Sharing my Experience & Endeavors in Hi-fi stuff…   No system on earth sounds 100% as real live   I can say there’s no hi-fi system in the world that sounds real perfect like 100% as live no matter how high the price you’re going to pay for it. There’s no system on earth with no distortion, which can get real perfect sound quality, placements and accurate phase, spatial information of the live audio image. Do you know the reason why? You can find the answers here below.   So, don’t just get superstitious with some branded ones no matter what, don’t just be persuaded or misled by some sales representatives, dealers or advertisements, what they’re doing is marketing or selling out products on behalf of some manufacturers and get their profits out of sales. No one can guarantee you the sound quality and accurate phase of any audio image of any system that can reproduce which you’re going to buy. Furthermore there are no CDs that can sound real good, and then what do you can expect?   Training up your ears   ***Training up your ears is real helpful to yourself in selecting the systems you’re going to buy rather than listen to what those salespersons say or persuade, then use your listening experience as a standard to determine what to buy. Your ear is a good piece of testing instrument, as a common user or audiophile; you can hardly find any testing instruments to get findings of what the system can perform.   Live performance with instruments as a standard   ***Try and listen to live music with instruments like piano, violin, cello or drum, etc. for a certain time, and get used to it and pay attention to how they sound, all these instruments sound with vibrations, and then try to memorize them. In case you’re listening to music with instruments reproduced by a certain system, and then compares every detail of the sounds reproduced with the sounds of the live instruments that you can memorize. This is the only standard and the only way not to select a wrong product and to make every single cent out of your pocket worthy of its value.   Of course, there’s nothing in the market that can satisfy you, but you may get the one as close as live and do the things as I suggested here. After that you may enjoy reproduction of music really much. Furthermore, if you know how to burn a good CD or DVD Audio disc, you’ll feel like heaven.   That’s the reason why I want to share my experience and endeavors in hi-fi stuff with those audiophiles who are interested in it. And it took me 10 years during my pastimes to study and find ways to get the sound and the system improved.   By doing the things I suggested here that can save you lots of your time and money; and of course, you must pay lots of your own effort, otherwise you can’t get real good sound at all or you’ll never know how good your system can sound. No hard work, no gain. After that you can feel how strong the power of your system can be, and your system could handle songs of symphony orchestra like live performance, believe it or not… Only the truth survives the ages.   For one thing, if your system is a DIY one, there’s still a lot of room to get it improved. Or else, there’s only little room to get your branded system improved.   How to rate your system?   Most branded systems said and were tested to perfection or output to be linear, but they don’t sound as what they should be, some are even unbearable. It’s really hard for one to select a real good system. First of all, you must know how to rate your system or the system you want to buy. You can’t get any CD to test on at the moment especially at the shop. You can turn up the volume at a higher level, and then if the sound gets annoying, it means the system shall have a certain distortion.   Secondly, if you have experience in certain instrument, you may listen to a few CDs with such instrument and then compare the sound with the live instrument, then you would know how to make a decision to buy.   Burning CDs or DVDs will sound better than originals   After you’ve chosen your dream system, then what else can you do to get the most or best out of the system? Burning a good quality CD or DVD will get the sound or video quality improved. Of course, not every PC can get your burning improved; some might even get worse than the original. It’s because the same problems happened to your PC as the hi-fi system has.   Before you’re trying to burn or back up a CD, you must buy a good quality PC, then do the enhancements as I recommend as you will do to your hi-fi system. Shielding up your PC can also help improving the way it works. When you read on to this article, you may get some ideas on how to enhance your PC before you’ll use it to burn or back up your CDs or DVDs.   To me, I would prefer burning DVD Audio than CD as it sounds much better than any CD anyway as I do concern the primary source of audio image.   What are the problems?

 

Electromagnetic flux, magnetic field, vibration of transformer, vibration of revolving mechanism with a CD player or LP turntable, laser reflection and refraction, vibrations of drivers causing coherent vibration of the whole loudspeaker, vibration caused by EMF, EMI Noise, high resistance, high impedance, etc., cause lots of problems to your hi-fi system whenever you’re turning them on. Some inferior circuit design of amplifiers may also cause harmonic distortion. As a result, your system and loudspeakers can’t get to the appropriate frequency response as stated with the specification in the manufacturer’s manual. What you would feel the sounding is like getting so thin and without as many details as a real instrument should be.

 

You know what? It means that no matter how dear your system is, you’re buying lots of problems at real high cost along with the hi-fi system you’ve bought, ha-ha…

 

Don’t get disappointed

 

Don’t get disappointed, I have studied and found ways to solve most of the problems and want to share with you guys. Should these problems be minimized as I suggested below, your tube system with a CD or DVD player at real low cost may sound real good and works much better than a system with the black LP turntable. Of course you must pay much more effort or hard work on your own than you can imagine. Believe it, or not…

 

Some expensive systems may cost you a lot only with just a little improvement in the design with the series whatever named ‘Monitor’, ‘Reference’, ‘Signature’, ‘Mark I’, ‘II’, or ‘III’, etc., but you have to pay for a lot more than what it is really worth. Some systems of higher marking, ranking or power output might even sound much worse than the previous versions. But for those who only crave for some branded systems, I’m surely sorry no one can help.

 

***You may doubt what I’m saying here. Those branded manufacturers do know what the problems are as I know, but they would only ask for a much higher price for a certain design with just a little improvement.

