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Frequency throttling issue...

A

Alswhiskey1

New Member
Hey guys,
I have a strange audio situation happening that this group will probably have an answer for. I have a new second system I'm listening to that sounds great with some songs and showing glaring gaps in some frequencies/areas in others, leaving me scratching my head.
So last night I played a particular song that revealed what may be a clue to what's happening. During the guitar intro of the James Gang's Funk #49 it sounds perfectly normal until, as it's about to reach it's apex, it throttles down from the well known riff (that is probably playing in some of your heads right now) to barely discernible background noise. It was so profound that I looked to see if it was some remix. Nope. Tried again and found the same results...unplugged the RCA cord and played the song and it plays normally. So here's the equipment the system: a (new to me) used Belles 150A amp, a newly worked on vintage Luxman C300 with Ryan R610s. The source (until the Cambridge CNX V2 arrives) is my lowly iPhone 8plus playing through an RCA plugged into my aux on the preamp.

Thanks in advance to y'all for your help and happy holidays!!
 
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Alswhiskey1 said:
Hey guys,
I have a strange audio situation happening that this group will probably have an answer for. I have a new second system I'm listening to that sounds great with some songs and showing glaring gaps in some frequencies/areas in others, leaving me scratching my head.
So last night I played a particular song that revealed what may be a clue to what's happening. During the guitar intro of the James Gang's Funk #49 it sounds perfectly normal until, as it's about to reach it's apex, it throttles down from the well known riff (that is probably playing in some of your heads right now) to barely discernible background noise. It was so profound that I looked to see if it was some remix. Nope. Tried again and found the same results...unplugged the RCA cord and played the song and it plays normally. So here's the equipment the system: a (new to me) used Belles 150A amp, a newly worked on vintage Luxman C300 with Ryan R610s. The source (until the Cambridge CNX V2 arrives) is my lowly iPhone 8plus playing through an RCA plugged into my aux on the preamp.

Thanks in advance to y'all for your help and happy holidays!!
Click to expand...
What is the source of your source?

In other words, do you have MP3/WAV/ALAC/FLAC/whatever files stored on the iPhone?

Or are you streaming from a streaming provider or network drive?

If it's the latter, you may have a network bandwidth problem and the streaming software is trying to keep up by eliding and interpolating high frequency data. CD drives are known for doing this if they have problems reading CDs, video streaming services do this if bandwidth drops and visibly degrade quality to keep the content streaming. Whilst I haven't seen explicit confirmation of it (mainly because I haven't looked), it makes sense that audio streaming software would do it too.
 
Alswhiskey1 said:
Hey DaveVoorhis, Sorry, should've added that info...using Spotify at the time. Thanks
Click to expand...
Then it definitely sounds like bandwidth issues and the software is trying to compensate by prioritising maintaining service over maintaining quality. Check your network connection(s), but also try a different source -- like a CD player or WAV/FLAC/whatever file -- to verify that it isn't some intermittent failure in the amplifier.
 
Tis the season for very high density internet traffic, with all the e-com purchases/tire kicking(online deals), with the IP providers slowing down bandwidth, to try to accommondate as much internet traffic as they can..
Not unexpected, at least to me, this time of year, based on years past seasonal observations..o_O
Just a thought.. :dunno:
 
Bill Ferris said:
Tis the season for very high density internet traffic, with all the e-com purchases/tire kicking(online deals), with the IP providers slowing down bandwidth, to try to accommondate as much internet traffic as they can..
Not unexpected, at least to me, this time of year, based on years past seasonal observations..o_O
Just a thought.. :dunno:
Click to expand...
Hey Bill, I hope it's that simple! Thanks for your time, cheers!
 
I don't think that's the problem at all. I think you have a bad ground on your interconnect from your phone to the amp. Remove the ground and you don't have a reference anymore so the only time you get sound is when there is a difference between the 2 channels. Mono signals get nulled.
 
dr*audio said:
I don't think that's the problem at all. I think you have a bad ground on your interconnect from your phone to the amp. Remove the ground and you don't have a reference anymore so the only time you get sound is when there is a difference between the 2 channels. Mono signals get nulled.
Click to expand...
Definitely worth trying a different lead. The fact that it's seemingly content-dependent suggests bandwidth issues, but it could be the content highlighting the problem.
 
dr*audio said:
I think you have a bad ground on your interconnect from your phone to the amp. Remove the ground and you don't have a reference anymore so the only time you get sound is when there is a difference between the 2 channels. Mono signals get nulled.
Click to expand...

If that were the case, he would have zero bass all the time.
 
Ditch Spotify and try this from another source. They might be using a limiter, at any huge change in dynamics it would clamp the signal and make it sound like mush.
 
I'm with @dr*audio on this. What you describe is exactly what an open ground does. When the signals are different, you get sound. Same signal gets cancelled out, so basically anything thats on one side will come through and stuff in the middle vanishes. Probably will notice vocals are distinctly odd and the image is very wide but nothing is in the middle.
 
"Mono signal gets nulled".
That suggests one channel has it's polarity switched.
Can happen anywhere in the chain. First place I'd check is amp to speakers. A friend found his second hand speakers had been worked on and that the wires to one tweeter had been reversed.
Verify all polarities. Check from the speakers back.
 
I appreciate everyone responding. Over the holiday I received the Cambridge Audio CNX streamer and added it to my rig...the phone is still the "source" (now through wifi instead of directly connected through the RCA cable) and the issue is still there. Played Funk #49 and some other tunes and I'm still have huge deficits in high frequency. Will go to another source and see what I find. Disappointed that I can't resolve this but I still have records for now!
 
Alswhiskey1 said:
I appreciate everyone responding. Over the holiday I received the Cambridge Audio CNX streamer and added it to my rig...the phone is still the "source" (now through wifi instead of directly connected through the RCA cable) and the issue is still there.
Click to expand...
I'm not clear what you have connected to what. When you say "the phone is still the 'source' ... now through wifi instead of directly connected through the RCA cable", I'm not clear what's connected to WiFi and what you are (or were) connecting to what with the RCA cable. Could you be more specific about exactly what's in the chain from source (i.e., exactly what you're playing and from where) to speakers, and how it's connected?
 
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