Audiophile Musings: October 2012

Monday, October 15, 2012

How Many Stars?

As one would imagine, observing a UFO is a significant emotional event and one that I personally am re-living over and over. I am a pretty practical, logical, and down-to-earth person who knows intellectually that there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, each of which are capable of sustaining some form of life. This life may not be what we are familiar with, but regardless EACH of these billions of suns have the potential for sustaining some sort of life. The current estimate for our galaxy (called the Milky Way) is about 300 billion stars, give or take a few billion here and there.

From the sheer numbers of these stars, if say 0.0000001% (one out of 10,000,000) were capable of sustain intelligent life, that means that in the Milky Way alone, there are 30,000 stars in our "neighborhood" that could possibly sustain intelligent life, give or take a few thousand.

Our galaxy is pretty typical spiral-type galaxy meaning that there is a black hole at the center and everything slowly rotates around it like a child's pinwheel toy. Stars are grouped into arms that spiral toward the black hole in something called the central bulge meaning that at the center there are a lot of stars in more than just the galactic plane of the pinwheel. Like a basketball, these stars protrude above and below the galactic plane and the numbers of stars "per square foot" so to speak (stellar density) is much higher there than at the outer edge of the galactic plane. Below is an image from the COBE satellite of what our galaxy looks like from our vantage point.

Our star (the sun or Sol) is about 2/3 of the way out from the center in a pretty uninteresting part of our galaxy. Although there is no way for us to see a top view of this position, the picture below is of a galaxy nearby that we believe to resemble our own and from the arrow you can see roughly where on the pinwheel our sun is located.

There are so many stars, they appear to blur together like a cloud but in reality they are VERY far apart from each other. To give you an idea of how much emptiness there is between these stars, the star closest to our sun is about 4 light years (or about 24 trillion miles) away. Without getting into particle physics, molecules are believed to be made up in a similar way - that is, there is a lot of nothing in between electrons and the protons and neutrons so the really big is sort of an example of the really small.

From edge to edge the Milky Way is about 6x10¹⁷ miles (0.6 million-trillion miles) in diameter; that’s 24,000 times further than the closest star. In other words, it is a very long way from one side of the pinwheel to the other and it takes light a long time to go from edge to edge (about 100,000 years).

So the point is this. There is a lot of distance between us and these 30,000 stars that could possibly sustain intelligent life in the Milky Way and to get from one to another employs a technology available only in the minds of dreamers. How did they do this?

I have given this some thought and it runs a little contrary to current wisdom but is based on what else: sound. The fact that there was no sound (no engine noise or sonic boom) meant that these two UFO did not disturb the atmosphere while passing through. Putting it another way, instead of slicing through the air like the wing of an airplane, these UFOs literally moved through the molecules of the atmosphere without disturbing their position or direction. In essence I believe they were able to pass through a solid wall like a ghost in a cheap Halloween movie.

How they did this is beyond my wildest imagination but I assume that somehow they manipulated the phase of their matter as compared to the phase of our matter thereby guaranteeing their molecules would pass unharmed right through ours. If you are youthful and are intrigued by this, I urge you to apply yourself and consider how something like this would be possible. Just think of what a technology like this could yield in the way of creating a speaker driver!

It will probably take a while for me to calm down and get the image of the UFOs out of my mind so please bear with me while I run off on a tangent to the high end for a while.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

I do not use ads in this blog to help support my efforts. If you like what you are reading, please remember to reciprocate, My newest title is called Where, oh Where did the Star of Bethlehem Go? It’s an astronomer’s look at what this celestial object may have been, who the "Wise Men" were, and where they came from. Written in an investigative journalism style, it targets one star that has never been considered before and builds a solid case for its candidacy.

My other titles include:

Friday, October 12, 2012

My UFO Sighting

Another hobby of mine is astronomy. I go out with folks and usually spend a good portion of the evening gazing up into the heavens spotting faint fuzzy globs that look more like free floating cotton balls or wispy clouds or a groups of densely-packed stars. I have been hooked on this hobby since my early teens and now have two pretty nice instruments. Last night I was working with the bigger of the two with four other friends and their scopes enjoying the first clear skies we had in quite a while.

As the sky grew dim, we spotted the Space Station floating in the west and sprinting eastward to the horizon. Bright, big, and just a bit faster than a high-altitude airplane, it's white image and unusual shape were seen by all of the members of the group through their binoculars or unaided eyes. It was quite a way to start an evening's observing session. The folding chairs came out and everyone started settling into seeing whatever they wanted to find in the plethora of unique offerings in the heavens.

The rest of the evening was uneventful although the sky cleared, the humidity dropped, and the stars glowed prominently everyone dashing back and forth as one person found an object and another and another. Seeing deep sky objects with your own eyes is much like the difference between reading about how to fly an airplane and actually doing it: it's day and night and where the real thrill is in this hobby.