 

 

 

What is Electromagnetic Interference?

 

Electricity creates electromagnetic interference that is a common problem in which electromagnetic flux (EMF) interferes with the proper functioning of an electronic system like CD or DVD player, PC, recording system or any electronic components, especially those with PCBs whenever you turn on every piece of component of the hi-fi system.

 

And you can also find electromagnetic field in every corner of the Earth, we’ve got no way to eliminate EMF, all we can do is just find some ways to reduce such EMF impact by altering its path along all the cables in order to get the system improved in some way.

 

Electromagnetic flux starts from the power station when electric current moves along cables which may be far away from the area where you’re living and finally gets into your loudspeakers, and any video, audio systems or recording system within your house or premises shall be distorted whenever you’re turning them on. This also causes vibrations when you’re turning on any systems.

 

These interference problems can range from an annoying jitter of the electrical signals in either digital or analogue or images on a screen of a monitor or television, hi-fi system or recording systems including editing system and mixing system, etc., especially solid state ones, to very serious and costly problems with complex electronics.

 

And then this will tense up the tone of sound output of the audio system and the color images of the television or the computer monitor which are very annoying and cause the loss of details in both video and audio quality of full ranges no matter how expensive or how good your system is. That’s the reason why you can’t even turn up the volume of your system especially for those solid state amplifiers.

 

You may also refer to the relevant info at the path below:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_interference#EMI_in_Integrated_Circuits

 

Systems in 4 main categories                           Interference caused by EMF

Glass Tubes with Hard Wires                              Moderate distortion – Simpler hard wire circuit with low output of about 8-watt thru the output transformer; some system of higher output will lead to lower sound quality. That’s why this sounds better than the 2 systems below though it’s still not good enough. This kind of systems may sound sweet in vocal though it’s not as real as live, then the treble and bass would get too soft.

 

The most famous model for this is McIntosh MC240, 6L6, push-pull, 40-watt output of each channel which was manufactured in the 60’s. Most people comment that it sounds real sweet, but there’s one thing I don’t like is the small tubes 12AX7 with the system and it can’t handle the bass well.

 

According to what I’m expecting from what a system can sound real as live instruments, it’s not up to my standard as well.

 

Glass Tubes with PCBs                                       High distortion – We call this a modern tube system as it applied PCB instead of hard wire, and it still sounds better than any solid state system,            generally speaking, but it also has higher   distortion than any tube system with hard wire circuits. If you’re an experienced audiophile, you won’t accept this at all. The modern McIntosh MC240 is of this kind, much worse than the hard wire version of McIntosh MC240.

 

Solid State with complex PCBs                            Severe distortion – Being too complex with the circuits on PCBs and getting interfered by EMF at least 2 or 3 times higher than tube systems with Hard Wires; the higher output like 100-watt or above of the solid state system, the severer interference which distorts the sound quality badly and causes loss of more details, and it’s not environmental friendly as well.

 

Any system made this way shall have higher distortion like at least 2 to 3 times higher than any tube system, and doesn’t please your ears at all.

 

Solid State – Vacuum Tube Hybrid                       Seriously Unclassified – I can say systems made this way never appreciate anyone’s ears.

  Golden Rules…

 

All these methods of shielding and reducing EMF, vibrations, applying wave absorbent, etc. below can help improve your hi-fi systems, recording system, editing system, personal computer, monitor, television set, and then you can find your TV set works better, your hi-fi systems sounds better and your PC works better than ever you can dream of… And you can’t get a real perfect system without such concerns. Or else, you’ll never know how good or how bad your system is.

 

Ha-ha… Money just can’t buy. Reducing electromagnetic flux and vibrations are real critical to both the video and audio quality of your system.

 

What I’m doing… Trials and Errors…                                                                                        What I’m doing isn’t what people or people in the trade say, because most people say what they think which doesn’t mean they understand what it really is. It all depends on what you have tried, found and proved what is right or wrong.   Sometimes what people say may fool you around and mislead you to a state of total waste and loss of time, money and fidelity; and you may spend a lot more money than what it’s necessary, or you may then change from a system to another system, a cable to another cable and a component to another component, a pair of loudspeakers to another pair of loudspeakers, you still can’t get what you really want and feel lost. I think most inexperienced audiophiles have the same experience as started at the very beginning.

 

Furthermore, marketing a product with a real good attraction or image doesn’t mean the product itself can give you full satisfaction in sound or video quality. Some marketing strategies don’t really care if the quality of the products itself is good enough or not, they’re just selling things out for the profits they concern. A successful marketing strategy in some way to promote some expensive and junk hi-fi systems may mean harm to audiophiles. Ha-ha…

 

That’s why all you’ve got to do is study why and how you can improve the system at a real low cost. At least I’ve found that vibrations, magnetic field and electromagnetic force, etc. don’t do any good to any audio or video signals in digital or analogue formats and also badly affect the performance of the whole hi-fi system. Then I’m going to understand why most systems don’t sound really good and find some way to solve the problems…

 

Of course training up your ears in listening to some live music with instruments is also crucial to yourself, this can be used as a real standard which nothing can replaced. Then you would find if the system has improved or not after doing a few shielding, otherwise you’re not sure if the system has improved or not.

 

You now can get to learn more of things relating to electricity and EMF from Encarta, Microsoft Corporation.

