Attenuation needed?

[paulkebab]

Hi guys, listening to a lot of stuff last night and I came across a couple of tracks that I swore were distorted. Not excessively just a little in upper midrange vocal, bizarrely only on certain tracks from the same CD. Ushered in a fresh pair of ears and she confirmed 'somethings not right' so I re-ripped the CD and it was still there. Played the CD directly and same result but not as bad, still on the same tracks. The distortion is very slight, the best way I can describe it is if it was vinyl it would be a case of 'some fluff on the stylus' type of sound. Had a look in the amps' manual and the input sensitivity is 300mV on all inputs, none are dedicated to any particular hardware. The output on the CD is up to 2V and the output on the iRDAC can go up to 2.2V. Am I right in thinking that some attenuation would cure this? If so what value would be good, a bit of a loss in outright output isn't an issue.

Thanks again.

 

[Deleted member 108165]

Hi guys, listening to a lot of stuff last night and I came across a couple of tracks that I swore were distorted. Not excessively just a little in upper midrange vocal, bizarrely only on certain tracks from the same CD. Ushered in a fresh pair of ears and she confirmed 'somethings not right' so I re-ripped the CD and it was still there. Played the CD directly and same result but not as bad, still on the same tracks. The distortion is very slight, the best way I can describe it is if it was vinyl it would be a case of 'some fluff on the stylus' type of sound. Had a look in the amps' manual and the input sensitivity is 300mV on all inputs, none are dedicated to any particular hardware. The output on the CD is up to 2V and the output on the iRDAC can go up to 2.2V. Am I right in thinking that some attenuation would cure this? If so what value would be good, a bit of a loss in outright output isn't an issue.

Thanks again.

Not sure if this is correct or not but I'm sure someone will tell me one way or another.

I've recently been investigating this same scenario with some "remastered" albums I purchased. Firstly download Audacity, (freeware), and have a look at the album tracks first, (tick the "show clipping" in the view tab). Look for any red in the waveform and see if it corresponds to the timings on your CD where you have noted the distortion. I was shocked when I looked at some of my so called remastered albums! Even with attenuation you'll never rid yourself of clipping/distortion if it's present on the CD itself.

If no red is visible then attenuation may be the key, but it's not a golden "cure all" fix.

As a note which album is causing you the problems as someone else on here may have it too and you can then compare notes.

 

[Thompsonuxb]

When you say distortion, what exactly do you mean?

Is it sibalance a sssst at the end of words mainly from female vocalist.

If I recall 'fluff on a stylus' causes distortion across the whole range of music.

Is the 'distortion' still present at lower levels?

 

[paulkebab]

the distortion is a fuzziness and after closer listening it's across the whole spectrum regardless of volume level. The track it's really noticeable on is Genesis' Hold On My Heart, another one is the latter part of Yes' Awaken. It's very slight but it's there, downloaded Audacity and found the Genesis track hasn't much dynamic range, it's all been pushed to the top. Fired up the headphones and.. sounds perfect..umm.. The Vincent doesn't have a headphone out so I'm using the rec out to supply the Yamaha CD input and onto the cans. Everything sounds wonderful, so it's either the Vincent don't like the output of the Arcam or there's a problem with the speakers? However, the track is from the 'Platinum Collection' so it's probably been remastered for that triple CD; on the contrary Genesis are usually sh!t hot at recording and production but maybe they had no input on this compilation. Comments welcome.

 

[MajorFubar]

Just listened to the Genesis track from the Platinum Collection on Apple Music and it seems ok here, other than some artifacts from (I think) the mastering compressor. Do you find the distortion is worse with the bass eg at the start? How does it sound on the words "there has never been a time" at about 1:44-1:47?

 

[paulkebab]

is quite fuzzy but the synth at the start is particularly nasty on the top notes. Your timed point vocal is also quite bad.

 

[paulkebab]

This morning I loaded the Genesis track into Audacity and saved it back out with reduced volume level, -3 -5 -7 -9 -11db. The file that sounded bang on was the -11, so it does look like the iRDAC output is a bit too much for the amp. Any suggestions for some top quality attenuators?

 

[gasolin]

This morning I loaded the Genesis track into Audacity and saved it back out with reduced volume level, -3 -5 -7 -9 -11db. The file that sounded bang on was the -11, so it does look like the iRDAC output is a bit too much for the amp. Any suggestions for some top quality attenuators?

Rothwells -10 and -20 db costs the same, i use the -10 db atm

https://youtu.be/JhuWuTDZiuI?t=20m28s

 

[paulkebab]

The Rothwells get good reviews and they do a -15dB 'at source' version. Good price too so I think that's a sale!

 

[paulkebab]

The attenuators did the trick, and the volume control has more 'range' now which is a godsend especially later on in the evening.

Thanks for the advice.