Hello

I am wondering, has anyone else had electrical interference noise with their triton fethead.

I have been playing around with the positioning of the fethead and have discovered, even though Triton Audio say that you can place the fathead anywhere in your chain that when you put the fethead just before the interface (Apollo twin MKII) there is loads of electrical interference noise.

Anyone else had this?

I'm thinking about getting in touch with Triton Audio and discussing this with them. I bought this second hand but wondering if I have been had in terms of it potentially being faulty.

At the moment I can only have the fethead directly after the SM7B.

Anyone else had this?

 

I'm guessing that it's a bad cable or other noise being juiced up by 27 dB by the passive, phantom powered amplifier. I've used a Fethead for many a year with never any issue at all. I've used it on both new dynamics as well as 60 year old relics without a hitch.

 

Did you buy it on eBay? Maybe it's a fake

 

My money is on the cable.

 

Yep. Cable (with weak shielding, but not necessarily) picking up EM interference and FetHead amplifying it. We talked about it recently somewhere on this forum. Search for Fethead.

Just think about FetHead as a DI for a mic and use it that way. A stronger signal can go farther without picking up as much interference as weaker signal.

 

It isn't the cable. I used several and they all presented the same results.

 

Which interface do you use? Perhaps if it's usb powered and you need to tork the gain to get a good signal and it's creating badness...although you said it sounds differently than that.

You'd be the first that I have heard of getting a defective unit.

 

With low nominal impedance mic output and high load impedance at the preamp, even longer cable runs should not really be a problem, as this ensures an adequate signal-to-noise ratio and the high frequency attenuation with "normal" cable lengths is in a range that is above our hearing range. The situation is somewhat different with high-impedance output signals on instruments, as these are much more susceptible to interference and noise.

I took a quick look at the triton website because I wanted to know the input and output impedance of the fethead. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a decent data sheet that gave any useful information about this.

 

I use the Apollo twin MKII thunderbolt

 

With 65 dB of gain from the preamps on your Apollo twin MKII, do you really need that Fethead to get you to the 55-60 dB to your SM7B in order to infuse it with enough power to let it sound good? I'm guessing that the preamp is quiet enough up to 60 dB.

If you can test that Fethead on another's system it might be a good thing on the outside chance that it's actually defective.

 

Sounds like regular interference to me. When you put the fethead after the cable (which has already picked up some interference), it's amplifying the mic signal AND the noise by the same amount (basically the same thing the interface preamp does). When you put it before the cable (aka in the mic) the signal is amplified first and THEN the noise gets in, so the noise remains significantly quieter in comparisson to the mic signal once you dial in your interface's gain.

Shouldn't be an issue, but maybe you're in an enviroment that for some reason is introducing a lot of noise into the cable, or the shielding is bad, or both.

But hey, that's just a theory.

 

Hi! I might be able to help you with your research, because I've had the same problem, and I've tried lots of things.
My setup :
SM7B, Triton FetHead, Focusrite 2i2. My PC is a Lenovo Legion (that's important!)

I had a permanent electrical interference noise, and I still haven't solved the problem, but here's how to mitigate it :
1. Try switching wall outlets. Depending on your house/apartment, some outlets may be old or not up to standard.
2. See if the problem is the same without the FetHead (logically yes, since it only amplifies the signal). To put it simply, turn up the gain on your sound card and see if you still get that noise.
3. My PC's power supply was affecting the signal enormously, so I moved it away and it's been much better ever since. To see what generates a magnetic field, turn up the gain on your sound card and move the microphone around your room or certain objects, the interference increases considerably.
4. You can try voltage stabilizers. I tried the Furman M-10X E, and it's true that it reduced interference, but it never completely removed it.
I do voice recording for youtube videos, and my solution was to switch to a mic that's no longer in contact with my PC: I got a Rode NTG mic, and a TX660.
If you insist on using your SM7B, you'll need to investigate the source of the interference on a case-by-case basis. For example, turn up the gain to hear clearly, then unplug your computer from the mains and see if there's less interference. If so, your computer is the cause, etc...

I hope this was helpful!