 

http://encarta.msn.com/media_461518050/Electric_Power_System.html

 

Right-Hand Rule 

 

 

You can visualize the magnetic field created by an electric current flowing through a wire using your right hand. Point your thumb of the right hand in the direction the current is flowing and curl your fingers as if making a fist. The magnetic field curves around the wire in the same direction that your fingers curl around the axis defined by your thumb.

 

1) Wave of electromagnetic energy: a wave of energy with a frequency within the electromagnetic spectrum, generated by the periodic fluctuation of an electromagnetic field resulting from the acceleration or oscillation of an electric charge. Electromagnetic waves can be reflected, refracted, and polarized, and exhibit interference and diffraction effects.

 

2) Area of electric and magnetic forces: a field of force associated with a moving electric charge and consisting of electric and magnetic fields that are generated at right angles to each other.

 

***The above impacts do affect the video and the audio quality of your system badly. Some branded manufacturers do know about and concern all these problems but what they can do is little due to higher cost of production may arise which also affect their sales and profits.

 

That’s why branded systems can only have little room for you to get them improved. And you have to pay a lot for only a little improvement with your systems and it doesn’t seem justified.

 

1) Power Section:

 

Electrons

 

Electron, negatively charged particle found in an atom. Electrons, along with neutrons and protons, comprise the basic building blocks of all atoms. The electrons form the outer layer or layers of an atom, while the neutrons and protons make up the nucleus, or core, of the atom.

 

Electrons, neutrons, and protons are elementary particles—that is, they are among the smallest parts of matter that scientists can isolate. The electron carries a negative electric charge of -1.602 x 10-19 coulomb and has a mass of 9.109 x 10-31 kg. “Ha-ha… They’re just too small, that’s why we must find ways to treat them well.” “Or else… I’m sorry.”

  Transformer   No matter what shape the transformer is, EI or toroidal with acute current as it vibrates when you turn on the power; it must be shielded and sealed up or separated apart from the working part with direct current. All transformers vibrate as the electric current interacts with electromagnetic means which also creates electromagnetic interference that affects any electronic systems or devices such as hi-fi system, loudspeakers, PC, recording system or TV set, etc. nearby. I have also shielded up or separated up all transformers as can be, lest EMF interfere other working parts.   Most tube systems would place the transformer on top of the chassis, in this case, transformer won’t interfere the working part directly and severely. While solid state system with PCBs would only placed the transformer within the partition inside the chassis, thus interferes the working parts which severely distort the video and audio quality of the system.   Grounding up the transformers   All transformers, such as isolation transformers, chokes, including power transformers, output transformers have to be grounded to the metallic chassis, and then the noise and interference of EMF will be somehow reduced.   Po Shan (??) Transformers

 

It’s not easy to get good quality transformers as there are some good ones though they’re expensive from U.S.A., Japan or England, but you still can get some good quality transformers here in Hong Kong as well, the mill called Po Shan Electronic Co., Ltd. Most of the DIY-ERS here in Hong Kong know where the mill is. And all the transformers I’ve used are made to order by Po Shan as well.

  Sealed Transformers

 

All transformers, no matter it is a choke, a power transformer or an output transformer, shall be sealed up by iron cap or ironclad, and then electromagnetic force won’t leak out as much which distorts the whole system.

  Chokes   A choke is necessary for filtering electric current, it does real good to the power parts and the electricity thereafter will become more linear or stable.   Electric field & Electromagnetic force on Printed Circuit Boards   Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are largely employed for building solid state systems and they’re real compact with parts indeed, that’s why any system built with this method tends to have higher interference caused by electric field and electromagnetic force which badly distorts the sound and image quality of any system as flow of electrons occurs.   You may also refer to the article at the link below:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_interference   As for CD/DVD player and D/A converter, PCBs are just fairly acceptable as the working voltage is real low. If PCBs are employed with solid state pre-amp and power amp, the sound quality of this is totally unacceptable when compared with tube glass system with hard wire circuit. That’s the main reason why solid state amplifiers don’t sound good at all.   That’s the reason why most modern glass tube systems built with PCBs never sound as good as the traditional glass tube systems built with hard wires, not to mention any solid state systems.   Of course you can also shield up every PCB, every inch of cables and apply appropriate partitions as you think fit in order to improve the sound and video quality. I have never found any system with shielded PCBs. In my case, I do shield up all the PCBs as can be.   Power cables

 

Power cable is real important to your hi-fi system and it’s the 1st criterion that you must concern. As the power cables provided by some manufacturers are mostly in ordinary or inferior quality which doesn’t do well with any electronic systems. That’s why I must make them on my own.

 

Every power cable I’m using is silver-coated copper bought in Shamshuipo, then made and designed by myself; I’ve shielded up every wire of live, neutral and earth with aluminum foil individually and wrapped them up with insulated tape separately. After that I have also braided them up with some metallic cable to alter the path of EMF. The more shielding and braiding you put on them, the more great sound your system can get.

 

e Isolating these 3 wires with 3 sockets will get your system improved in sound and video quality as well.  If you’re doing so, of course it’s taking up space and you would need a few power boards to get a better result. I can say there’s no such branded products made this way no matter how expensive they are.

 

Moreover, I would then add an EMI filter to each of the power cable to further reduce the EMI impact to each component of my metal tube hi-fi system, it sounds real great that you can’t imagine.

 

If your system is safe enough, the earth wire isn’t necessary and can be removed as it might cause interference from outside to your system. Of course, my system is safe enough to allow this removal of the earth wire.

