background noise

[greenbluegold]

Ok here's another perspective. With the analog in set at 0 and the L-R set at zero I get the noise that was bothering me. However, I just did some measurements on that noise, and it turns out I'm still getting 80.77 dB signal to noise. Not as good as some of my other equipment, but really it's not bad. For comparison my beloved nakamichi only does 70 dB S/N with Dolby C activated. Perhaps I could argue that the audio in noise of the scope card somehow sounds worse, but we're getting into pretty subjective territory here.

In this case the problem was my attitude not the gear. I don't think sonic core makes S/N ratio claims in their spec sheets (at least I didn't see it in my quick check). And 80 dB is good, perhaps not the best, but nothing to complain about IMO.

Electrolover, record a bit of the audio output to wave with the audio in set to 0 and the ASIO outputs set to the direct outs of the channel. If you don't have analysis software, I'd be happy to check it for you.

[valis]

ok i 've checked again. plug in toslink cable to optical a out and i didnt hear sound but out b ok.

i can blow my whole pc case i have a little compressor.i will try tomorrow but i've already cleaned the card with contact cleaner (i didnt touch to optical ins/outs)

What kind of contact cleaner? I do hope it wasn't 'Stereo Tuner cleaner', but rather Caig or some equivalent.

[valis]

Ok here's another perspective. With the analog in set at 0 and the L-R set at zero I get the noise that was bothering me. However, I just did some measurements on that noise, and it turns out I'm still getting 80.77 dB signal to noise. Not as good as some of my other equipment, but really it's not bad. For comparison my beloved nakamichi only does 70 dB S/N with Dolby C activated. Perhaps I could argue that the audio in noise of the scope card somehow sounds worse, but we're getting into pretty subjective territory here.

In this case the problem was my attitude not the gear. I don't think sonic core makes S/N ratio claims in their spec sheets (at least I didn't see it in my quick check). And 80 dB is good, perhaps not the best, but nothing to complain about IMO.

Electrolover, record a bit of the audio output to wave with the audio in set to 0 and the ASIO outputs set to the direct outs of the channel. If you don't have analysis software, I'd be happy to check it for you.

You're getting 80.77 dB off your Scope card's inputs with nothing connected? Or with a mixer or some other piece of gear connected?

Either way, that's equivalent to what I get off of my Scope project card's XLR inputs: -81dB noisefloor (peak) when nothing is connected to the XLR inputs. Unused inputs on my RME Multiface show -79 to -80 dB, and that box sits in a rack away from the RF of the computers (ie, not inside of the computer).

Normally my Scope project (Pulsar2) is connected to Bus1 of my mixer here (as it is now), and I show my noisefloor is ~-75 dB with it connected but nothing sent to bus 1 from the input strips. For my older card (Pulsar1 with 'classic' RCA i/o) I see -67 dB peak for the RCA inputs which accepts 2 sends from my board. Disconnecting the cables from the board gives -72 dB, which isn't shabby considering it's a 1st gen card with RCA ins.

(edit: I'm retarded, I was monitoring with Digicheck in 2-channel mode with digital peak= +12 dBf instead of 0dBf and reference at -12dBf, ie K-12 metering. All the figures here are off by virtue of that mistake & corrected below)

[Fluxpod]

Just for reference,i am getting -100,4 on my multiface with or without anything connected.Are you using the external power supply?

[electrolover]

Ok here's another perspective. With the analog in set at 0 and the L-R set at zero I get the noise that was bothering me. However, I just did some measurements on that noise, and it turns out I'm still getting 80.77 dB signal to noise. Not as good as some of my other equipment, but really it's not bad. For comparison my beloved nakamichi only does 70 dB S/N with Dolby C activated. Perhaps I could argue that the audio in noise of the scope card somehow sounds worse, but we're getting into pretty subjective territory here.

In this case the problem was my attitude not the gear. I don't think sonic core makes S/N ratio claims in their spec sheets (at least I didn't see it in my quick check). And 80 dB is good, perhaps not the best, but nothing to complain about IMO.

Electrolover, record a bit of the audio output to wave with the audio in set to 0 and the ASIO outputs set to the direct outs of the channel. If you don't have analysis software, I'd be happy to check it for you.

You're getting 80.77 dB off your Scope card's inputs with nothing connected? Or with a mixer or some other piece of gear connected?

Either way, that's equivalent to what I get off of my Scope project card's XLR inputs: -81dB noisefloor (peak) when nothing is connected to the XLR inputs. Unused inputs on my RME Multiface show -79 to -80 dB, and that box sits in a rack away from the RF of the computers (ie, not inside of the computer).

