Tech junk: On radio interference...
I know there's a lot of text below, but the upshot is that I'm trying to save folks money -- or at least hopefully keep people from spending money on 'solutions' that probably won't be effective, money that can be put to more effective use inother ways, so it may be worth at least glancing over...
First, regarding radio interference specifically -- if the problem is related to cabling -- it's not so much that you don't have high enough quality cabling -- it's that you have a defective cable.
Radio interference typically comes from a connection that should be solid but which, for some reason, has become reduced to something like a strand or two of wire (which may even be intermittent). That can form something that acts like the cat's whisker capacitors that were at the heart of early, very simple radio receivers.
That usually means a bad connection at a solder or other connection point or, as sometimes happens, a broken solid wire lead that is being held together in intermittent or minimal contact by insulation. You found that last in older gear with point to point wiring.
In modern gear it's usually found where wire leads or other components contact the circuit board. Stress points around connectors are another place to look (particularly where there are external connectors mounted in a case that are also mounted on the circuit board -- as in many laptops and other pieces of modern, low production cost gear). In such cases, a circuit board often becomes broken and can be held together -- such as it is -- by the actual conductor substrate, potentially tearing and stressing micro-thin printed circuit conductors which then may begin acting like cat's whisker capacitors.
So, your problem could be cable-related (a defective cable -- likely a bad connetion at the connector), but it could also be from a large piece of gear.
On radio interference in general: I think you said you were a mile and a half from a transmitter. If it's the source of your problem, my guess is it's a 50 KW AM station. At that distance, interference is likely only if there is a problem in your gear -- ie, a defective piece of gear/connection.
But, if such a transmitter is in your backyard, it may so thoroughly saturate the area with transmitted power that signal is jumping everywhere, and interference is not limited to gear made vulnerable by defect or poor design. Nearby illegally high powered CB or ham radio transmitters may also cause problems.
When dealing with radio interference issues, remember this: radio power from a non-directional antenna, like sound from a single point sound source, diminishes with the square of the distance from the source -- in other words, a radio signal will be 9 times weaker at 3 feet from the source than it is at 1 foot; 16 times weaker at 4 feet compared to 1 foot, etc.
Because FM radio is not amplitude modulated, it does not typically present the same sorts of contamination issues.
With regard to premium cable, quality and expectations...
Mogami makes good cables but they're very expensive.
You can also buy good cables very inexpensively. It's not that Monster is too cheap. Many would say they tend to be overpriced, by many measures, even when they are of adequate quality.
If there's a respected pro shop oriented to commercial recording and sound reinforcement in your community and they make their own cables, as many do, I would suggest that, since they will very likely be competitively priced and will likely provide a solid bargain, since the shop will likely stand behind them.
Paying premium prices for good cable (like Mogami) is OK if you're willing to shell out as much as 3 or 4 times the commodity rate for equal quality cables for the 'assurance' that the reputation provides.
But the job of wire is very simple. As long as the cable is made of standard materials and appropriate configuration for your purpose, has insulation of an appropriate material (which is not necessarily expensive and that will not build up static charge and so produce the crackling microphonics associated with improper insulation choice) and has well made connectors attached appropriately, it should perform fine and last a long time.
And with regard to the outlandish claims of the "magic cable" people -- fuggedaboutit. Paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars for short runs of cable, whether it's speaker leads, power cables, digital signal cables, whatever -- is hooey. Nonsense. Nonsense bordering on fraud.
With regard to power conditioning and people's expectations...
Power conditioners are largely not effective for most of the purposes people want to put them with regard to improved sound quality. There are a lot of reasons for that that others can explain better.*
Uninterruptible power supplies can provide protection for your power failure, allowing you to shut down your gear within a safety window. But they are often not effective at other uses people want to put them to (like 'conditioning' the power for better sound). The ability to provide protection against power surges/spikes may not be nearly as effective as one might like; I suggest further reading on that subject.
Some people do buy into the notion that power conditioning is likely to improve the sound of their gear's operation. Suffice it to say that there's little chance of that with modern gear, which tends to have its own internal regulators, for the most part -- unless one is spending serious money (not talking mere hundreds here) for a system which essentially provides a regulated supply from a bank of continually recharging batteries, completely isolating the power supplied from that coming into the building from the power company.
*For further reading, try Googling something like power conditioning myths.