 

***In case your want to remove it, you’d better check with an electrical technician to make sure if it can be removed or disconnected. In my case, I removed all the earth wire of all the power cables I have made.

 

You know, a good power cable is especially necessary for any electronic components such as CD/DVD player, D/A converter, tube buffer, tube pre-amplifier, tube power amplifier, PC, monitor screen, TV set, recording system, etc., as they’re very sensitive thru power to signals.

  Furthermore, I’ve also shielded up the power cables for the isolation transformer and the surge block filter to minimize EMF as can be.   How to treat electrons well?

 

An isolation transformer, surge block filter and an EMI Noise filter will improve the manner that electrons work with protection of isolation from outside and if it’s with every inch of wire within or along the system being shielded and braided up, and then the sound and image quality get improved. And it’s such a big task.

  e If your isolation transformer has an option of input and output at 240-voltage, you can use this option instead of an option of input and output at 220-voltage; at this option, it’s still 1:1 in ratio which doesn’t change the power of input and output at 220-voltage. It further enhances the isolation of electromagnetic interference coming from the outside as you fully employ the whole coil of the transformer.   And I also suggest to get a much higher power output for the isolation transformer, in my case, it’s a 3,000-watt output; it’s the higher, the better.     Power Distortion   Generally speaking, tube audio systems shall have less distortion than any solid state audio systems, the higher the power output, the worse the sound quality caused by distortion due to electromagnetic flux interference ever starts from the power station far away from the place where you’re living. Some manufacturers would design some branded products with power output of 1,000-watt each channel, but they don’t sound real good at all.   EMI Noise Filter   An EMI Noise filter is a real good part that is necessary and crucial for any CD or DVD player, D/A Converter, Pre-amplifier, Power Amplifier, Television, Computer, or any recording system, editing system, etc. as it reduces EMI Noise thus the electric current gets stable & linear before going into the component. I’ve put one each to each of my component and the improvement is crucial. Should you apply it to any component of the system and find the sounding isn’t as good as before, it means that there’s something wrong with the whole system.    EMI Noise Filter shall be applied to those digital components of hospital grade. I do recommend this to be applied to the power section of your hi-fi system or any components both for audio and video output.   Power Surge Block Filter   Surge Block Filter is also necessary to your system and it also protects your system from damage due to sudden power increase during thunderstorm that may have the risk of burning your whole system up or so.   Separation of Power Transformer   Some mill would separate power parts such as transformer, regulator, and stabilizer with an individual chassis other than the chassis for the working parts such as amplification. By doing so, this can also reduce the problem of EMF caused by the power parts which interfere the working parts which processes the digital signal concerns especially for the CD/DVD player and the D/A converter. If the situations and conditions allow such, I suggest separating all power section or part with an individual chassis other than the one with processing parts.   2) Cables Section:                                                                                               e 2 Uni-axial Cables replace 1 Interconnect Cable

 

Every interconnect cable that I’m using is just a single axial cable which must be shielded up, one for the positive and another for the negative pole only to replace traditional RCA interconnect cable, then I have to make and design my pre-amplifiers and power amplifiers with more RCA jacks to fit this purpose. Traditional RCA jack isn’t a good design as the positive pole will be affected by the negative pole when electrons move along while the system is working.

 

Normally most amplifiers with 4 RCA jacks, 2 for the left channel in white, and 2 for right in red including both input and output, but I have to make 2 more female jacks for the left channel and 2 more for the right channel. By doing so, your system sounds incredible because electromagnetic flux impact will get less severe.

 

There’s no such product on earth you can find with 2 more jacks for negative pole of input and output each channel, rite?

 

 

Microphone cable

  It’s crucial to have all 3 wires shielded and braided up separately for the microphone cable as well. It does reduce coloration and give better recording result.   RGB Coaxial/Component Cables  

You may refer to the photo of the cable below I posted for making RGB coaxial cables, 3 of these can make 1 good quality RGB coaxial/component cables. Most products of this in the market are made in a bundle which each of the cable represent a color will get interfere one another, but if you make it separately like 1 for the red, 1 for the green and another for the blue with shielding and braiding which will give you real good colors and video images. A single one of this even does real good as a coaxial digital cable for digital signal transmission or interconnect cable for analogue signal transmission.

 

 ***This cable ideally carries positive and negative signals with 2 separate metallic mesh shielded wires which gives a more ideal audio or video image. After that I would also braid it up separately to further reduce EMI as electrons move along. I would also apply 2 e uni-axial cables in between my pre-amplifiers and power amplifiers to replace the traditional one as shown in the picture.   HDMI Cable

 

HDMI cable carries both digital video and audio signals in a bundle which they would interfere one another and distort the true quality of each signal. Of course, that’s for sure digital signals work better than analogue.

  Cables with less than 50 or 75 ohms

 

Every cable I’ve made has fewer ohms than any other branded ones with 75 ohms. I have tried some good brands with specification of 50 or 75 ohms but it doesn’t sound as good as the ones I’ve made with real fewer ohms.

 

Silver-coated Cables                                                                                                    

 

All the cables I’m using including power cables; interconnect cables and loudspeaker cables are of 95% silver with 5% gold or silver-coated copper which has higher conductibility. If all these cables are not shielded and braided up individually, they won’t work as good at all.

