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I've decided to put ferrite cores on all my noisy devices- fridge, a/c units, etc.
Do you guys recommend putting them on your stereo equipment as well? I haven't heard much about this and always thought it was a bad idea. If I do it, I'm thinking about putting one on the surge protector all my sources are plugged into and another one on the amp which is plugged in directly. What do you guys think of that?
Also, why not put them on all the lines coming out from the main power distribution box?
kp
Follow Ups:
Hi.
With digital stuff all over the place, e.g. inside your LCD/plasma TV/monitors, chargers for your cellphones, notebooks, PCs etc etc etc,
a cheapie yet effective way to kill RFI invasion is to use those ferrite ring suppressors to dismatch the 377R E/H fields impedance ratio to your cables, be it audio, video or PC interfacing cables.
In fact, we have seen so many Brandname audio cables, power cords, speaker cords, video cords, cable Tv cables, come with molded-in ferrite suppressors.
I have read reports on sonic enhancement of audio ICs with the ferrite ring placed on the RIGHT location along the cable.
c-J
I have found that a Ferrite clamp is most efficient when placed around the systems common Earth GND wire only in a stereo system although one exception that has been mentioned is a digital satellite receiver. These seem to benefit greatly when a ferrite clamp is placed around the entire cord up close to the chassis.
They do/can have a very positive effect when placed around the entire cord on home appliances.
Cheers,
~kenster
I have them on all speaker cables and most line cords. They can be magic bullets, especially on speaker cables. Especially if you have a Ham Radio guy three houses down with his beam pointed at you.
He no longer has the beam so I guess I can try pulling them off. I can't imagine why they would cause harm on speaker cables however since they have no net flux from the speaker signals. Only apply them common mode, don't put them individually on the speaker wires. If you suspect that you're getting hit it can't hurt to try them in your system.
Rick
Tried ferrite cores from Radio Shack, Audioquest, Percy, and Parts Express. In all instances except the Satalite Receiver within the A/V circuit, on any cable (damped or non-damped as Al Sekela mentions) degraded the sound in my system. On the Satalite Receiver's captive power cord there was a positive effect. I spent almost a whole day experimenting with these ferrite cores. Even tried them at the wall, one conductor leg, two and all... the sonics degraded. If I were you, I would try it anyway, you should be able to hear the difference very quickly. Inexpensive experiment.
The one thing I have not had the chance to try is the ferrite cores on appliances like the fridge. This I have heard works in many cases.
Chris
Something I've discovered recently adds a wrinkle to this experience, however.
Ferrite cores or clamps hang loosely on the treated cable or cord. Mechanical vibration of the core will modulate the impedance the core adds to the wire. If the vibration comes from the speakers, this modulation will appear as a form of correlated noise in the output of the cable, and could be annoying at very low levels.
If you try these devices on your audio cords and cables, please damp them securely against vibration. What I would do is stuff pure cotton into the gap between the core and cable, and over-wrap the core with Teflon thread-seal tape so that there is no tone when you tap it with a finger nail.
The same precautions apply to Power Wraps and carbon fiber sleeve used as RF damping treatments. Cotton is not needed with carbon fiber, but it should be wrapped tightly with Teflon.
The basic problem with the ferrite cores is that they are small compared to the length of the cable or cord. They may provide a significant impedance to RF where they are present on the cable, but the rest of the cable is still free to resonate. Thus, they are only useful for transmitted RF noise, and would not help problems created by cable resonance.
I loop the power cord through as many times as possible in as perfect a circle as I can. I try to make the loop as symmetrical as possible. I pull the power cord tight and that coupled with the closing force makes a very tight vibration resistant one. I also use tie wraps here. I do not use them with my more powerful solid state amps.
This only works on my gear that has thin diameter power cord which is mainly stuff that also has microprocessors. I do it to help keep radiated noise (as opposed to conducted) out of my other gear.
The blocks I have (employer five finger discount) are pretty big. I have a bunch of small TDK round cross section (better) snap blocks too. I usually use those inside gear.
Most cd players have some kind of choke at the ac input or after the transformer secondary (iron core) in the case of my H-K and Panasonic/Technics units.
I doubt any of this is audible to me. My ears are not very good and I have tinnitus in my left ear.
When it comes to tweaks in general there always seems to be a downside in addition to whatever benefits there are.
I've often been burned by tweaks done on the basis that they seemed like good ideas at the time, but that I did not evaluate by listening.
I think it is because it is what I have been doing for the last 30 years. I guess I'm a creature of habit.
I'm also bored and need something to keep me out of trouble.
The ferrite blocks are only one thing and most of my tweak efforts have yielded good audible results. I call them "engineered" modifications, not simply parts swaps.
I'm looking for synergy mostly.
Best done when alone in the house.
Listen to your system after it is thoroughly warmed up. Play some recordings with lots of intimate detail. Choose a few telling passages with good vocal and/or solo or small ensemble work. Listen in the analytic mode.
Now, choose one suspect appliance, turn it off, and unplug it. Listen again.
Suspect appliances are anything that might contain a switch-mode power supply. Anything with a computer behind the control panel, any modern video gear, any computers, etc.
You will likely find a few strong sources of RF noise. Experiment with AC power filters on these sources. AC power filters can be anything from the marginal stuff inside cheap surge-protector power strips to the Corcom MV-20.
Enjoy the new, improved audio performance.
They may be more trouble than they are worth on audio gear. But maybe one on the amp's power cord pushed all the way up to the case may be worthwhile.
Hadn't thought to put them on the speaker wire. Any other thoughts on that?
kp
I've used Power Wraps on speaker cables and found them to be sensitive to acoustic damping. Even with cotton stuffed between the Wraps and cables, there is still some sonic degradation. I believe ferrite clamps, etc. would suffer from the same issue.
Unless your speaker cables are perfectly co-axial, there will be some leakage magnetic flux from the speaker current that will interact with high-permeability objects nearby.
I've found benefit from carbon fiber sleeve on speaker cables. The carbon fiber absorbs energy from the common-mode electric field of the standing waves. It should be used as close as practical to the ends, where all the standing wave modes have peaks in electric field, without shorting the cable conductors.
R-C networks are good for damping the normal mode resonances of speaker cables.
It is possible to use them on audio compoenet cords, but it does take a lot of work.
Ferrites work very well on non audio components however: Computers, printers, appliances, lamps, everything else plugged into the wall. I use two per cord, one at each end, and the placement itself changes the overall sound. I like thema bout 10 inches from the end: Mike Vans Evers had a white paper about this and even manufactured PC's with the concept of adjusting string nodal resonances.
Stu
Mail me at
cliff.forrest"at"gmail.com
Will fix this problem tonight from home. Cannot do it now.
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