How noisy is my line? Audio Prism Noise Sniffer


A friend and audio journalist had this Prism device, and he plugged it into various outlets when I visited him. It gave a clear sense of which outlets were noisy and how effectively his conditioners were helping with noise.

 

He said these were not made any longer. Does anyone know of another tool like this?

It seems like it could save someone with clean power (or a quiet outlet) a lot of money from conditioners/regenerators which would not necessarily help.

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@panzrwagn  Do you know of any digital scopes with really easy to use/nice to use spectrum analyzers?  When I last had one the spectrum analyzer was a real chore to use, so hard to evaluate the types of noise I was looking at.

@eric_squires Any test test equipment that provides quantitative data will require some degree of technical capability by the user, but I agree, many do require a little too much Electrical Engineering background, not to mention significant capital outlay.

Take a look at this software only package though, 

 

You'll need an interface like a Focusrite Solo or 2i2 and a patch cable for line level use or calibrated mic (or calibrated USB Mic

 for speaker measuring only) 

Or, to get started for free, download the Spectroid app for free.

Brief report.

Electrical Experiments using Entech Sniffer

Interesting experiment: 
1. Put noise sniffer into raw outlet usually occupied by my Audience Adept and rest of gear.
2. Positioned laptop next to meter with live zoom feed to my phone.
3. Went to nearly every single thing on the same line as that outlet and plugged and unplugged it. Watched zoom feed on from my laptop on my phone.
4. Some things had no effect on reading. Some made it noiser by 3-5 increments; some made it quieter by 3-7 increments.

Interim hypothesis: leaving those things on upstairs might make my audio background quieter. Hmmm.  But since that's not how I listen, I plugged everything back in.

Trying again, this time with everything into my strip, with the Entech in there, too. 


5. Plugged in Audience and rest of rig. Plugged sniffer into the power strip they are plugged into (which has a Venom Defender in there, too.)
6. Repeated all the pluggings and unpluggings listed above in (3.)

Result: no change made any difference at all. None.

Ultimately, my Audience Adept r2r makes a difference according to this sniffer. The Audience drops the reading by 30 points so and adding the the Venom Defender into the strip drops it another 12%.