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CF card noise

Subject: CF card noise
From:
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2005 20:38:27 EST
Interesting exchange recently on another list, which I thought may have 
interest for the people investigating the noise floors of inputs on CF 
recorders:

Subject: PMD 660 incompatibility


We received 3 Marantz PMD 660's for our reporters a little while ago. I 

also purchased 3 Kingston 2GB flash cards to go with them. The Kingston 

cards don't mix with the recorder! Every time the recorder sends out a 

write burst to the flash card, the mic amps pick up a chirp. I popped in 

the cheap 64 MB card that came with the recorder (Renesas) and the 

problem went away.

Have you noticed this chirp problem? (It's noticeable in the mud about -30 dB 
with the pots wide open.)

-----Later message:


I spoke with the folks at Kingston. They were actually very helpful. The 

particular cards I had use a Sanyo controller chipset. Kingston 

apparently also produces their cards using several other chipsets. They 

are sending me replacements with another chipset no questions asked. If 

that doesn't work, they said they would refund me, even though they had 

no clue about flash cards being used in audio recorders. Now that's a 

good company!


My previous flames towards Kingston were a bit premature. The 

frustration factor is near 100% today after locking myself out of my 

office.


Thanks for everyone's advice, If the replacement cards they send don't 

work I'll look into some of your suggestions.


- Tom


Hi Tom,


My guess is the large capacity Kingston cards draw a bit too much peak

current when writing and the mic pre-amps are being driven by the same power

source.  So the cross-talk noise probably isn't the fault of the memory card

but is an inadequately decoupled pre-amp power supply in the Marantz.  You

should complain to Marantz and let their R&D folks improve their product.


--Ira


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