  Length of cables, the shorter the better                                                                                              

 

All cables such as power cables, speaker cables, inter-connects, coaxial cables, etc. should be the shorter the better as it would have less resistance and lower chance of being distorted. Long cables shall have higher resistance and higher impact of being interfered by EMF within the environment such as magnetic field or electromagnetic flux that surrounds your system.

 

What is the best conductor for cables?   Silver is the best conductor for transmitting electrons, especially it’s a single strand. Even if the cable is made of silver without shielding, it won’t sound any better. I don’t suggest using pure silver as it easily gets oxidized.   Shielding and braiding up every inch of wires and cables…

 

As long as you would shield and braid up every inch of the wire or cable including those inside the system you’re using, it gets improved a lot, and the phase of the audio image will get more accurate. But it’s just one of the golden rules that can improve your hi-fi system.

 

Shielding and braiding can’t remove or eliminate all of EMF; it just changes the way and path that EMF moves from the electricity power outlet from the wall, along the cables or parts within the whole system which is distorting the video and audio output quality.

  Here you can take a look for reference at the site below:   http://www.rane.com/note151.html   Braiding up the cables   You may braid up all the cables after shielding with aluminum foil for further enhanced improvement in sound and video quality and performance of the whole system.   The site below is showing you how to braid up cables:   http://www.chimeralabs.com/diy.html   In my case, I’ve applied these 2 methods for all the cables I’m using such as power cables, coaxial cables, interconnect cables, and loudspeaker cables. This is a real good method to make a good quality cable. You can apply these 2 methods to all the cables for your components, and then it could be the best cable in the world, ha-ha…   Cables within the system   Most cables within some branded system are nicely and neatly arranged and tied up in a bundle, but this is not a good way to tie up those cables. The EMF incurred along each cable may interfere with one another. Thus, any system made this way causes loss of details and won’t sound any better.   Remarks: All cables shall be duly separated, don’t ever let the positive end get touched with the negative end. Especially, cables that carry digital signals such as coaxial cables which shall be separated away from the power cables.   3) CD/DVD Player Section:   DVD player after shielding and blacking out sounds much better than CD player.

 

The 2nd criterion is the quality of CD/DVD player as it’s the source which affects the sound a lot to the whole system. After shielding up the cables within, the power cable and blacking out my DVD player with a black magazine, it sounds better than some CD player without such treatments. By doing so, it doesn’t cost much; it’s much less you having to pay than the cost you pay for a certain modification with some parts of your CD player.

 

‘Moon Harbor’ HDMI DVD player – JungSon (??)

 

The player I’m using is a Chinese made DVD player called ‘Moon Harbor‘ HDMI 1080i DVD player with a black magazine, it plays DVD, CDs, etc., this is a real good one when compared quality with dollars and its weight is heavy enough, and it sounds real good too. And I can say, it sounds much better than many famous foreign branded CD players. This player can also play DVD audio discs which sound much better than any CDs.

 

You know I’ve also blacked out the chassis inside and shielded up the power part and the working part as well. After that it sounds even much better. This component is worth every cent to the sound quality it can give you.

 

http://www.jungson.com/content/product_pages/dvd.htm

   ’Moon Harbor’ HDMI 1080i DVD player, its chassis is real strong and heavy. And I have blacked out the chassis with proper shielding and partitions inside, and then put some weight on top of it which further reduces the vibrations caused by the revolving mechanism.   Weight on CD/DVD player

 

You might put some weight heavy enough on your CD/DVD player to minimize the vibration caused by the revolving part of the drive mechanism and the transformer which cause jitter distortion to the reading of signals. It’s better to put iron weight on it.

  DVD Audio Disc

 

Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6 burns music DVDs treated with LPCM that gives real great sound quality which also sounds better than any CDs or LPs. You can download a free version for trial at the path below. In my opinion, I would rather burn a DVD audio disc rather than a CD. That’s why I seldom burn any audio CD anymore.

 

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1173965700866#versionTabview=tab0&tabview=tab0

  CDs to LPs

 

Most people say CDs don’t sound good, while LPs sound much better. It’s because they somewhat misunderstand the way electrons work in the hi-fi systems and the technology in the 80’s for making a good CD wasn’t yet there. If you have applied all these methods I suggested here, your tube system will for sure sound better with a CD player than a system with an LP turntable.

 

Actually there are good and bad in both CDs & LPs, but there’s much more room for you to improve a system with a CD player with a black magazine than a system with a LP turntable.

  Jitters Correction Software – Nero Burning Rom 6

 

Nero Burning Rom 6 has a function of jitters correction which does real good in burning your CD-ROMs. You are suggested to use this software to copy and back up your CD collections. Your burnt CD-ROMs will sound better than any original CDs.

 

http://www.nero.com/ena/downloads-nero6-update.php

  Black is everything…                                                                                                   

 

If you have a CD or DVD player with a black magazine, you’re lucky… or else, can’t help improving. You know most professional stuffs come in black. Black is the color which doesn’t reflect and refract any color.

  Blacking out the CD or DVD players

 

If you’re not going to sell out your CD player, you can try and find ways to black it out. If the CD or DVD player is of gold or silver colored chassis and looks good but without a black magazine, I can say I am sorry, it won’t sound any better.