The night ran short starting at about 6:30PM and by 10:00 two of us were left watching a satellite in the northwest making its way to the east. As it faded from view, I was pointing to where it was disappearing and then my eyes and that of my friend's popped. Both of us gasped and simultaneously said, "What the X*&% is that?" Moving from just west of north and soaring across the night sky to just east of south were two dimly orange glowing bird-like objects silently crossing the blackness.

We both thought they were birds at first but these two UFOs were flying at what we estimated to be about 1,000 to 1,500 feet and traveling REALLY fast. It took less than 10 seconds to fly from horizon to horizon behaving a little like crows in flight moving not in fixed formation but next to each other changing relative positions as if they were playing like those fun-loving black birds with each other.

Burnt orange in color, I noticed that they both emitted their own light but that light was not enhanced from the light coming from the other UFO. In other words, they gave off light but they did not reflect light from another source. It was weird since the two were less than a wing-width of each other as they silently dashed across the sky.

Something flying that fast or that close to the ground should have made some sort of engine noise that we should have easily been able to hear and as fast as they were flying maybe even a sonic boom. Alas, there was nothing for these well-tuned ears to hear, only the low chirping of crickets and the faint rustling of leaves.

My friend was the first to volunteer the phrase UFO and I explained that while I had not seen one before, other groups I had been with over the years had told me of similar sightings of unusual and unexplained objects that were not stars, satellites, airplanes, balloons, and the usually lighter-than-air craft. Taking most of these tales as urban myths or boastfulness from big egos, I dismissed their tall tales as just that - until now. I was dumbfounded at seeing them in flight and there was something about observing such an object after looking into the heavens at galaxies, nebula, planets, and their moons, but this was something I will never forget. It reminds me of what President Jimmy Carter must have felt when he spotted a UFO himself.

So here is what they looked like as best as I can describe them. There were two of them, identical in every way you can imagine. Like a pair of fighter jets, they flew so close to each other it was like watching the Blue Angels performing tricks but these two were traveling much faster than any earthling-created craft ever could. If you have ever seen a seagull float in the air without flapping, this is very much what their shapes appeared to be. Two gently-arching wings the entire length of the fuselage with no aerodynamic characteristic of thin leading edges or trailing edges whatsoever. Bluntly rounded and smooth, the arches folded into a straight like across a somewhat difficult to discern central tube also blunt and cigar-shaped. The orange glow was a burnt tangerine color revealing stripes or bands on the two curved wings providing clues to their depth perspective.

They were huge and unlike anything I have ever seen in pictures or descriptions before. If they were flying at 1,000 feet, they would have been about the length of a 747 commercial jet. They had curved wings like that of a seagulls when not flapping but without the tapered leading edge or trailing edge, nor did the wings tapir to a point at the outer ends farthest away from the fuselage. The fuselage was more cylindrical than cigar shaped but both the nose and tail were also blunt. If the fuselage was 20 feet in diameter, the arched wings were 15 feet thick and ran the entire length of the fuselage, not just a small portion like a conventional aircraft or a bird. The drawing below shows the arched wings uncolored in the front view but they were as orange as the rest of the craft (a limitation of my graphics program).

The gray stripes along the bottom and wrapped around the outer edges. The interesting thing about the orange glow was that the craft appeared to emit light but not reflect light from the other craft.

One added note is this: as we watched the two move across the sky, there were two different personalities behind the steering wheel. One ons "serious" and flew straight never deviating from the course; the other was playful and rocked its wings and moved a little above and below its partner in formation. I could not help but think of how crows play with each other while a flock of them cross the sky where one dives and nips at another. I guess even these pilots had a sense of humor, something to think about.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Subwoofer Tuning

So you buy or build a subwoofer, hook it up to your system, and viola! Deep bass and a lot of it - at least that's what your first impression is. Explosions in films sound more real, punches to the face are chest pounding, and emotionally it is a great addition. Where there once was nothing, not there is something...right? Well, here is where a few simple tools can help you figure out if what your emotions are telling you is what your ears are hearing.

Confirming or denying that what you just added made the change you wanted can take hours of listening during which time you can get more and more satisfied with your system's overall sound. But there is a short cut for doing this that can reduce the time you spend moving the subwoofer around in the room until you find that perfect spot. There are two things you will need to do this:

A smart phone
An MP3 player (most Blu-ray and DVD players will suffice).

First, go to http://archive.org/details/TenMinutesOfWhiteNoisePinkNoiseAndBrownianNoise and download the Pink Noise file. Put this file on a CD, memory stick, or your streaming music resource. This file creates what sounds like inter-station noise on an old FM radio and is a random but uniform signal source spattering the entire audio band. I use the FLAC version since my music streamer plays FLAC files.

Next, spend the $5.50 and download the RTA Pro app for your smart phone from the PLAY STORE or from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=radonsoft.net.rtapro&hl=en. The free version works but the paid version offers far better resolution and is worth every penny. Calibrate your phone according to the instructions in a VERY quiet room.

