Buying Inexpensive Earphone / Headphones

August 14, 2016 by Fu Yongwei in audio

It is certain that in the world of audio engineering, many of us have often associate quality audio gear with a high price tag. For instance, when buying a pair of earphones, the most convenient approach (but least objective) would associate the earphones’ performance with its relative price. Personally, I still see the values in economically priced earphones and comparing them with higher end earphones are similar to comparing a commercial vehicle to a sports car, where they are just simply different.

As mentioned in my previous post (Future Proofing Your Technology), it is important to have a realistic idea of what you are going to use earphones with, hence optimizing every single penny spend towards better sonic performances. When it comes to inexpensive earphones, I would prioritize build quality and ease of use of the earphones. Ironically, sonic superiority is the least of my concerns but adequate fidelity should be expected.

When you are looking for a low priced earphone, chances you are also on a budget and would not want to splurge on anything unnecessary. Thus, it is even more important to pay attention to the build quality of the device in order to ensure the longest possible service life from your earphones. This allows you to save up and possibly have the financial resources available for an upgrade in the future. It would be inequitable to expect inexpensive earphones to possess features such multi-core to single conductor cables to improve the signal to noise ratio (SNR). A more pragmatic perspective would be to analyse the durability of the earphones. Some earphones are built extremely sturdy, for example, being able to withstand cable stresses experienced during sports workout and being washable (water resistance) to rinse off any excessive sweat or dust. A notable example would be the Sennheiser sports series earphones that range below $100 SGD.

In addition, replaceable parts are often another strong suit to help extend the serviceability of the earphones. There are many variations from replaceable ear tips (foams) to headbands, but the one I find it most appealing would be the detachable and replaceable cables. If you have been an audio junkie like myself, you would have notice that for the most part of your listening experiences, the cables in your earphones are the ones that stop working first. Unless you favour the DIY approach where you can re-solder the connections yourself, many would just discard an otherwise still functioning speaker drivers.

My 5 years old AKG K451 headphone would only last this long thanks to replaceable cables.

The next criteria require a little bit of effort but it will save you from many unnecessary hassles and spending. When you’re on a budget, the only items you should invest in (assuming that you already have a functioning media playback device) are your earphones and nothing else. Do not be tempt by other additional accessories such as a portable audio amplifier, where it claims to help enhance sonic characteristic. Most playback devices have an output impedance that are at kilo ohms ranges and that is sufficient to drive most earphones with an impedance of 160 ohms and below (assuming output impedance of your playback device is 10K ohms). Introducing additional audio amplifier along the circuit will be futile as it does not help optimize your signal chain.

Beyerdynamic MXP 50 iE, a very popular budget earphones (46Ω), Credits Beyerdynamic

To conclude, inexpensive earphones are still very relevant, even to an audio enthusiast, it serves as a temporary option for one to save up and upgrade. Fortunately, there are many prospective earphones that are right below the $150 SGD mark where it will comfortably suffice the requirements mentioned above. Have reasonable expectations and these earphones might be applicable to your daily listening needs.

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Starting out to record in Singapore?

August 11, 2016 by Fu Yongwei in music, audio

It is no surprise that trying to pursue a career that is related to music is extremely tough and sometimes very disappointing. For the past few months since YWFUProject has started, I have been receiving many numerous enquiries about the “tips and tricks” to sustain this profession. To be honest, I do not have anything that is significant enough to ensure your success in this field (if not, I would have been really successful isn’t it?) but after much thoughts, here are some advice that I am able to think of to help you smoothen out your journey in music production / studio recording.

Your gear should serve multiple purposes

Music production can be a really costly profession to indulge yourself in, basically, everything cost money, from the microphones, DAW (computer), monitor speakers and even the microphone stands and cables, all these items can easily add up to thousands of dollars in a short period of time. Hence, a viable approach (the one that I adopted) would be to plan ahead before you purchase any equipment. Generally, the idea is to ensure that every single piece of equipment are as versatile as it should be and have a wide variety of scalability options. An example would be my two-part series on choosing your first microphone, the same ideology can also be applied in any situation.

Re-invest to pay for your gear

The best way to sustain the craft is to ensure that you don’t put yourself into a pile debts. I understand that it is every musician’s / engineer’s dream to have a wide array of equipment at your own disposal. Having relevant equipment to kick start your recording career does not necessarily equate to incurring debts. The most effective method I found was to re-invest your income back to your craft. To illustrate, many of you who are just starting out, you are probably holding on to a current occupation (e.g. student) that might not be related to this field at all. Saving up extra cash by being thrifty with your daily expenses can be rather practical but often not satisfying enough as it takes too long to save up a reasonable amount of money to buy anything.

Take up a part-time job (production based) or volunteer in a position that is related to this field (does not necessarily have to be an exact match to your dream job description). This can start the ball rolling by exposing yourself to new opportunities, meet industry friends and hone your skills. In addition, this part-time job can even be a source of extra income to help you achieve your equipment goals while giving yourself a sense of satisfaction to motivate you even further (e.g. a completion in a live show that you have worked hard for).