  4) Digital/Analogue Converter Section:

 

Digital/Analogue is the 3rd criterion to your system as its quality should be better than the D/A within the CD/DVD player. An external D/A converter will work better than an internal D/A converter inside a CD or DVD player, I do recommend Zhaolu (??) D2.5 which is a 24-bit D/A converter as it sounds real good at a very cheap price, much better than many branded ones. Ha-ha…

  After I’ve shielded up every single wire and PCBs of different sections inside, it sounds terrific as well.   http://www.zhaolu.com/products/d25/big1.htm    Zhaolu (??) D2.5 is a 24-bit D/A converter; I have also shielded up every piece of PCBs and wires with partitions inside. One must applied an EMI filter to any D/A converter.   5) My metal tube 6J5 buffer   I would like to apply a tube buffer right after the D/A converter and before the metal tube pre-amplifiers in order to enhance the sound quality by the metal tube 6J5, one mono tube works for one channel, much better than those branded ones using one stereo tube for both channels because each channel within a stereo tube may get interfered each other.   Tube buffer is placed within the D/A will certainly not sound good, mostly soft and fat. 6) My metal tube 6J5 pre-amplifiers   I would like my tube pre-amplifier to have an amplitude of e20-time to get the most of details of the audio source, and the metal tubes 6J5 I applied are good for such design while most branded pre-amplifiers would apply an amplitude of about 10-time instead. And I don’t use traditional interconnects as I’ve designed e uni-axial cables for my tube pre-amplifiers and tube power amplifiers. Guess you can’t find any product like this in the market, Ha-ha…   7) My metal tube 6L6 power amplifiers   My power amplifiers are of output loading below 8-watt, the power of such output is good enough for an area of room from 80 to 100 sq. feet. Its sound is so dynamic and giving you every bit of details of the audio source as well. The output loading of the output transformers for these amplifiers are of 60-watt each channel, but the actual power output for the tubes are less than 8 watt each channel and you won’t find any problem of electromagnetic saturation with it.   Loudspeakers Section:

 

Crossovers at the 4th order for tweeter, mid-range or woofer individually

 

If your loudspeakers have 3 drivers for each channel, the crossovers designed should be made separately with shielded partitions, one for the tweeter, and one for the mid-range and another for the woofer. Furthermore, you can shield up coils and capacitors which the cross-over will work precisely. I do recommend designing the crossovers at least at the 4th order or above.

  Crossovers placed externally & are shielded up as well.

 

I would suggest the crossovers shall be placed outside of the loudspeakers, and then the loudspeakers would sound much better because magnetic field of each driver may distort the sound quality. And if they are shielded up as well, the high range won’t get interfered by the electromagnetic flux of the mid-range and the mid-range vice versa, and then the phase of the audio image will get improved a lot.

  Sealing up magnets of drivers  

All magnets of drivers shall be sealed up by iron cap which will hold up magnetic field, thus it will reduce the magnetic field and electromagnetic flux impacts to the working of crossovers and other drivers, and then the sound quality of the driver will also improve a lot. 

  Eton drivers

 

Eton drivers from Germany are real good; they can perform with all the details at high definition with good frequency response from an audio source and whatever you need. If you shield them up as I suggested, they perform real great sounds that please your ears. I used these drivers to make a pair of loudspeakers with crossovers at the 4th order; they sound real good and perform well with feel of being live.

 

And it’s not enough; I still need shield up the magnets of them with iron sheets which gives real dynamic and nice sounding.

 

  This loudspeakers were designed by my friend, Mr. Bill with the 4th order crossovers placed outside of the chassis and the Eton drivers. I have shielded up cables and the magnets of the drivers which enhance the sound quality.

 

You may visit the Eton’s website at the paths below:

 

1) http://www.eton-gmbh.de/ShowPage.php?NavRoot=0&LangId=2&NavLang=2&PId=3&NavId=61

 

2) http://www.eton-gmbh.de/ShowPage.php?NavRoot=0&LangId=2&NavLang=2&PId=3004&NavId=170

 

The crossover at the 4th order without any compensation network places externally and with weight on top of the loudspeakers. I never use any banana plugs to connect the loudspeaker cable for it, just jam the cable right into the whole of connectors.

  Weight on loudspeakers                                                                                              

 

You can put weight on the speakers heavy enough to reduce vibration of the chassis caused by the vibration of the drivers, or else this vibration will distort the output frequencies of each driver.

 

You may buy some heavy objects like ‘Starry Night’ (???) granite at those masonries elsewhere or anything made of iron that weighs. My granite weighs more or less 60 pounds on top of the 2 loudspeakers or at least heavy enough. Of course, iron weight is the best for putting on loudspeakers.

 

Cables for Loudspeakers

 

Cables for loudspeakers haven’t to be very thick and long as it may cause eddy current, the thinner the better, though it doesn’t have to be too thin while it might have higher resistance and it doesn’t do any good to your system as well. And the positive end and the negative end must be shielded up individually. But the ones you can get in the market are mostly in a bundle with no shielding at all.

  Room Acoustics

 

The sound wave is a kind of energy which travels about 343 metres per second, thus creates problem to the sound quality of the loudspeakers as they continually create sound wave. Room acoustic panels for wave absorbent shall be duly applied to walls and corners. Normally, room for separation in between two loudspeakers is from 6 to 8 feet depending on the size of your drivers. And you can place both sides of your speakers ideally at least 2 to 3 feet away from the walls and corners.

 

If the room isn’t big enough, apply more panels as can be as wave absorbent. Doing so will improve the reflection of sound waves as a result which you can get to know what your system is. You can also get foam and corrugated carton board to make panels at real low cost on your own. But some branded ones are just too expensive.