Now, charge your phone and set it on top of a thin vase positioned in your "sweet spot" at your ear level with the microphone end of the phone aimed at your system. Unplug or turn off all electrical appliances (refrigerator, TV, radio, etc.) making your room as quiet as possible. I do this VERY early in the morning to avoid traffic noises and my wife talking to me.

Turn on the phone, start the app, and play the Pink Noise file. Adjust the volume on your system so that the level is somewhere near -10dBFS. Press STOP on the app and then lightly press START being careful not to jar the phone. You will see now what your playback system is producing in the way of acoustic energy as measured from that particular location in your room. Notice the deep bass level under 200Hz.

I can almost guarantee that the sound pressure will not be uniform. Using this tool, scoot the subwoofer around the room until an optimum location is found. Use movements of inches first, then fractions of inches, and once the right place is found, the sound will be about as uniform as you can get it.

You can try raising and lowering the subwoofer itself if possible to get that last bit of tuning out of it as you can but more than likely you will not be able to raise or lower it - but if you can, give it a shot too.

Lastly, if there are large peaks somewhere, try moving furniture and adding sound absorbing panels on the midlines of the walls of the room or in the corners. This is where sound soak works best and tweak away to your heart's content.

I have used this little technique to do a lot of tweaking in my personal system and the results for a total investment of $6 and a bit of time have yielded extremely satisfying results, at least in the bass and deep bass regions.

Although you could use this setup to position your speakers, I have found that this is not the right way to do that. Using your ears and focusing on the height, width, and depth of the sound stage is more reliable and produces far more satisfying results.

Yours for higher fidelity,
Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

HDMI Cables

Interconnect cables have evolved over the years starting with RCA single-ended, maturing to differential, then optical, and today the various flavors of HDMI. With each advancement came promises of simplicity and assured perfection in connectivity. However as time passed, perfection was not always achieved and the old saying of garbage-in garbage-out held fast.

HDMI cables are a wonderful concept for connecting all video, analog, and network signals from one device to another via digital transmission schemes permitting only ones and zeros to pass between them. The theory is that in a digital signal, there is no way for anything to degrade because of the simplicity of digital technology. Well, that's the theory anyway and for most of you high-end videophiles, you are already aware of the significant differences between so-called perfect HDMI cables.

So what's up with this? In theory it should work but in reality it does not. I own several flavors of HDMI cables all connected to my Samsung 52" 650 series television (which I love BTW and have resisted replacing because of not only its good video quality but its fine built-in DACs). I recently connected a DIRECTV DVR to it since my wife loves football (and she REALLY loves football). So out of the box it came and connecting it with my extra 1-meter BetterCables Silver Serpent HDMI cable we were ready for the NFL.

After turning it on, I immediately noticed a huge edginess and pronounced sibilance region up until that time was not present on any of the other devices already connected to the Samsung. While the video quality was pretty good, the audio quality was terrible. Back to the drawing board.

Hoping that it was a burn-in issue, I tolerated the annoying sssssssssssssssssibilance for about a week and then realized that it was not going away. Swapping the HDMI cable with a Monster M series 1.3a 1-meter version, hoping for the best.

Normally, I do not like Monster Cable products since they have a tendency to color things a bit unnaturally but I had this one lying around and decided to give it a try. The results pleasantly surprised me. While the audio anomaly of sibilance still persisted, instead of it being sssssssssssssssssibilance it changed it to ssssibilance, the best way I can describe it in words. The edginess to the sound is now at least tolerable.

So with this improvement, I decided to start checking the obvious beginning with absolute electrical phase, aka chassis leakage. Results: yes indeed there was a minor issue with the LNB power supply but a quick swapping of the leads on the power transformer resolved that issue. However, the ssssibilance problem persisted and I was left scratching my head again. Eliminating the common problems pointed to the source of the problem as inherent to the design of the DVR.

Additional investigations following my normal troubleshooting steps still uncovered no additional built-in issues I could solve externally. Putting it another way, there was nothing wrong with the system or the way it was connected. Yes, the problem is still there today but I am very tempted to unbutton the lid on the DVR and start poking around. So far, I have resisted doing this willing to try a few more HDMI cables loaned to me by friends and audio-video salons.

For now, we listen to the DVR at low levels so that the fingernails-on-the-blackboard effects of the poorly designed do not make their way to our sensitive ears. If one of you readers could point me to a solution you may have uncovered, I would be eternally grateful.

So folks, this is a plea for help. I hope that at least one of you have solved this problem and are willing to share with others what you did. Until then, I'll be lisssstening to over-the-air signals when critical sound is essential.

Yours for higher fidelity,

Philip Rastocny

My other titles include:

Althea: A Story of Love

Build an Extreme Green Composter

The Extreem Green Guide to Wind Turbines

Build and Extreme Green Hot Water Solar Collector

The Extreme Green Guide to Solar Electricity

The Extreme Green Guide to Improving Mileage

Meditation for Geeks (and other left-brained people)

Build an Extreme Green Raised Bed Garden

Build an Extreme Green Rain Barrel