There are very many parallels to the following:
My girlfriend (the best of all, of course) practices homoeopathy, TCM, acupuncture and some more stuff like these. Some time ago I accompanied her on a visit to a fair where esoteric health products were shown. All BS, btw.
There was a stand where the staff presented their so called Grander water. I went up to them and pretended some interested look at the device that processes normal water from the tap to give this Grander-ized water. The device had two identical fittings and no arrow to show the flow direction. This seemed somewhat strange to me, as processing water means adding somewhat to or removing somewhat from it, and therefore each processing device should have distinctive in- and outputs. I asked the stuff about the installation procedure and what would happen if I per chance would install it the false way. Would the water become worse than the raw tap water then? No comprehensible answer. Then I asked them to let me one device for testing. I insinuated they surely had some laboratory to analyze water. So, after the installation I'd send them ten samples in small vessels, five of them filled with just tap water and the other five ones with Grander water. I said if they were able to identify all samples by chemical or some other means without any doubt, I'd be very glad to keep the unit and pay for it. They disagreed. Of course.
Best regards!
My girlfriend (the best of all, of course) practices homoeopathy, TCM, acupuncture and some more stuff like these. Some time ago I accompanied her on a visit to a fair where esoteric health products were shown. All BS, btw.
There was a stand where the staff presented their so called Grander water. I went up to them and pretended some interested look at the device that processes normal water from the tap to give this Grander-ized water. The device had two identical fittings and no arrow to show the flow direction. This seemed somewhat strange to me, as processing water means adding somewhat to or removing somewhat from it, and therefore each processing device should have distinctive in- and outputs. I asked the stuff about the installation procedure and what would happen if I per chance would install it the false way. Would the water become worse than the raw tap water then? No comprehensible answer. Then I asked them to let me one device for testing. I insinuated they surely had some laboratory to analyze water. So, after the installation I'd send them ten samples in small vessels, five of them filled with just tap water and the other five ones with Grander water. I said if they were able to identify all samples by chemical or some other means without any doubt, I'd be very glad to keep the unit and pay for it. They disagreed. Of course.
Best regards!
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Ferrite chokes are very useful in knocking down RF interference.
Also make sure your system is properly grounded.
Many RF Interference complaints can be traced back to the one who
is getting the interference not having their system properly grounded
and their connections not being securely tight.
Hey this stuff all started in Germany a LONG time ago Home | Schauberger
They were on it even back then...
In the case of using an external antenna for FM and fed by
coax make sure the outer jacket is tied to a proper ground
(usually through a ground block)
Use 3 prong power cords if the equipment calls for it
(dont' use an adapter to defeat this or cut off the ground prong)
Tie the equipment chassis to ground via the ground lug.
At a minimum it should be grounded for safety, many people don't even do that.
In severe cases (like people who live near broadcast stations) put chokes
on everything.
Back in the days of CB radio here in the States, I had a customer with a home organ that was picking up his obnoxious neighbor's illegal CB rig. Big linear amp, outdoor tower antenna, the whole deal. I was just a kid still learning, and tried everything I knew at the time, including installing ceramic capacitors across transistor junctions etc, but man, there were a lot of junctions in that little Wurlitzer Funmaker. I was able to reduce it but not get rid of it. Besides, there was so much RF in the air you could almost taste it - all the neighbors were complaining about various interference. Dude just didn't care. They even reported him to the FCC, but I imagine they were overwhelmed with this sort of thing at the time.
Anyway, the organ owner finally wound up sneaking over and sticking a straight pin through the guy's coax cable (and cutting it off flush!). Problem solved.
Anyway, the organ owner finally wound up sneaking over and sticking a straight pin through the guy's coax cable (and cutting it off flush!). Problem solved.
Of course there are countless ferrite compositions, all which have different frequency bands. randomly glomming an unknown choke on is more desperation that engineering.
I have seen the same trick in a pub beer garden where the background music system was far too loud hindering conversation.
We asked management to turn it down to no avail.
A friend opened his wallet and removed a sewing needle and then inserted it into the speaker cable.
The level dropped markedly, then management turned it up, then silence.....problem solved.
Dan.
I've always wondered what the cosmic microwave background radiation levels do to the noise floor of an audio system.
I've also wondered what benefits there would be to heavily shielding any low level audio equipment such as opamps/dacs etc.
Obviously if 2% of the noise on a crt television set that is untuned is CMB then there would be some form of affect on the audio equipment, but it would be minimal.
I've also wondered what benefits there would be to heavily shielding any low level audio equipment such as opamps/dacs etc.
Obviously if 2% of the noise on a crt television set that is untuned is CMB then there would be some form of affect on the audio equipment, but it would be minimal.
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But isn't there usually an AGC circuit on the RF side of most modern radio receivers?
On a TV screen for example, under no-signal conditions, we're looking at an "enhanced" noise floor caused by the wide-open AGC, right? If so, this would skew the comparison a bit, if we're trying to decide whether it's important that this particular noise is creeping into our (fixed-gain) audio circuits. It also raises the possibility that the video (and audio) noise on an untuned TV is coming predominantly from internal circuits upstream from the AGC, and not the cosmos.
On a TV screen for example, under no-signal conditions, we're looking at an "enhanced" noise floor caused by the wide-open AGC, right? If so, this would skew the comparison a bit, if we're trying to decide whether it's important that this particular noise is creeping into our (fixed-gain) audio circuits. It also raises the possibility that the video (and audio) noise on an untuned TV is coming predominantly from internal circuits upstream from the AGC, and not the cosmos.
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I agree with your points, and yes the pseudo scientific stuff does degrade.
Further JB's unapproved usage of JC's good name and lack of financial reward does not go down well in my books, especially in the context that JB is well heeled indeed.
Pseudo scientific stuff aside, it is curious that BQP's do quieten and dampen audio systems, and proper physics explanations would stand the product in much better staid.
Dan.
Dan, you've just dismissed pseudo-science and real science in the same sentence. What's left?
Remember though that an untuned audio circuit is not a receiver and it has no AGC.
It doesn't even have the ability to discern or tune out interference and allow only one specific frequency through. It receives all frequencies equally at the same time.
But provided that sufficient shielding is in place only the signals which are present in the DAC/opamp circuits already should be there and no outside external influcence.
However, the outside shield of a coax poses an important problem, it is the final shielding in an important system which must be shielded from outside RF, currents passing along the outside of the shield can then pose a problem, which is where ferrite beads come in.
It makes me wonder though how much of the signal which is also passing along the shield/braid is being attenuated by the rf interference and we don't know about it.
And that is where dual conductor coax or twisted pair in a shield comes in, to mitigate against this. aka balanced line.
The thing is though, and this is where most people forget their basic physics, is that no matter what the frequency of an RF signal is at, it is still producing a magnetic field in the conductor, and a magnetic field being induced in a conductor doesn't matter what frequency its oscillating at, it will still affect all other frequencies which are being carried along that same wire.
And this is where audio signals being affected by RF comes into play. If you remove the offending signals at higher frequencies with a ferrite bead then they don't have the ability to produce the offending magnetic field in a conductor and so therefore the magnetic field cannot then attenuate the audio signals going along the same conductor.
That is why ferrite beads on an audio signal cable work at all.
Mind blown yet?
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