  Active Loudspeakers

 

An active loudspeaker means a loudspeaker with an amplifier inside the chassis, an amplifier inside is mostly for the low frequency, but this amplifier may distort the performance of the drivers and the crossovers of the loudspeaker due to electromagnetic flux and vibration take place. This kind of loudspeakers never sounds as good as a regular, passive loudspeaker which doesn’t have an amplifier inside.

  Individual Chamber for each driver   For every loudspeaker I’ll make in the future shall be with individual chamber for each driver and walled by iron sheet. Thus it won’t get interfered one another.   Passive crossovers without Compensation Network   The quality of Eton drivers is good enough and that’s why I don’t need any compensation network. Compensation networks to some extent don’t do any good to the loudspeakers when they sound and consume unnecessary power output which also doesn’t do good to sound quality.   Most people or manufacturers would apply a compensation network to adjust the tone of the sound while the drivers are reproducing annoying sounds. If the drivers are of real good quality, compensation network isn’t necessary.   I don’t recommend any electronic crossover, as most electronic crossovers in the market are solid states which won’t sound real good at all unless you would attach a tube buffer to it.   9) Burning CDs & DVDs Section:   Black burners  

Burning CDs with a CD or DVD writer with a black magazine will improve a lot at a real slow speed such as 4 or 8-x as it has less laser refraction and reflection problems. Furthermore we must find way to reduce vibration caused by the revolving mechanism.

  Black CD-ROMs

 

Burning your CDs with black CD-ROMs, it gets improved in sound quality as well because it has less problem of reflection and refraction of laser beam. Of course, the quality of the PC system you’re using to burn up CD-ROMs is also very crucial.

  Enhancing the PC for burning Audio DVDs & CDs

 

Most PCs tend to have bugs; it’s not easy to get them work in a perfect condition. All I do is to treat my PC and the monitor as good as my hi-fi system as I shielded it up as much as can be. The main reason why I treat my PC this way is just for burning CDs since I’ve found most original CDs don’t sound real good.

 

I have backed up all software with the black CD-ROMs and used disc copy function of Nero Burning Rom with jitter correction, including OS, burning software, and then I would use all the backup copies of black CD-ROMs to install my PC. By doing so, the whole system would have fewer bugs than the PC installed with the original software.

 

You can also download a software called ‘Gavotte RAM Disk‘, then you can make a partition out of the physical ram like at least 1 Gigabyte as a physical hard disk, then applied the virtual memory to it, the whole system will work better than as usual. Or you just can set the virtual memory to 10 Gigabytes if the free space of your hard disc allowed. I would set the virtual memory to another partition in case it’s allowed. And you can also create some partitions with your hard disk just for burning CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs.

 

I have also disabled some services and functions of the Windows XP OS which are automatically working in the background. By the time I am burning any CDs or DVDs, I just want the OS work as little as possible besides the burning software.

 

It’s better to get an external hard disk drive and an external black DVD/CD-ROM writer with a black magazine with external power supply away from your PC, thus minimize the impact of electromagnetic interference. And I would use black CD-ROMs for burning CDs as well.

  That’s why most CDs and DVDs I have burnt after enhancing the PC which should have been improved and they sound much better than any original CDs. And then I have thrown away all the originals, ha-ha…   Original DVDs and CDs don’t sound real good.

 

I have never listened to music with original CDs or DVDs for quite a long time as they don’t sound real good at all. Since my friends taught me how to burn CDs 7 or 8 years ago, I started studying why and how to burn a real good DVD and CD. It’s most crucial factor that CD or DVD is the primary audio source that affects the final output thru the loudspeakers.

 

Firstly, electromagnetic flux also gives serious impacts to recordings as it gives coloration during recording when the recording system, editing system are turned on. One should shield up every cable connected to the system, or else, it’s hard to record a true audio image to live.

 

Secondly, CD is a kind of software with digitally simulated analogue signals which has been die-cast or bumped, then metallic plated. Original CDs made this way tend to have errors as the die may wear out during bumping. That’s the main reason why the first copy will sound best while the last copy; maybe the 10,000th one can’t sound as good as the 1st one.

 

It means that every copy made this way may sound differently as the die may wear out as it bumps again and again. That’s why I would burn it up and the digital signals will be improved in a correct manner through the digital processing of a CPU of computer.

 

That’s why we can’t find original CDs never sound good as real live.

 

Rubbing out the CD/DVD edge

 

You may rub out the CD/DVD edge to improve the sound quality of the CD/DVD. The size of CD gets smaller; it gets more stable during revolving and less friction with the air.

 

Painting up CD/DVD edge in black

 

You can get it improved by using a flat black ‘Zebra’ McKee marker to paint up the CD/DVD edge in black; the sound quality can also improve a little bit, better than doing nothing because it reduces the problems of reading errors influenced by reflection and refraction of the laser beam. Of course, you can also paint it up after rubbing off the CD/DVD edge as the improvement in sound is much better.

      Recordings concerns…

 

Shielding is also important to all recording systems including digital recorder, mixing system and editing system. EMF also gives coloration and distorts the quality of recordings. But unfortunately, most recording engineers neglect this problem. That’s why there’s not much good quality recording you can get on earth.

