Understanding "Noise" in a PC Audio Environment

Cwlondon, if you want to understand common mode chokes, this should get you started:

http://www.butlerwinding.com/inductors/common-mode2.html

And yes, if you had a salvaged ferrite core, it is just two windings of few turns each, in opposite directions, one in series with the hot, one with the common. Here are some pictures. Could be made pretty cheap.

http://www.coilws.com/toroidal/Toroid_CM_Selection.htm

Ken

Ken

Thank you - will spend some time with the info.

I continue to experiment with PC based audio where in general I have pretty good results using USB out to an Audio Research DAC.

I am always curious, however, when some continue to resist PC based solutions, citing reasons which include "noise".

Yet there is less discussion regarding tweaks and solutions we otherwise can see on Audiogon for just about everything.

So to further unravel the mystery of high end PC based audio, I was just wondering if a simple common mode choke might solve a big part of the "noise" problem.

Cwlondon, I have been using a SqueezeBox and think the results are "pretty good" as well.

One problem in progress will be that we are stuck with no better than Redbook CD quality, higher resolution formats are copy protected/encrypted and cannot be stored on a hard drive.

The PC audio noise problem I had was not my SqueezeBox picking up noise, but rather the wall wart SMPS CREATING noise that was picked up by my vintage Yamaha CA-2010. Unplug the PS and the noise went away!

One of those over priced inductors probably would have blocked it.

Ken