thanks very much Citroen;- I'll save print even and check against it.
"Read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest" ;=}) ~ R.
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Post by michaelw on Oct 29, 2021 19:19:11 GMT 12
I hate DIN NOt a fan of XLR either
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Post by Citroen on Oct 29, 2021 19:24:51 GMT 12
😝
I wish everything was XLR!
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Test Records Oct 29, 2021 19:47:49 GMT 12
- Edited Oct 29, 2021 19:52:30 GMT 12 by RdM
Post by RdM on Oct 29, 2021 19:47:49 GMT 12
I hate DIN NOt a fan of XLR either
I've disliked some aspects of DIN, mainly through making up plugs and sockets, but wasn't it arguably a reasonably decent consumer audio interface, electrically?
Of course XLR would have to have an alternative pin-out too ...
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Post by RdM on Oct 29, 2021 19:49:06 GMT 12
Wasn't there at least one audio manufacturer that liked BNC for audio inputs?
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Test Records Oct 29, 2021 20:20:14 GMT 12
- Edited Oct 29, 2021 20:21:55 GMT 12 by RdM
Post by RdM on Oct 29, 2021 20:20:14 GMT 12
From an old, likely '90s? yellow faded DSE catalogue, a half page, when they used to include information for the hobbyist. The SCART system had a few variants too.
is a good source for new and old.
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Post by michaelw on Oct 29, 2021 20:34:33 GMT 12
Wasn't there at least one audio manufacturer that liked BNC for audio inputs?
Naim used BNC for phono.
A few companies used BNC for digital, carrying audio signals and clock signals.
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Pundit
Post by peter0c on Oct 30, 2021 9:42:13 GMT 12
The good news is that you didn't notice through normal listening! Yes, awkward to admit ... You are not alone. A friend proudly used his Ecofan valve amp for 15 years and then got it serviced. The primary on one driver transformer had been wired out of phase from it's time of manufacture. I played a trick on a hifi friend with a new rig by switching it to mono. He listened to it happily (more like boastfully) for 10 days before following my advice to check the switch on the back. Another buff couldn't get decent bass out of his Yamahas and spent much time and money on preamp modifications. His speaker cables weren't in phase. We hear what we want to hear and most of us have had a walk-of-shame experience.
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Post by michaelw on Oct 30, 2021 12:21:40 GMT 12
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Post by Citroen on Oct 30, 2021 18:05:16 GMT 12
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Post by michaelw on Oct 30, 2021 18:54:53 GMT 12
You got one ?
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Post by Citroen on Oct 30, 2021 20:57:49 GMT 12
I have that HiFi News one, and an Australian one somewhere.
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Post by cooksferry on Oct 31, 2021 8:25:05 GMT 12
I've had the HiFi News one for years and do use it as a check each time I refit a cartridge. There's also a couple of Ortofon test records in the collection plus another couple I can't recall right now. Picked most of them up for $1 each from a local Pawn shop. All as new condition. They were part of a purchase they'd made that included an Oracle Delphi with Dynavector arm.
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Post by RdM on Nov 7, 2021 18:46:04 GMT 12
I have one somewhere around here, can't find it right now, but bought secondhand. So what if the extreme track-ability tracks have been already ruined by a previous owner with a worn stylus? I didn't place too much credence in it, having checked mine under a microscope. Finally found it - disbelieving that it had disappeared - on the 3rd sweep through... Snuck in somehow in the Clannad-Enya-Dead Can Dance lot.
More a Shure Trackability test record. Discogs has pics.
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