[paul.fr]

Earphones, they are marked left and right but is there any difference? I had always thought no, but now i am not so sure.
When listening to loud music or when Kat is on the podcast, no offence, the earphone marked left crackles! is this because of some difference between the two or just a dodgy earphone?

Paul

[neilep]

Hi Paul,

Yes, there is a definite difference....but mainly with music and only then when there is a true stereo signal being sent.  To give you some kind of imagery and sound stage you will find in music that drums maybe slightly off center, vocals maybe more to one side, strings may be at the back, guitar forward and more central...get the idea ?

If it's a mono signal....like in a lot of speech station only then you'll get the same signal being sent to each earphone and it will make no difference which earphone is on which ear.

but, when it comes to music, best to keep it to the correct ears so that you will hear the music as it was recorded and laid down in the studio by the engineer, you'll be hearing the music as it was intended to be heard..

The crackling you hear may well be down to a faulty diaphragm in the ear piece...the only way to truly determine whether the ' phones' are at fault is to try another pair of headphones...

..........having said that it could also be the actual socket that the head phone plug is in.
In this case, you'll need to try another source with another socket ! to see if it replicates the crackling.....if so..then it's the transmission...

.........there are other possibilities like faulty amplification too but I gather in this case you are not hearing it through a hi fi system......if so *le sigh* you will need to listen to it through a whole new system.....it's a matter of a process of elimination.

[Soul Surfer]

If you mix up the earphones with a stereo signal things just get reversed ie the right signals come from the left hand side.  This does not matter unless you have some reference like a picture as with film or TV or say the standard layout of a symphony orchestra with violins on left and double basses on the left.  More critical is the phasing of the signals if that is reversed by switching the + and - or red and black on one of the speaker or earphone connectors the stereo image gets all mucked up and the bass signal gets nulled out.

[neilep]

Reversing the polarity on one speaker of a pair and have them facing each other just an inch apart and playing some low level sound through them is a good way to speed up the ' running in ' of a pair of speakers. Effectively as one drive unit breathes in the other breathes out and this helps to loosen them by quite a bit !

[paul.fr]

.........there are other possibilities like faulty amplification too but I gather in this case you are not hearing it through a hi fi system......if so *le sigh* you will need to listen to it through a whole new system.....it's a matter of a process of elimination.

Process of elimination! my living room has a pc in it which i use for all media and home security, oh and a sofa. so you can see the process of elimination leaves me alittle short.

but thanks for all the info any way, there is more to this left and right than i gave it credit.

Paul

[neilep]

Paul.....is the crackling there when you hear it through the speakers of your PC ?

[paul.fr]

Hi Neil,

No the sound is OK on the PC, just the ipod where this problem occurs. i may try the reverse polarity thing and see what effect that has.

Paul

[Soul Surfer]

Crackling (intermittent sound) on a speaker or earphone output is almost certainly due to a intermittent contact.  Look for broken wires or dodgy soldered joints.  This is particularly likely for the joints connecting the earphone socket to the circuit board of the unit because they are frequently stressed during use.  Fuzziness or distortion may be due to amplifier or transducer failure.  Reversing the polarity is unlikely to do any good.

[paul.fr]

Crackling (intermittent sound) on a speaker or earphone output is almost certainly due to a intermittent contact.  Look for broken wires or dodgy soldered joints.  This is particularly likely for the joints connecting the earphone socket to the circuit board of the unit because they are frequently stressed during use.  Fuzziness or distortion may be due to amplifier or transducer failure.  Reversing the polarity is unlikely to do any good.

Thanks again for the info. It's a sealed unit, even the earphone.. i will just have to put up with it for now until i buy a new pair. Thanks all

[chris]

Hi Paul

if it's doing it with our podcast then it's your equipment because we mono-ise the signal (merge left and right) to minimise the (heinously large) bandwidth.

In terms of stereo broadcasting, posh stereo FM outputs, like Radio 4, will often apply directional bias (pan) to their mics. This results in one presenter sounding like he is on the left and the other presenter sounding like he's off to the right. This adds realism to the sound because it's more akin to what you would hear if you were sitting in the room with the people themselves. The downside of this is that if you are listening in the car (and it's noisy), the person appearing from the speaker on the opposite side of the car is often difficult to hear, so you increase the volume. The the bugger sitting on the right pipes up and nearly deafens you...ho hum.

Do you enjoy our podcast, incidentally?

Chris

[paul.fr]

Do you enjoy our podcast, incidentally?

Chris

Hi Chris,

Yes, have all of them on random play.

I had a feeling the problem would be with my equipment, although it does not spoil my listening pleasure. I just have to turn the volume down and scowl and noisy kids on the bus/train.

[neilep]

Paul...I just thought...have you checked your left ear !!..you may have inadvertently stuck some crinkly crackly paper in it....it happens y'know ?

[paul.fr]

Hay...that's what the wax is for...
 []

Paul