Normally my Scope project (Pulsar2) is connected to Bus1 of my mixer here (as it is now), and I show my noisefloor is ~-75 dB with it connected but nothing sent to bus 1 from the input strips. For my older card (Pulsar1 with 'classic' RCA i/o) I see -67 dB peak for the RCA inputs which accepts 2 sends from my board. Disconnecting the cables from the board gives -72 dB, which isn't shabby considering it's a 1st gen card with RCA ins.

ah this is normal? i said this from the begining. very loud and audible how can you live with it friends and brothers...try rme hdsp9632 you will hear nothing, no noise.anyway i can handle it with digital in connection no analog in.
when move the mouse around little sizzle adds current analog source noise. what a nice!anyway i think problem solved. at least, noise problem solved i mean there is no solution about it.

what about optical digital a in-out and startup only in taskbar?

[electrolover]

yep -100 usual nice, -90 not bad but what about -68 to -82 no no sir not good.im very dissapointed.mine is mostly -78 which is not good we can say bad very bad. my Luna was better.

[Fluxpod]

Getting -95 on the analog ins on my pulsar2 aswell.Its all about good clean power and propper grounding.I am not living besides any industrial facilities or something like that...almost middle of a big city where i am maybe just lucky.

[valis]

Just for reference,i am getting -100,4 on my multiface with or without anything connected.Are you using the external power supply?

No, power supplied via the HDSP card. Host Computer has PC Power&Cooling 750 so I don't suspect that's the issue.

First note I said my multiface was in a rack of gear, and it's a first generation (not multiface II). My usable s/n is 95dB no matter how low the noise is on input. Multiface II gains the Fireface400's input section minus the pre's (not sure which you have).

Also I have unclean power in this house, coming from a difference between my power box and the cable company. It's actually injected by the cable company's crappy gear via my network, there's 50v floating on the earth/shielding for my cable for some reason and techs will 'see' it when they visit but noone ever acknowledges it being 'their' problem. I even sank a new ground pole into the ground outside for the house and it didn't have any effect.

My noise figures were about 10dB lower in my last house. I've rewired my power box and added more power conditioning equipment to make it usable, but I will be the first to admit it's not stellar. Luckily I don't do any commercial recording...

[valis]

yep -100 usual nice, -90 not bad but what about -68 to -82 no no sir not good.im very dissapointed.mine is mostly -78 which is not good we can say bad very bad. my Luna was better.

-62 would concern me if it was present on balanced +4 inputs, this would be an issue when combining multiple tracks (and it's why I don't use the RCA/"classic" i/o on my Pulsar1 for anything but sends & returns to my big mixer).

[Fluxpod]

Just for reference,i am getting -100,4 on my multiface with or without anything connected.Are you using the external power supply?

No, power supplied via the HDSP card. Host Computer has PC Power&Cooling 750 so I don't suspect that's the issue.

First note I said my multiface was in a rack of gear, and it's a first generation (not multiface II). My usable s/n is 95dB no matter how low the noise is on input. Multiface II gains the Fireface400's input section minus the pre's (not sure which you have).

Also I have unclean power in this house, coming from a difference between my power box and the cable company. It's actually injected by the cable company's crappy gear via my network, there's 50v floating on the earth/shielding for my cable for some reason and techs will 'see' it when they visit but noone ever acknowledges it being 'their' problem. I even sank a new ground pole into the ground outside for the house and it didn't have any effect.

My noise figures were about 10dB lower in my last house. I've rewired my power box and added more power conditioning equipment to make it usable, but I will be the first to admit it's not stellar. Luckily I don't do any commercial recording...

Multiface 1 here aswell.We had this cable "noise" in our studio location before but gladly i never had it at home.

[valis]

Well I did everything I could with my limited knowledge of mains electrics. I do know that I don't deal with widely varying voltages now with the power conditioning (I get a lot of voltage dips here which I've managed to isolate my computers from), and I decoupled the 50v from entering my gear via the ground wiring on my network, but beyond that I'm at a loss. I even rewired my power box last summer and put in a few breakers myself dedicated to things in this studio room (luckily it's in the corner near my computers.) and located those breakers at the top of the power box, on a different phase than the 220v breakers feeding upstairs refrigerator & the laundry room.

I actually have been meaning to have an electrician come out and see if there's something further that can be done to the house but the last time I inquired the estimated time was 1-2 days and it would mean shutting all my power off and moving a large portion of my computer/studio gear (work downtime). I really should address that someday soon...

[at0m]

yep -100 usual nice, -90 not bad but what about -68 to -82 no no sir not good.im very dissapointed.mine is mostly -78 which is not good we can say bad very bad. my Luna was better.

What's the point in those values? Mix something in at -50dB and let me know if you hear it in your mix. Or are you doing scientific research? Let's suppose humans can barely hear the -50dB difference, do you realise -78dB still is over 500 times lower voltage/air pressure?

