Recent content by DVDdoug

What's wrong with the sound now? he main differences will be gain (presumably with the FetHead you've got enough gain) and noise (hum, hiss, or whine in the background). The most important things are usually your studio space and the microphone (and your performance). With a microphone most...

A lot of people say a lot of things and most of the "audiophile community" is nuts!!! And most people making crazy claims "don't believe in blind listening tests" and/or they claim they can hear things that can't be measured.. ADCs & DACs have been better than human hearing for a long time...

I think this is normal. (Personally, I mostly listen to rock which is "artificial" anyway so I just listen and enjoy it.) I had a link to an article about panning (but now it's gone. :( ) The conclusion was that the mixing engineer shouldn't waste time trying to precisely locate all of the...

They say it's "for the studio or stage" but most pro & club & live subwoofers are "tuned differently". Typically they are tuned to go-down to around 40Hz. (That's about the lowest note on a standard bass guitar and it's low enough for bass you can feel in your body, but your keyboard may go...

I had one back in the analog days. I don't remember which one. It had "good specs". IIRC the frequency response was rated into the ultrasonic range. It was one of the several cartridges I went-through foolishly looking for improvements when really I knew that the records were the...

It's unlikely to make any difference. Purifi has a good reputation and I assume their amps are already better than human hearing. I don't know anything about the Purify circuitry but most op-amps used in audio are used in non-critical, low gain, circuits unless we're talking about a microphone...

Wattage is calculated as Voltage x Current and car batteries & electrical systems can provide a few hundred amps. You've got LOTS of available power. High-power car amplifiers have a built-in DC-DC converter that boosts the internal voltage. Of course, you can't create energy so you have...

Often you can rent equipment and that may be the best way to figure-out what works for you. All speaker designs involve trade-offs. In a PA system you want efficiency, loudness, and power handling. Also usually ruggedness, light weight, and portability but that's not as important in a...

I can't recommend speakers, and there is usually a lot of personal preference involved. If you get active monitors you can plug them into your interface (without an amplifier). A weaker signal means a worse signal-to-noise ratio. You amplify the signal, the noise also gets amplified and...

I don't have an intuitive feel for the Thiele-Small parameters but you can plug them into speaker design software and model/virtually experiment with different cabinet designs/sizes. (I have WinISD which is FREE.) ...The original design may not have been "optimum", or what you consider optimum.

What are you recording? ...Birds in the trees will give you a very-weak signal. The mic in front of a guitar amp or drum will give you a very-strong signal. ;) If it's your voice are you speaking/singing with a "strong confident voice", fairly close to the microphone? What are you seeing...

It's possible to build a good tube amp. I'm sure a McIntosh tube amp sounds identical to any good solid state amp. I had a McIntosh tube amp once a long time ago and it sounded "fine". Somebody gave it to me and it sounded better than another tube amp they gave me at the same time. It...

Yes. At zero volume there is zero current. Ohm's Law says Current = Voltage/Resistance. In reality you are unlikely to damage it, but you are "stressing" it and taking a risk. Often, these things can't put-out enough current to damage themselves, even if the output is shorted. (If it...

The basic philosophy of "high fidelity" is to faithfully reproduce the sound recording. A lot of people like to keep the digital "bit perfect", and up-sampling is altering the data. But sometimes you might want to change the sound and sometimes there is something wrong with the recording...

That would be a lot for "home listening". In pro studios they often listen loud and the space is usually "dead" (sound absorbing). And with PA systems the sound-power requirements can be enormous for a large audience. One big issue is we usually don't know what dB level we want/need. ;)...