I had some people over tonight to listen to some great music. Everyone was loving it. I heard muddiness and veiled sound. After everyone left I did a double clean on the degaussing of the P20 and spun some reference tracks. Same story. So time for autotune That is when I noticed incoming power distortion at 3.8 percent. What gives on a Tuesday night? Yes an Asian Holiday mid autumn moon festival,but is it running the power grid? A whopping 140 percent past the normal. The output distortion was running double at 0.2 percent???
The explanation and sound differences bowled me over. Yes 0.2 percent outgoing is way worse than 0.1 percent. I finally shut down the system and went to bed. What a let down. I was at a loss for the difference. The missing recording venue spatial reference and the clarity.
I guess I need a P40, PSA please invent one. I love the P20. But yes I admit I am now spoiled.
I don’t know if you funky tunes are necessarily related to incoming and outgoing distortion. My incoming distortion ranges from 6 to 8 percent THD but output is at a constant .1% on my P20. I also degauss regularly. Maybe just a bad night. Have a glass of wine and power up again tomorrow.
Tonight is Harvest Moon, a night for moon cakes and celebration. The incoming distortion is a bit higher tonight, from normally 2.5% to now 3%, but like @straightwire the output distortion never goes above .1% no matter how high the incoming distortion gets. I would check your P20 again tomorrow and see if it doesn’t come back down to .1%, or your P20 is possibly breaking down.
You’ve got a great idea. A P40 with a 30 amp output would be nice. We can always use a little more headroom with our equipments.
Phase tune in the settings can raise outgoing distortion. Occasionally, outgoing distortion gets too high while degaussing and continues for a while after that.
You got me thinking regarding the Harvest Moon. The sunset in the Western Hemisphere and moon rise on Eastern Hemisphere are pretty much happening simultaneously a longer day to harvest the fields.
But there are also electric field differences with the Sun shielded by the earth. Lunar Plasma. Maybe not just my ears and grid is quieter incoming this AM .
So not likely the moon cakes in the oven since The rice as well as mooncake was already cooked. But low and behold moon plasma theory.
Perhaps the combined effect was causing spikes in RF and EMI and I lack a Graphene insulated or battery powered dielectric cable(s) costing twice what the P20 does as what @aangen and AQ suggests is my problem. Noise-Trapping DBS Packs · AudioQuest
To me the differences were audible and were being measured by the P20. Thanks Al for setting me straight. All my woes easily solved by a more expensive cable unfortunately or maybe just wine or going to bed was a better solution, and it was all in my auditory psychoacoustic imagination. But yes I would by a 30 Amp P40 if it were practical and marketed.
If it makes you feel better I dropped to the floor to see I was getting .2% out of my P20 and nothing I did improved it. So I was left wondering if the sound I was previously enjoying very much was less than it could be.
Well maybe that means a $10K power cable will not reduce my distortion output but only change sound. Now the P20 is back to 0.1 percent and my sound seems back to its normal. The 0.2 output was first I had seen that. Either that it was letting the others enjoy the sweet spot punished my ears so badly they were not hearing the same.
FedEx is dropping off acoustic panels today. Still have two more sets of diffusers coming within the next two weeks Maybe after I get that tweaking done and room correction filters reset to the new normal. I can address power issues some more.
Paul has said, I think (and I’m paraphrasing), that sine is better for analog, and multi-wave is better for digital sources. When I go to sine, my THD is higher, but tend to stick to the position for the supposed SQ.
Although the displayed distortion may read higher in sine mode it is unlikely that it actually has more distortion than multi wave.
Multi wave actually adds distortion. This added distortion is filtered out in the measuring process that is displayed on your screen.
I am going to stack the leaf diffusers at my line array first reflection point.
The corner Bass traps came in yesterday upgrade fabric. The wavy leaf diffusers should show up next week and quadratic diffusers week after. It has been wait since June order. They give you a ship date then a 2 week delay then you need to poke them. So close to a Brad customer service. Plus they pull out the Covid material shortage but not until you bug them. They at least seem to be not letting folks order what is not available now. I see.
So with more distortion it shows less on the display? I can’t imagine that being okay in the testing process, but such things are still a bit mysterious to me.
