power cord upgrades, and power conditioner

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Actually it still has a ferrite ring all the wires wrap around, that's grounded. I may try without, but it's kind of a pain to do.

Inline ferrites that do a 360* wrap, have given me bad results. But CMC's with wire going around the core doesn't produce this poor sound. As far as on boards of DAC's and stuff I'm undecided in the DC/digital region.

It would be best if I gave it a linear PSU, but there isn't a lot of room to do it right. It'd take a couple anyways, there's a few voltages.
 
Separating the mains power feed from the signal wiring does not seem to affect any of my audio gear.

I designed a USB mixer and had quite bad hum.
When I looked inside I tracked the problem down to a mains wire running next to an audio signal wire. I moved the mains wire a couple of inches away and the hum went.
High impedance audio and mains don't mix very well.

Also keep audio away from transformers or the wire will pick up the magnetic field. I got caught out with this on a valve amplifier with a mains transformer next to a valve.
 
I would love to see some real information regarding ferrites and sound quality. I am curious how they do alter the sound...and whether they do as they are designed for noise suppression that is magnitudes of frequency higher than the audio band.....I have tried various ferrites on various cables on my system...no change in sound that I could detect...
 
No reason.
It's much as Marce is asking.
I would love to see some real information regarding ferrites and sound quality.
and how a mains interference attenuator can affect the audio supplied with current from the Main smoothing capacitors?
I am curious how they do alter the sound...and whether they do as they are designed for noise suppression that is magnitudes of frequency higher than the audio band...
 
Re: ferrites. I have noticed that around PS wire pairs they usually produce a bit smoother sound. I use Steward #28 broadband mix on all my PS wire pairs.

However, I've tried them around and inline with signal wires and the results were BAD. Flat sounding, dull, lifeless. So in short, my experience is:

PS: use them!
Signal: avoid them!
 
Magz, try my rule of thumb that wire around ferrite = ok, ferrite around wire = bad. That's my observation. Data? Pffft me turning the soldering iron back on within seconds, or getting the screw driver has been all I need; as I get my sound back. Someday perhaps I'll get some recorded information on it.

Inductors are very valuable, but not many are ferrite around wire except may SMT territory.
 
I removed all of the ferrites in my CD players. One ring wound around with AC in. One with 18 and 7 +/-, one around data/power to DAC cable, one around power to disc drive. Each was a clear step in clarity. They were not keeping noise out, they were keeping it in. The sound is much more clear and friendly at louder volumes. Timbre increased a lot, as well as dynamics.

I left the one to the display.

Large CMC's remain acceptable, beneficial, but ferrites otherwise keep proving to be huge detriments. It sure is fun to get results that other people pay thousands of dollars for, just by removing cheap parts.

 
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^Oh brother, small ferrite beads are put in there to greatly reduce these digital hash, stray RF, and SMPS common mode noise getting to analog circuits with their resultant IMD contributions, I reckon some like the added presence on the sound.

Reminds me of the legendary "Mad Man Muntz" stories on his technical contributions for his TV / Radio products for the low cost market.
 
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Sometimes the benefits of one thing outweighs another detriment.

Half or more of all ferrites you can bet are put in for "better practice" and not because they took the measurement and knew they needed it. But also if decoupling isn't practiced correctly when using inductors in various situations, you'll have issues.

The CD 2 & 3 do not have the EMI IEC or ferrites. The DACs either, actually.

Besides the filtration on AC side is pathetic compared to my power conditioner.
 
I removed all of the ferrites in my CD players. One ring wound around with AC in. One with 18 and 7 +/-, one around data/power to DAC cable, one around power to disc drive. Each was a clear step in clarity. They were not keeping noise out, they were keeping it in. The sound is much more clear and friendly at louder volumes. Timbre increased a lot, as well as dynamics.
Yup, in my experience ferrite sleeves (clip-on or tubular) sound ear bleeding nasty.

Dan.
 
Sometimes the benefits of one thing outweighs another detriment.

Half or more of all ferrites you can bet are put in for "better practice" and not because they took the measurement and knew they needed it. But also if decoupling isn't practiced correctly when using inductors in various situations, you'll have issues.

The CD 2 & 3 do not have the EMI IEC or ferrites. The DACs either, actually.

Besides the filtration on AC side is pathetic compared to my power conditioner.

Then maybe you can show us the measurements before and after you removed the ferrites? Or did you just guess it was better?
 
Then maybe you can show us the measurements before and after you removed the ferrites? Or did you just guess it was better?

It's funny you should ask this, I considered asking yesterday, to see if it'd be worth it to start rummaging through gear to see if there were any ferrites I could remove, if there were any real gains to be had. Then, I remembered where I was and decided sodding off would be less frustrating.
 
Knowing only a little about production/assembly costs, I would expect that added components, including ferrites must have a real performance benefit to be left in the "as sold" version.

Surely, if this is the case, then removing some or all of those ferrites will reduce performance.

BTW, as I understand it ferrites are used to obtain improvements in tolerance to interference.
 
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