Snakeoil OS: The Blog

You’d often see these phrases pop up now and again when audiophiles are “discussing important topics":

1. If something is audible, then it is measurable
2. If something is measurable, then it is audible

Are there any truths to these statements? Personally I do not think so. These statements appear to be legitimate on the surface. Poke a little bit deeper however and they become utter and complete nonsense.

In my opinion (of which there are certainly lots of grounds to disagree with me here), the above statements are complete bullshit.

And here is why, to suggest something is audible is measurable (or vice versa) implies a direct causation relationship. That cannot be true because the two are completely different concepts:

• Audible is about the interpretations of sound
• Measurable is about the physical characteristics of sound

Not understanding the limits of Science is a dangerous thing, misunderstanding can turn this discipline into a cult. Hopefully this is not not something Ia m about to do next!

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Usually I refrain from blogging computing technical stuffs on Snakeoil. This article will be a rare exception, today I would like to talk about bit rot. This is something you guys should aware of (but not alarmed).

This article will briefly describe:

• What is bit rot
• What bit rot means to an audiophile
• My personal experiences with bit rot
• How to detect if you are affected with bit rot
• Strategies to prevent bit rot

Hopefully after reading this article you’re more aware of what bit rot is and how to counteract it. Before we start let it be made clear that bit rot is not a big problem. There is no reason to panic and the sky is not going to fall over.

Let us begin!

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This is too funny to not blog here. No real idea what this picture is, but looks like a hifi computer of some sort. This looks like a after-market modification, the original transformer has been removed. While I don’t like the choice of a SMPS, do like the quick hack to get this machine up and running again (probably with a lower consumption to boot!)

Here is something you can try at home. Next time you are charging your mobile phone with your wall wart USB charger, put your ears right up to the charger.

Do you hear a high pitch whine?

I do, and one can hear this from up to 1 meter away. This is a video recording of me trying to capture the noise on my mobile but this is probably not working. At least I do not think I can hear the same hum when playing back this video on my aging notebook computer.

Do not panic if you can not hear this whine, your hearing is fine. This whine may well be connected to the home electrical supply and the same charger that whined can be dead silent when use in somewhere else. The exact cause is still unknown to me at this stage.

This noise is similar to a 50 Hz transformer hum/buzz. Where it differs from a traditional 50 Hz hum is this high frequency will not blend into the background noise. You should still hear it when music is playing (hence why the recording couldn’t pick it up is a surprise for me).

Some other things I’ve noticed about this whine:

• As the device gets to full charge, more often than not the volume of the whine gets louder
• When you power off the charger, the volume of the whine gets louder and louder and pitch goes higher and higher. And then everything fades off
• All my USB chargers exhibit this whine. Seems as they age, the noise gets worse

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