If you can hear your mouse when you move it, that'd be a more genuine problem of electromagnetic interference, depending on mainboard (including USB connector wiring etc.), casing, and stuff like the mouse and so forth. For that, I suggest you change hardware configuration.

But making a fuzz of a noisefloor of -78dB - you gotta be kidding me.

re: contact cleaner. We use MIL specs contact cleaner, and it also leaves stains. Our manuals advice to not even use that eh.

[valis]

I don't worry too much about -75dB here, and I'm sure -50dB is still far better than what many incredible pieces of music have been mixed through in the past. The artistic/musical merit is paramount, but there's nothing wrong with learning how to improve your gear & techniques either. However losing sleep because you can see a single bar of activity in a Scope meter, well there'd be a LOT of stressed out musicians here. Perhaps SC ought to let the last bit untoggle a bit sooner by scaling the meter more? But at the same time (not knowing what the different mixers do with the last few steps of their meter) I would think seeing that from an analog source but not digital sources would be comforting, once you knew what was going on.

The reason I asked about Tuner Cleaner is because that stuff is incredibly caustic. It always amazes me that it's marketed directly as 'curing' sticky/noisy pots on consumer gear, when it usually has the effect of causing any remaining oil/grease to be run out along with any dust it might actually remove. The end result is usually a much faster wearing pot. In his case he's just cleaning contacts so I've no idea what effect it would have, but I avoid that stuff like the plague since ruining a nice guitar pedal's knob when I was 16.

[valis]

Crap, I have to post a retraction. Now that I've finished working for the day and relaxed a bit, I realized that I posted all my RME statistics in K-12! I use Digicheck to monitor my RME, and it slipped my mind that I have the 2-level meter set to K-12 (-12 dB reference, Top level = +12dB & peak hold of 1sec).

Ooops!

And here I was writing out rationalizations for the differences in what I've said in the past for my mixer & scope card's self-noise based on the grounding problems I've had. So I completely take all of that back and should edit my posts, but will leave them as evidence of my momentary lapse of reason.



Now I *have* had grounding issues affecting my gear, mostly it's been usb midi interfaces needing to be 'degaussed' after staying connected to a few synths that remain on much of the time. I found I have to disconnect the usb plug for my Midisport and turn off all synths occasionally, or my DAW will have strange behaviour (winbond chip won't set the temp/fan profiles properly on boot, mouse & keyboard will drop off and return with default drivers, etc). Also my HD-DVR wouldn't maintain a stable spdif connection to any soundcard here, and my router would periodically reboot itself. AGrounding my cable on the shielding where it enters the house and adding better power conditioning eliminated much of that, but I was sitting here thinking I still had issues affecting my audio gear. My mistake!

[valis]

Revised stats

Main mix out from mixer into RME 1/2: -85 dBf peak ( -78 dBf rms)
Unused inputs on RME: -99.5 to -101.5 dBf peak ( -95 dBf rms)

Scope Project XLR inputs (connected to bus1 from mixer): -95.25 to -95.85 dBf peak ( -85.7 dBf rms )
Pulsar1 RCA inputs (connected to send 5/6 from mixer): -83 to -85 dBf peak ( -77 dBf rms)

[electrolover]

hello everybody,i have to say all of you very helpful people which i didnt expect much.
my opinion, scope best of the best audio card. some people comparison with m-audio from my country funny isnt it?

anyway, thank your opinions and ideas.

i use my compressor on digital a and blew up everything.nothing changed.digital a did not work.

i've just tried this (please look at the picture) and noise gone. still, there is problem with noise but when i receive little a/d converter (you can buy from ebay for 68$ shipping included) iwill remove analog source so my system would be noiseless again (im sure you know, when you buy this a/d converter only expect connection between analog and digital cables nothing more, if you want real a/d converter buy pro like rme or apogee)

mix2009-02-28_142937.jpg (55.61 KiB) Viewed 1961 times

i also use expander on analog source...

[valis]

Do us a favor and post up a pic without the expander, and without the -12db input gain (leave the channel's input at 0.0)

[electrolover]

Do us a favor and post up a pic without the expander, and without the -12db input gain (leave the channel's input at 0.0)

mixer155800.jpg (153.29 KiB) Viewed 3825 times

[valis]

Skip the expander.

Tell me again what is connected to the card's XLR inputs?

[electrolover]

Skip the expander.

Tell me again what is connected to the card's XLR inputs?

skipped expander and all default. classic i/o no xlr in/out. rca plugs.
nothing connected currently. toslink in/out (adat a) not working, b is ok.
except adat a and analog source noise remains ok.