PS... you can probably expect people who have a large investment in supposedly high end cables or in power condtioning (and likely both) to pop in here with some strident defenses of their belief system. Since the claims they often make are extraordinary, I would suggest asking them for empirical evidence to support any extraordinary claims. (Expect to get the ol' Well, if you can't hear the difference, you must be deaf! routine. )
Quote:
Originally Posted by -------- Yes, we have Monster cables going from mics to our interface. I'll try Mogami cables. I heard from a friend that buying a power conditioner can also help reduce interference. However I'm reluctant to buy a $100 power strip... |
Radio interference typically comes from a connection that should be solid but which, for some reason, has become reduced to something like a strand or two of wire (which may even be intermittent). That can form something that acts like the cat's whisker capacitors that were at the heart of early, very simple radio receivers.
That usually means a bad connection at a solder or other connection point or, as sometimes happens, a broken solid wire lead that is being held together in intermittent or minimal contact by insulation. You found that last in older gear with point to point wiring.
In modern gear it's usually found where wire leads or other components contact the circuit board. Stress points around connectors are another place to look (particularly where there are external connectors mounted in a case that are also mounted on the circuit board -- as in many laptops and other pieces of modern, low production cost gear). In such cases, a circuit board often becomes broken and can be held together -- such as it is -- by the actual conductor substrate, potentially tearing and stressing micro-thin printed circuit conductors which then may begin acting like cat's whisker capacitors.
So, your problem could be cable-related (a defective cable -- likely a bad connetion at the connector), but it could also be from a large piece of gear.
On radio interference in general: I think you said you were a mile and a half from a transmitter. If it's the source of your problem, my guess is it's a 50 KW AM station. At that distance, interference is likely only if there is a problem in your gear -- ie, a defective piece of gear/connection.
But, if such a transmitter is in your backyard, it may so thoroughly saturate the area with transmitted power that signal is jumping everywhere, and interference is not limited to gear made vulnerable by defect or poor design. Nearby illegally high powered CB or ham radio transmitters may also cause problems.
When dealing with radio interference issues, remember this: radio power from a non-directional antenna, like sound from a single point sound source, diminishes with the square of the distance from the source -- in other words, a radio signal will be 9 times weaker at 3 feet from the source than it is at 1 foot; 16 times weaker at 4 feet compared to 1 foot, etc.
Because FM radio is not amplitude modulated, it does not typically present the same sorts of contamination issues.
With regard to premium cable, quality and expectations...
Mogami makes good cables but they're very expensive.
You can also buy good cables very inexpensively. It's not that Monster is too cheap. Many would say they tend to be overpriced, by many measures, even when they are of adequate quality.
If there's a respected pro shop oriented to commercial recording and sound reinforcement in your community and they make their own cables, as many do, I would suggest that, since they will very likely be competitively priced and will likely provide a solid bargain, since the shop will likely stand behind them.
Paying premium prices for good cable (like Mogami) is OK if you're willing to shell out as much as 3 or 4 times the commodity rate for equal quality cables for the 'assurance' that the reputation provides.
But the job of wire is very simple. As long as the cable is made of standard materials and appropriate configuration for your purpose, has insulation of an appropriate material (which is not necessarily expensive and that will not build up static charge and so produce the crackling microphonics associated with improper insulation choice) and has well made connectors attached appropriately, it should perform fine and last a long time.
And with regard to the outlandish claims of the "magic cable" people -- fuggedaboutit. Paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars for short runs of cable, whether it's speaker leads, power cables, digital signal cables, whatever -- is hooey. Nonsense. Nonsense bordering on fraud.
With regard to power conditioning and people's expectations...
Power conditioners are largely not effective for most of the purposes people want to put them with regard to improved sound quality. There are a lot of reasons for that that others can explain better.*
Uninterruptible power supplies can provide protection for your power failure, allowing you to shut down your gear within a safety window. But they are often not effective at other uses people want to put them to (like 'conditioning' the power for better sound). The ability to provide protection against power surges/spikes may not be nearly as effective as one might like; I suggest further reading on that subject.
Some people do buy into the notion that power conditioning is likely to improve the sound of their gear's operation. Suffice it to say that there's little chance of that with modern gear, which tends to have its own internal regulators, for the most part -- unless one is spending serious money (not talking mere hundreds here) for a system which essentially provides a regulated supply from a bank of continually recharging batteries, completely isolating the power supplied from that coming into the building from the power company.
*For further reading, try Googling something like power conditioning myths.
PS... you can probably expect people who have a large investment in supposedly high end cables or in power condtioning (and likely both) to pop in here with some strident defenses of their belief system. Since the claims they often make are extraordinary, I would suggest asking them for empirical evidence to support any extraordinary claims. (Expect to get the ol' Well, if you can't hear the difference, you must be deaf! routine. )
posted by TK Major at
10:02 AM
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