On Wed, Jun 09, 2010 at 02:34:04PM -0700, Niels Mayer wrote: > I actually checked that peak at 116hz and figured it couldn't be the > rectified result of the US-grid 60hz AC. That means we'd be running at > 58Hz. ?? Since that's unlikely, what's the likelyhood of a 2hz > frequency error in jaaa?? Zero. By design. It's not 'calibrated', it's just maths. Anyway you can test this quite easily. Connect a cable to a line input, and touch the 'tip' of the other end with your finger. This produces more than enough mains to show up in JAAA. Of course what JAAA shows depends on the accuracy of the sample frequency. > > 'Canonical' settings for this chip are 0x7F (127) for input and > > output. The range 128-163 is used by some cards to control additional > > input gain. > > 127 causes clipping. Turning down the source by a dB or two should cure that. > How old is too old for a decoupling electrolytic?? Impossible to tell, there's too much spread in quality. Some are defective from the start :-) > How much bandwidth does the op-amp have, and how much negative > feedback is being applied? Small-signal bandwidth and SR are not necessarily related in simple ways. > But a wide-bandwidth op-amp is going to be > intrinsically noisier.... and a quiet op-amp is going to be > intrinsically slower, No, there's no such simple relation. But IIRC, the SR of the opamps you mentioned isn't really exemplary, something in the 1-2 V/us range. > However in this case, my hypothesis is simple. No handwaving, > hermeneutics or mysticism is needed. Coupling capacitors induce a low > frequency phase shift that is usually ignored because "engineers" > incorrectly care only about real-plane/power information; it is > misguided to think that humans cannot perceive phase information and > "imaginary plane" information. The caps remain the first suspects, I agree. OTOH, for 'simple circuits' such as an RC filter consisting of an electrolytic and an input impedance, the amplitude and phase responses are not independent. If there is really a problem with this then it should show up in both. > More simply put, in reproducing a picked electric bass, you expect the > the "pick noise" (high frequency) to arrive at the exact same time as > the the onset of the low-frequency fundamental of the note. The > coupling capacitors delay this onset. Yes, but again a 'simple circuit' can't do this without at the same time affecting the amplitude responses. What is much more likely with defective caps is some 'delayed' response which would actually make it non-linear as well, so it will show distortion as well. > More interestingly, since I'd rather get away from the subjective and > back towards the measurable, what kind of tests would be an > appropriate predictor for the "bass punch" of a soundcard? Certainly > not the frequency response or noise characteristics. Well, if a circuit is linear (i.e. it doesn't produce distortion), and time-invariant (it doesn't change its response over time, except maybe *very* slowly), then either the impulse response or the *complex* (including phase) frequency response will tell you all there is to know. If you dispute this you have to talk to the mathematians :-) A 'magnitude only' frequency response, which is what you usually get and also what JAAA provides, throws away half of the available information. OTOH, in 'simple' circuits the phase response will be related to the magnitude response. Ciao, -- FA O tu, che porte, correndo si ? E guerra e morte ! _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
