Buzz/High Distortion on my Sierra NrT.

[logicology]

I recently upgraded my original Sierra-1 to the NrT. I'm hearing slight buzzing or high end distortion now.

I can't tell if this is a case of the speaker now making production mistakes glaringly obvious, but I tend to doubt that in this case. It is especially obvious to me on the 1st track from the I Am Legend soundtrack (by James Newton Howard).

The opening trumpet line gives my LEFT speaker some difficulty. I'm hearing definite distortion or buzz -- BEYOND what is expected from the trumpet sound... the buzz I'm hearing is a harmonic many times higher than the pitch of the trumpet. It is definitely not an acoustic overtone of the trumpet... in fact, what I'm hearing is probably way higher than what an MP3 could reproduce and I see no evidence of it an a spectral analyzer.

Here is the track. Can you please listen on your Sierras / NrTs and let me know what you find? Dave, any input here?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2181230/01-james_newton-howard-my_name_is_robert_neville-nbmp3.mp3

[curtis]

Have you tried swapping the left/right speakers to see if the problem follows the speaker?

[Mag_Neato]

Have you tried swapping the left/right speakers to see if the problem follows the speaker?

Good suggestion Curtis. I should have thought of that myself!

[davef]

I recently upgraded my original Sierra-1 to the NrT. I'm hearing slight buzzing or high end distortion now.

I can't tell if this is a case of the speaker now making production mistakes glaringly obvious, but I tend to doubt that in this case. It is especially obvious to me on the 1st track from the I Am Legend soundtrack (by James Newton Howard).

The opening trumpet line gives my LEFT speaker some difficulty. I'm hearing definite distortion or buzz -- BEYOND what is expected from the trumpet sound... the buzz I'm hearing is a harmonic many times higher than the pitch of the trumpet. It is definitely not an acoustic overtone of the trumpet... in fact, what I'm hearing is probably way higher than what an MP3 could reproduce and I see no evidence of it an a spectral analyzer.

Here is the track. Can you please listen on your Sierras / NrTs and let me know what you find? Dave, any input here?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2181230/01-james_newton-howard-my_name_is_robert_neville-nbmp3.mp3

Have you swapped the left with the right speaker and are you still hearing the distortion?

[GirgleMirt]

So did anybody else try out the track? Very nice track btw! Electro-bass when it kicks in is awesome! Great 3d effect!

I don't hear any buzzing on mine. There's some noise on the recording, if I play it loud enough I can hear it, but definitely no NrT buzz...


It is definitely not an acoustic overtone of the trumpet... in fact, what I'm hearing is probably way higher than what an MP3 could reproduce and I see no evidence of it an a spectral analyzer.
I'd have said that it's probably just the natural harmonics of the instrument... And I believe I just did... But unless you have dog ears, if an MP3 can't reproduce it, you can't hear it... Well that would depend on the encoding and your ears, looks like 160kbs has some loss >16kHz, and 256kbps only at 20kHz. The average 30 year old adult hearing goes up to like 15kHz...

http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/pm/MP3-160k.htm
http://donrathjr.com/audible-range-human-hearing/

Anyhow, I thought it sounded great, I didn't hear anything that sounded off to me... But just to be clear, what you're hearing, is it subtle, or glaring? Hmm.. You said slight... Ok so kinda subtle I take it... Well, that's what somewhat sucks with audio, there's basically no set rules in recording, mixing, playback, etc., so quite hard to say exactly whether what you hear on a record/playback is accurate or if it's a flaw, and where it comes from exactly... (recording? speakers?) Not sure what your reference is, at best it's a good knowledge of live trumpet sound, if so, the problem could be the recording or playback. At worst, your reference is previous playback from other systems speakers/systems, which might have kinda skewed sound perception or maybe more precisely expectations, in which case you might be hearing something you weren't hearing before, which might sound off...

Anyhow, not that evident in audio imho. Some people prefer things which aren't more accurate, some prefer more accurate, sometimes you might be trying to get an accurate sound from a recording which isn't accurate to begin with... Meh! Not you, but for example, someone saying: "This trumpet sounds too brassy!" or "It sounds fatiguing with these speakers!" well yeah, ever heard the real thing? I guarantee the real thing wouldn't be smoother or less fatiguing... heh If you go to shows and listen random people talking, crazy the things you hear!

http://www.whc.net/rjones/jlynch/natres.html