Taking about the external events I more inclined to look at SOHO data and to correlate it with sonic results – probably it is  what I need start to do. SOHO is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory an international project studies the Sun’s solar wind. They publish dally data of Sun’s solar speed and density

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/

http://umtof.umd.edu/pm

http://www.amazon.com/Crosse-Technology-WS-2811OAK-Professional-Weather/dp/B0034VP5W0

It might be a good idea to have a chart of sound quality and to correlate it with chart of solar activity. If there is a direct coloration then it would be a phenomenal discovery, worth a Audio Noble Price, which is equivalent of two free Patricia barber 350g LPs….

So, boys, next time you note some especially bad or especially good Sound then hit the SOHO data and see what is doing on.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Thos who do not know how audio sound during the Super Electricity Days they do not know. I do know and I wonder: are the Super Electricity Days have own after-mark. I kind of pissed that it did not hit me early as I might wait for net Super Electricity Day who know how long. So, what I would like to do is to do a recording during a Super Electricity Day. Let play an PL and output the preamp output to the Pacific’s 88K. Then in a few days what the electricity is regular to do the same recording of the same LP to another 88K file. Then to compare two 88K files. There is a remote chance that it will be difference between those two files, and if it be then I would like to see what the difference would be.  That might be very interesting experiment. The Cat

Romy the Cat wrote:

Those who do not know how audio sound during the Super Electricity Days they do not know. I do know and I wonder: are the Super Electricity Days have own after-mark. I kind of pissed that it did not hit me early as I might wait for net Super Electricity Day who know how long. So, what I would like to do is to do a recording during a Super Electricity Day. Let play an PL and output the preamp output to the Pacific’s 88K. Then in a few days what the electricity is regular to do the same recording of the same LP to another 88K file. Then to compare two 88K files. There is a remote chance that it will be difference between those two files, and if it be then I would like to see what the difference would be.  That might be very interesting experiment.

Ok, I did it and the results are superbly illustrative I did not even expect that it will be so obvious. Also, it is a first attempt to look at the objective data about sound of electricity that I ever seen. I am sharing all data for you; you make your own research and conclusions.  First of all what it is.  I made 2 weeks ago a recording. I did not use LP as I initially intended but decided to use a CD as it gives more stable, repeatable result. So, it was a very good electricity day (not the Super Electricity Day but still very good day) and I recorded a file from my CD player. Today was bad electricity sound and I recorded the same file again. The path was the following:

CEC TL0 -> Bidat DAC -> Placette Preamp -> Tape Out -> Pacific Microsonic II in Master Mode ->Linx 16 -> Wavelab 6 at 88/24.

There was no editing or processing of files done of any kind and there was no change of equipment of any kind done. Pacific was working for a couple hours before recording. All equipment, including DAW was running from one single PP2000.

Below are both files recorded during bad and god electricity days. The file sound dramatically different.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jt88ts40q33u00r

http://www.mediafire.com/?qaljp2m1a294yt2

The visual comparing of the file also indicate that difference is VERY dramatic. The file above is from good electricity day and below is from bad day.

 

Here is the 3D diference from 20Hz to 20.000Hz

 

The data above proves that it is perfectly possible to develop a sonic text that will objectively, without any BS or excuses for deafness or ignorance to measure SONIC performance of electricity. The test might be loaded from USB flash card and measure how suitable given electivity for Sound.

manisandher wrote:

Romy, this is very interesting indeed. I'm assuming that the sonic difference between these two files is in line with the sonic difference you hear between bad and good 'electricity' days when you're just listening to music, with no recording chain involved? If this is indeed the case, then what you've done here is astonishing - a clear indication (to me at least) that what we're calling 'good/bad electricity days' are a bigger determining factor in the final sound than probably the hardware itself. Surely the root cause must now be explored. You've mentioned before that these differences exist even when the PP2000 is in battery mode (i.e. totally isolated from the AC mains). So can we confidenty eliminate electricity from the equation? Although I don't want to propose a strong hypothesis right now, can I just say that I seem to experience a similiar (although somewhat smaller, I think) effect by using a 'Schumann Resonator'. Maybe I should repeat your experiment with the SR on and off - I suspect the results might bear a striking resemblance to yours...

Bill wrote:

Could it be that the really great recordings of the 50's and 60's compared to those today were due to the fact that they had more "great electricity days to record.

Bill wrote:

I do believe if these experiments are continued, it would present a great paper for the AES. It certainly gives clear evidence that electricity quality does make a difference in the recording chain which they have been disputing for years.

Romy the Cat wrote:

The visual comparing of the file also indicate that difference is VERY dramatic. The file above is from good electricity day and below is from bad day.

Can you point out where and how in the picture the two files look very dramatically different? Because they look pretty much the same to me.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Here is the 3D diference from 20Hz to 20.000Hz

Did you do an audio file comparison on the two files posted? Unfortunately one should not do that, because the files are not synchronized/time-aligned. For example, look at this close-up starting at 1m52s:

It is clear that the waveforms for good and bad are identical, but look at how the one for the good electricity (the top one) is late (shifted to the right) compared to the other, by around 2.8ms. This means that a raw diff is meaningless.

I tried to remove some samples from one file to "fix" the time offset. I was able to reduce the diff amplitude already, but it seems the offset varies with time which makes it so much more difficult to get the real diff between the two signals.

Diff for the original files:

Diff for the files with reduced time offset:

(Scale is the same)

In particular, look at how the large diff near the end (from 2m23s onwards) almost disappears.

Romy the Cat wrote:

The data above proves that it is perfectly possible to develop a sonic text that will objectively, without any BS or excuses for deafness or ignorance to measure SONIC performance of electricity. The test might be loaded from USB flash card and measure how suitable given electivity for Sound.

Well, maybe this can be done. I am sure that bad sound from electricity can be measured and shown. But I do not think the pictures posted so far do that.

I am pretty sure that normal playback variations can explain differences in the time domain that we observe. We should try to remove that variability to be able to analyze what happens in other domains (amplitude, frequency?). However, that could be very difficult (if not outright impossible) and in doing so we risk losing information about time garbage introduced by bad electricity (jitter? hopefully time variability from playback is slow, so removing it should keep electricity-induced jitter).

I'll try getting better results and will post if anything interesting comes up.

Romy the Cat wrote:

You absolutely incorrectly, in my view, look at the data. The files of cause do not have the same start mark. Why shell they? I did not subtract one from another. You did in phase the files and did the subtraction but what the subtraction shows? You see the delta dose not indicate anything that we as listeners understand.  [...] I did not run subtraction but instead I run global picks extraction into 3D. This way the difference in timing marks is irrelevant.

Romy the Cat wrote:

What I did was zooming the file to the point where the resolution is high, the difference between the file is visible but the resolution still present the note or a phase in it’s completeness. Then you can see how the difference relates to Sound.