Odd Noise In System

[Dave A]

13 hours ago, glens said:

I've long wanted to see someone with perfect pitch listen to a "period performance" played at "period pitch".  It must be agonizing for them...

My friends wife played in the Huntsville Symphony and he says they hit over 100db all the time on stage. 

[Marvel]

It's been a while since I've seen it. I think it might have been the brand of mouse combo with specific PCs. It was in office setting at the college where I worked in IT.

 

I'm trying to recall if I ever have the problem with optical mice or only those with a ball. It seems there may have been some electrical noise created from the rotary encoder on the mechanical mice.

[glens]

2 hours ago, Dave A said:

My friends wife played in the Huntsville Symphony and he says they hit over 100db all the time on stage. 

 

I wasn't directly referring to "volume" output, rather the "pitch" as played.

 

I surmise that the current tuning is A(something, maybe "4") is still 440 Hz (but it may be upwards of 450 nowadays).  I've got some recordings (with either actual "period instruments" or faithful reproductions) where that "A" is much closer to 400 Hz, as was the custom before steel strings and greater (violin family) neck angles were introduced to attain greater volume (I have it on fairly good authority that even most "Stradivarius" instruments still in use have been thusly modified!).  Then there's the (keyboard) tunings which didn't follow a strictly "mathematical" scheme until very much more recently.  "Perfect pitch" really doesn't mean anything in the big picture.

 

It's humorous to hear Mozart's works played on modern instruments in a modern fashion.  Well, actually, it's not funny; it's quite sad.  Not to say he wouldn't write music appropriately for them if that's what he'd had available, but he didn't, so he didn't.  A lot of the finer details in his music get lost on a regular basis nowadays.  Fiddle players (and others) usually now play with such a heavy, constant vibrato as a matter of course (Mozart was a virtuoso violin player, and letters between him and his dad mention players already flirting with that then, described in the letters as if they'd had a "palsy"), that many of the finer "turns" in his music get totally lost when played that way.  I humor myself with the notion that when played, the musicians likely give each other a funny wink as if "why did he write it that way when you can't even hear it!"

[codewritinfool]

I’m curious what the noise source actually is in the mouse such that turning it over causes it to stop.

Is the mouse cord somehow draped differently when it is flipped over?

Have you tried a snap-on ferrite choke on the mouse cord?

[Edgar]

2 hours ago, codewritinfool said:

I’m curious what the noise source actually is in the mouse such that turning it over causes it to stop.

Is the mouse cord somehow draped differently when it is flipped over?

Have you tried a snap-on ferrite choke on the mouse cord?

 

Some mice turn off the LED when there is no signal at the optical receiver.

[babadono]

On 5/17/2020 at 5:25 AM, Dave A said:

 into a Xilica (3.5mm jack to XLR)

 

On 5/17/2020 at 5:49 AM, Edgar said:

 

There is potential right here, in that unbalanced to balanced connection, for the introduction of noise. Basically, the ideal case is for the balanced side to see exactly the same impedance in both legs. So simply grounding the "cold" leg, while it works, it is not the best from a noise point of view.

 

 

How exactly is this done?

[Edgar]

1 hour ago, babadono said:

 

How exactly is this done?

 

See attached diagram. It requires you to know the source impedance of your unbalanced device. That info is not always easy to obtain.

[babadono]

@Edgar

Thanks. I get the theory, curious how @Dave A is doing it.

"That info is not always easy to obtain." There's a mouthful

[Dave A]

21 hours ago, codewritinfool said:

I’m curious what the noise source actually is in the mouse such that turning it over causes it to stop.

Is the mouse cord somehow draped differently when it is flipped over?

Have you tried a snap-on ferrite choke on the mouse cord?

The noise happens when the mouse is in use and being moved around. No to ferrite core and that never occurred to me to do. 

[codewritinfool]

5 hours ago, Dave A said:

The noise happens when the mouse is in use and being moved around. No to ferrite core and that never occurred to me to do. 

I think that @Edgar is right.  The mouse laser will power down or at maybe switch to a lower duty cycle if not in use.  

Not sure if your problem is radiated or conducted but based on other things you can hear, I suspect supply filtering on your audio card is inadequate. 

The choke may not help but won't hurt.

 

One way to get away from the issue is an outboard DAC.  Gets the analog portion out of the computer.

 

 

[MeloManiac]

I would try another usb slot. Usb slots get a lot of abuse (forcing to plug in upsidedown). Also the usb connector on the mouse side could be damaged.