Are My PC Speakers Toast?
Friday, July 1st, 2022 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioWednesday night, the 29th, I took the garbage out around 11PM and found to my astonishment that we had a slight breeze! The anemometer on the SCOP was moving, and you could hear whispering in the tree tops.
So I put the paper plate sails on the keychimes, set up the S8 on the tripod, and recorded for 70 minutes.
Then Thursday morning, June 30th, after making some coffee, I put on the headphones and edited the track.
Good strong signal. No air conditioners running. The chimes got a bit crazy at times, like they do, with the paper plates, so I edited out the parts that were too intense and ended up with a nice 20 minute track.
After listening through the finished FLAC file in headphones, to make sure it was good, I uploaded it to Soundcloud.
After it was uploaded, I played it back through my PC speakers and it was distorting!
Was the file corrupted? I listened to the original WAV on my PC speakers... It was distorting too!
How had I not heard that in my headphones? Was I just not awake enough yet?
I deleted the track from Soundcloud and spent the next few hours thinking about it. Maybe I just had to go back to the drawing board with these wind chimes.
------------{=0=}------------
So Thursday night I was headed back down to the shop and saw that we had another breeze tonight!
So I quickly created two new, smaller paper plate sails. I cut out the inner circle of two paper plates and strung them up with hooks... attached them to the chimes, and set up the S8 again on the tripod.
This time I also moved the two chimes a bit further apart, maybe they were too close to the mikes.
Then I went into the shop and started working up a new key chime, thinking maybe if it only had four keys instead of eight, and a different type of clapper it might not distort the mikes so much.
After 90 minutes it was all together, but I had no suitable striker.
So I called it quits, retrieved the S8, and moved the new recording to the PC.
The wave form looked a lot less intense. The smaller sails, and the mikes being a bit further away did take it all down a notch.
I played a bit of it through the PC speakers and... dammit! They were STILL distorting!
------------{=0=}------------
I made a quick TikTok showing the two wave forms side by side, from Wenesday and Thursday night, and played clips of each through the speakers, to explain to followers why I hadn't uploaded anything... but when I was done I thought...
Was it my imagination just now, or did Wednesday's track sound even MORE distorted than this morning?
So I listedned to sections of both tracks again, in headphones and... no distortion!
------------{=0=}------------
So now I think the problem is the goddam PC speakers!
Those Logitech PC speakers are eight years old! And they've been powered on continuously for eight years. So it seems logical that they're just wearing out.
So I ordered new PC speakers with a subwoofer for fifty bucks on Amazon tonight, and they should be here on Tuesday.
On the one hand, I feel like I have to wait until they get here, so I can really prove to myself the tracks aren't distorted.
But it does all sound fine in the headphones, playing from the same PC. So it can't really be anything else!
------------{=0=}------------
In the mean time, July is finally here, and I'm gonna be recording the firework insanity of my neighborhood on Monday night from the back yard.
Last year it sounded like the apocalypse in my neighborhood, and there was a haze of smoke everywhere that smelled like gunpowder.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
So I put the paper plate sails on the keychimes, set up the S8 on the tripod, and recorded for 70 minutes.
Then Thursday morning, June 30th, after making some coffee, I put on the headphones and edited the track.
Good strong signal. No air conditioners running. The chimes got a bit crazy at times, like they do, with the paper plates, so I edited out the parts that were too intense and ended up with a nice 20 minute track.
After listening through the finished FLAC file in headphones, to make sure it was good, I uploaded it to Soundcloud.
After it was uploaded, I played it back through my PC speakers and it was distorting!
Was the file corrupted? I listened to the original WAV on my PC speakers... It was distorting too!
How had I not heard that in my headphones? Was I just not awake enough yet?
I deleted the track from Soundcloud and spent the next few hours thinking about it. Maybe I just had to go back to the drawing board with these wind chimes.
So Thursday night I was headed back down to the shop and saw that we had another breeze tonight!
So I quickly created two new, smaller paper plate sails. I cut out the inner circle of two paper plates and strung them up with hooks... attached them to the chimes, and set up the S8 again on the tripod.
This time I also moved the two chimes a bit further apart, maybe they were too close to the mikes.
Then I went into the shop and started working up a new key chime, thinking maybe if it only had four keys instead of eight, and a different type of clapper it might not distort the mikes so much.
After 90 minutes it was all together, but I had no suitable striker.
So I called it quits, retrieved the S8, and moved the new recording to the PC.
The wave form looked a lot less intense. The smaller sails, and the mikes being a bit further away did take it all down a notch.
I played a bit of it through the PC speakers and... dammit! They were STILL distorting!
I made a quick TikTok showing the two wave forms side by side, from Wenesday and Thursday night, and played clips of each through the speakers, to explain to followers why I hadn't uploaded anything... but when I was done I thought...
Was it my imagination just now, or did Wednesday's track sound even MORE distorted than this morning?
So I listedned to sections of both tracks again, in headphones and... no distortion!
So now I think the problem is the goddam PC speakers!
Those Logitech PC speakers are eight years old! And they've been powered on continuously for eight years. So it seems logical that they're just wearing out.
So I ordered new PC speakers with a subwoofer for fifty bucks on Amazon tonight, and they should be here on Tuesday.
On the one hand, I feel like I have to wait until they get here, so I can really prove to myself the tracks aren't distorted.
But it does all sound fine in the headphones, playing from the same PC. So it can't really be anything else!
In the mean time, July is finally here, and I'm gonna be recording the firework insanity of my neighborhood on Monday night from the back yard.
Last year it sounded like the apocalypse in my neighborhood, and there was a haze of smoke everywhere that smelled like gunpowder.
°¦}