 

All these methods I put down here in my blog also do real good to recordings. Unfortunately there are not many good recordings you can get here in Hong Kong both for audio CDs or movie DVDs. Most of them are like junk I can say, bad singing, bad recordings, or badly editing or bad mixing, etc, while some movies from the States give real good live recordings.

 

As for some playhouse in China, you can find some good recordings there too, but for those in Hong Kong, they never do as professional as can be or just spoil things up. 

  Painting up the edge of CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs in black   Before you’re burning CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs in black with a flat black ‘Zebra’ McKee marker, this also improves the burning quality because it further reduces the problem of laser reflection and refraction.   Warning: Those who wish to burn CD or DVD back-ups must observe and must not violate the law of copyright infringement; otherwise you shall bear all responsibilities or liabilities of legal proceedings at your own risks.   Burning Software   There are 2 burning programs I strongly recommend that, one is Nero Burning Rom and another is Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6. Especially, Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6 is a program that’s real good in burning DVD Audio discs, the copies it burns are much better replaying quality than any CDs. You can download the trial versions for trying and burning before you make any decision to buy.   There’s free burning software which is also a real good one called ‘Ashampoo Burning Studio 6’, you may download it at the path below:   http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/Data-CD-DVD-Burning/Ashampoo-Burning-Studio-Free.shtml   10) Other Improvements Section:                                                                                   Do-It-Yourself   If you’re a DIYER, you’ll have more room to get your system improved and it doesn’t cost much, if not, you can’t find much room for improving the sounds of most branded systems.

 

Cans made of Iron

 

You can get cans out of fruits or juice can, you can get it at any supermarket or store, some cans may fit the size of the tubes you’re using, they can act as a good shielding tool to your tubes and they cost little.

 

Cones that reduce vibration

 

Cones are suggested to place right under loudspeakers and CD or DVD players as they would reduce vibration. Theoretically, 3 cones form perfect plain, but 4 cones will be more appropriate and secure for some heavy objects, and then you can put some weights heavy enough on top to further reduce vibration problem.

Partitions with insulated iron

 

Ironclad partitions are crucial especially with power to signals transmission. Signals are easily be distorted by running power which gives serious impact to both video & audio quality. And partitions are real good to loudspeakers as well; there might be a chamber for each driver.

 

Magnetic rings

 

Magnetic rings can block up electromagnetic flux, you can apply them onto the wires or cables with positive poles only. But the effect of improvement for this isn’t as crucial as shielding.

 

Heat reducing

 

You can get some kind of metallic heat sink to reduce heat of transformers and tubes, thus the whole system works better. The higher temperature of your system, the higher the impedance that also distorts the way your system works.

  What materials for shielding can be applied to?

 

You can get iron sheets or iron mesh pipe, aluminum foils from shops that sell tools or metals. These materials shall be fully wrapped up by 3M vinyl insulating tape or heat-shrinkable insulating pipe, and then applied to any part of the system that carries digital or analogue video and audio signals as isolation to parts that create electromagnetic flux, and then you can find the improvements you can’t even dream of… And these materials are real cheap stuff.

 

The best shielding methods

 

Every cable shall be individually shielded up by iron mesh pipe and aluminum foil which reduce the interference by electromagnetic flux and electric field. Unfortunately, we can hardly find this kind of product on earth unless you make it on your own. Ha-ha… everything is on your own.

 

Aluminum and Copper have a high conductivity, but a low relative permeability. They are good for electric field shielding, but not good for magnetic shielding.

  Low frequency magnetic field shielding is very difficult with non-ferromagnetic materials like Copper or Aluminum, but very effective with steel or iron (having a high permeability at low frequency). On the other hand, copper and aluminum are very good for electric field shielding due to their high conductivity.   You can even braid up every inch of the cables with some cheap quality cables, it also minimize the distortion caused by electromagnetic flux. I applied all these 3 methods to the cables and that’s incredible.   Stands made of Iron or Steel

 

Stands for placing your components are best made of iron or steel which shields up electromagnetic field and reduce the distortion to your system caused by EMF. Stands made this way are also heavy enough that vibrations caused by electromagnetic flux and revolving mechanism won’t be coherent with one another.

  Poles isolation

 

Positive pole and negative pole of any cables or circuit shall be shielded up and isolated. Unfortunately, it’s hardly found any product of inter-connect or speaker cables being shielded up or isolated independently. There’s no such product you can find in the market unless it’s made and designed by yourself.

  eIn my case I would make a single cable for the positive end and another cable for the negative end separately, and I would name this as uni-axial cable, 2 of these instead of a traditional co-axial cable further reduce EMF impact.   Chassis made of iron or steel

 

Chassis made of iron or steel is the best chassis for any electronic systems. Chassis made of aluminum and copper will be only good for electric shielding. Materials must be real thick, firm and heavy to reduce vibrations that caused by EMF.

 

Connecting cables to your loudspeakers

 

It’s better to jam the cables right into the hole of banana jacks of the loudspeakers than to use banana plugs instead. The points of contact of banana jacks are real small which doesn’t do any good to transmission of electrons and sound quality at all.

  Perfect Triangle   It’s best to get a perfect triangle to place your loudspeakers with your seat to enjoy and get the best focus image with your listening environment.

 

Room Acoustic Panels made by corrugated carton board

 

The sound wave travels about 343 metres per second; it means that if the room is about 10 metres long, it travels about 34 times to and fro from one wall to another in a second which also creates sound reflection & refraction and thus distorts the sound waves