Freelance Jobs are one of the most effective ways for you to save up! Credits, Goh JJ

Do not limit yourself into studio space

An acoustical idea room does not always translate to a great recording. Warren Huart mentioned before “creativity will always triumph equipment”, this is especially true when it comes to music production. Music is a form emotional expression and your equipment is merely the transducing medium to sent the message across. “Music production is always about the song, the song and the song” (Quincy Jones), thus do not limit your recording space or opportunity just because you do not have a perfect room to work in. Many albums that we loved are often recorded in hotel rooms, bar, and even toilet, in fact, most of my recording projects are always in non-ideal spaces (e.g. lobby or corridor). Spend some time to experiment around and do not let your mentality bottleneck your recording experience.

Live Recording of "Sharp Tongue" in a typical lounge.

Collaborate with others

Working or involving other like-minded friends in a project brings many merits. For example, the cost of hardware could essentially be lowered as the team can share their existing resources (e.g. DI box or Microphone) into a project together. Effective collaboration can often spread out the workload, hence ensure a higher quality content (as the content has been vetted by many) while ensuring consistent upload to maintain audience engagements.

Nothing good ever comes easy, however, while in the midst of pursuing this career or hobby of yours, I hope that the mentioned suggestions above may have incited you with new ideas to help keep music production sustainable. Enjoy the process and it will eventually turn out fruitful.

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High Impedance vs Low Impedance

August 07, 2016 by Fu Yongwei in audio

Are low impedance signals balanced? What is the difference between impedance and balanced / unbalanced transmission? In this post, let's take a look at how different rating of impedances will affect your audio signal integrity in the real world.

Before we go into the topic of impedance, I would like to point out that the impedance level of a transmission level does not dictate the type of transmission (balanced / unbalanced). A very simple scenario would be a low impedance microphone connected to an audio mixer with an XLR - 1/4 TS cable (unbalanced cable), thus creating an unbalanced output. Similarly, if the same low impedance microphone is connected through an XLR - XLR cable (balanced cable), the output of the microphone would be balanced. In this simple explanation, we can easily determine that the type of cable used will affect the type of transmission (balanced / unbalanced). (Refer here for more info)

Common examples of a high impedance equipment would be an electric guitar or a karaoke microphone. These equipment are usually seen in consumer products as they are able to provide a relatively higher output signal level as compared to low impedance equipment, hence, needing less amplification or gain. In contrast, low impedance equipment has a lower output level and often require input transformer before preamplifiers circuits in order to set up or strengthen the signal. This is one of the main contributing reason for most consumer devices to adopt high impedance output as in most cases, they do not require amplification after input (negligible) which in turn cut down on overall hardware cost (e.g. preamplifier circuits).

BAE 1272 Microphone Preamplifier, Credits BAE Audio

The main disadvantage of high impedance signal is that they do not perform well over long distance signal transmission (more than 10 meters). In addition, a high impedance line is adversely affected by the inherent capacitance that is present in the cable. This capacitance combines with the impedance of the source create a "low - pass filter"which progressively cuts higher frequencies (the longer the length of the cable, the lower the cutoff of the frequencies). Furthermore, high impedance lines are also more susceptible to the various forms of interference (e.g. high frequencies noise and radio). Therefore, due to these reasons, long cable distance in high impedance output are not practised in production work. Low impedance output, on the other hand, performs well in these situations, retain a higher rating of signal integrity. This is also why many professional grade audio equipment have adopted low impedance output.

An important note, the equipment impedance connected to the cable will affect the transmission line impedance. For instance, a low impedance microphone will lower the impedance of the entire line connected to it. Similarly, a high impedance microphone will have higher impedance line throughout the whole transmission (microphone to an audio console).

In order to preserve signal level, it is important to drive the input of an equipment (input impedance) with a source signal (output impedance) that is significantly lower. If the input impedance of a device is not significantly lower than the source impedance (output impedance), signal integrity will suffer (e.g. low SNR value).

When a signal needs to be split and sent to more than one routes, the impedance of the destinations provide additional paths for the electrical circuits. As a result, reducing the overall load impedance introduced to the signal. As a general rule of thumb, it is advisable to work on 10 : 1 load impedance ratio to help retain signal integrity. For example, a mixing console output with an impedance of 100 Ω needs to be sent to 4 amplifiers, each with an input impedance of 20 000 Ω, but can the signal be split passively? Note that we should try to keep loading impedance at the ratio of 10 : 1 or above and there are multiple input destinations.

ARX MSX 48 Mic/Line Splitter (Passive), Credits ARX

Hence, the signal could be split passively as the loading impedance ratio is well above 10 : 1. There are manly ways to split signals, one common way would be to use a passive cable split (“Y” cord cable) or to use a passive isolated mic / line splitter.

Passive "Y-Cord" Mic Cable, Credits Amazon/Hosa

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