HEVYDEVY FORUMS

I have a couple of annoying problems with my audio setup, and I figured that since you guys are all passionate about music and there's probably a bunch of audiophiles here, you might be able to help me out.

There are 2 things:

• I have connected my computer to my stereo set and play most music from my PC. There is however some buzzing, humming, fizzing noise. It gets worse when I'm scrolling through a page, the more white the noisier. Here are the things that have been replaced since I noticed it, but it's still there:
  
  • Speakers
  • Audio cable
  • Monitor
  • Monitor cable
  • Headphones
  • Video card
  • House
  • Mouse
  I'm guessing it's some kind of electromagnetic interference on my mother board (onboard audio card, no free PCI slots), but I wonder if there's a way to fix that.
• My CD player rejects most CDs I feed it. It's a JVC 3-CD changer, and when I put some CDs in the tray, it spins trying to detect the disks, but doesn't find anything. The tray is very dusty but I used a lens cleaner CD today and it didn't help one bit.
  I know there are different formats for CD (bluebook/redbook) but I'm not sure what's what, how to find out which disk is which format, so I have no idea if this is the problem.

I hope someone has some answers or tips

I think you can´t really fix the first problem, but you could try an external usb-soundcard. You can pay between 15 and 200 euro, but i would suggest to choose one with a digital output (optical spdif for example). If you own (if not already, maybe some day) a surround-receiver with digital inputs, you can connect your pc digitally. Something like that: http://www.terratec.net/en/products/Aureon_Dual_USB_9842.html (cost: 20 Euro, don´t know if this particularly is a good product).

My on-board soundcard does have SP/Dif output (connector on the motheboard, needs a bracket to get an output jack), would that solve it?

I don´t know. I suppose that the purely digital signals from the spdif-connector are not yet defective. More likely the humming happens only on some "analogue" paths. But i´m absolutely not sure about this.

there must be some noise reduction product you can buy to fix it. possibly check http://www.behringer.com . they tend to have stacks of products to fix audio problems at a reasonable price

Biert wrote:My on-board soundcard does have SP/Dif output (connector on the motheboard, needs a bracket to get an output jack), would that solve it?

That should do the job I guess. Just like Lolliklauer said, digital transmission is more immune to such interferences.

As for your CD player, maybe your laser head died. It's possible it uses some common laser module (it's laser with that transport-mechanism thing, whatever it's called), they're actually reasonably cheap - I have broken Technics CD player and I found there's plenty of stores with compatible laser heads around, I just can't be bothered to order and replace it . Try to google it or just open the thing and try to read symbol on the laser thing, if you don't mind bit of fucking around with your equipment

The humming is because of the integrated soundcard. It's actually quite common on cheap motherboards... Using SP/DIF (if your stereo set supports it) instead of the analog one would be the best solution. If not, new soundcards are pretty cheap, even external USB or Firewire ones.

I did some researching. The S/PDIF bracket costs 20 bucks, which I can live with. Except I don't have any other S/PDIF equipment so I'd need something with S/PDIF input. And when I thought to buy some 5.1 surround set that has it, turns out S/PDIF doesn't support surround, unless it's digitally encoded into Dolby Something, so I'd need a decoder for that too.

On the other hand, I don't exactly have USB ports to spare for an external sound card, and I don't think Linux supports them very well anyway. Hmmm

Crap! Why can't they just build something properly the first attempt?

Hm, sounds like you need to get a USB hub in addition to the USB sound card

There's a standard for USB audio devices, and devices that comply (should be most of them) should work in linux (I haven't tried but I remember reading up on it).

Biert wrote:I did some researching. The S/PDIF bracket costs 20 bucks, which I can live with. Except I don't have any other S/PDIF equipment so I'd need something with S/PDIF input. And when I thought to buy some 5.1 surround set that has it, turns out S/PDIF doesn't support surround, unless it's digitally encoded into Dolby Something, so I'd need a decoder for that too.

On the other hand, I don't exactly have USB ports to spare for an external sound card, and I don't think Linux supports them very well anyway. Hmmm

Crap! Why can't they just build something properly the first attempt?

There's the real problem.

I've all but given up on linux because the audio issues are too numerous to mention. I've tried a bunch of different players in a bunch of different builds and I can never get anywhere's near the sq/functionality of Winamp on a pc. This is also coming from a guy who doesn't own a pc. I have 3 mac's and 2 linux boxes.

Biert wrote:I have a couple of annoying problems with my audio setup, and I figured that since you guys are all passionate about music and there's probably a bunch of audiophiles here, you might be able to help me out.

There are 2 things:

• I have connected my computer to my stereo set and play most music from my PC. There is however some buzzing, humming, fizzing noise. It gets worse when I'm scrolling through a page, the more white the noisier. Here are the things that have been replaced since I noticed it, but it's still there:
  
  • Speakers
  • Audio cable
  • Monitor
  • Monitor cable
  • Headphones
  • Video card
  • House
  • Mouse
  I'm guessing it's some kind of electromagnetic interference on my mother board (onboard audio card, no free PCI slots), but I wonder if there's a way to fix that.
• My CD player rejects most CDs I feed it. It's a JVC 3-CD changer, and when I put some CDs in the tray, it spins trying to detect the disks, but doesn't find anything. The tray is very dusty but I used a lens cleaner CD today and it didn't help one bit.
  I know there are different formats for CD (bluebook/redbook) but I'm not sure what's what, how to find out which disk is which format, so I have no idea if this is the problem.

I hope someone has some answers or tips

My thoughts:

Problem one: Poor quality soundcard/board is giving you some bad grounding/earth leakage type thing. A good quality soundcard would help with this, and if you can get a USB solution then that would probably be fine. Using digital output from your computer for audio is great, but you need an amp/reciever that supports this. Getting a new soundcard or USB sound device is probably the cheaper option.

Problem two: multi-disc changer type CD players are known to be stubborn with reading discs, though it could be a dust problem. I recommend jamming a hoover in to any available orifice (on the CD player, I mean) and sucking out all the dust you can. Lens cleaner CDs are generally poop. If you are careful you can clean the lens directly, but that is only as a last resort. Perhaps a new CD player is the best option?

Terrible advice, I know.

David

Blazingmonga wrote:giving you some bad grounding/earth leakage type thing.

that's exactly what i was going to say. Here in Brazil, by law, all outlets and power supplies have to be grounded, but guess what, almost none is
And the easiest thing to get is a damn humming noise from any kind of cable you put in. Usually people who plug their guitars directly into an onboard soundcard know it's pretty much impossible to get rid of it, so i'm agreeing with monga here.