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Alternatives to Soma Ether V2
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dimento454
Morning all and greetings from Cork. I'm just wondering if any of you have tried the Soma Ether V2, what it's like? Also- are there alternatives that can do something similar for less money- I can do basic soldering and assembly so maybe if there's a DIY kit?
I had my eyes for a long time on the LOM DIY Electroslusch mini city. I know they're not exactly the same, but that kit seems to be discontinued. I have read that the Soma picks up amazing sounds, but also some concerns about the build quality. I know it's not a lot of money but I'm always reluctant to buy things that might not last a reasonable amount of time. Thanks in advance D |
开云体育Hi there, Jonas from LOM here. All Elektrosluch designs are open-source and you can look them up on our github (LOM-instruments). Or we do sell Elektrou?i which are passive sensors that work with mic-in inputs on portable recorders. Regards, Jonas On 28 May 2024, at 10:53, dimento454 via groups.io <damiandrohan@...> wrote:
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Plus one for Elektrosluch! It's a simple clean headphone preamp and can be built from the available schematics. |
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dimento454
On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 09:46 PM, goldenhours_71 wrote:
https://ie.rs-online.com/web/p/leaded-inductors/7157267Thanks David. I'll take a look. My hesitation is mostly about my assembly ability. I have put together a few of those mini electronics practice kits, so maybe I should take it up a notch. Appreciate your help, D |
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Hello, I've tried different inductors and I had the best results with these tiny 22mH inductors. @David can you give some more information about your air conductor? Dimensions, number of windings and wire gauge? Better range and sensitivity than the simple inductor? greets 闯ü谤驳别苍 Am Mi., 29. Mai 2024 um 08:02?Uhr schrieb dimento454 via <damiandrohan=[email protected]>: On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 09:46 PM, goldenhours_71 wrote: |
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@dimento454 you simply solder the two inductor terminals to a desired length microphone cable and put a plug at the other end, which connects to your preamp/recorder/mixer (minijack/jack/XLR).
It's good soldering practice since the part is fairly forgiving in case it gets a bit too hot. Unlike little electret mic capsules which fry very easily... @underwood it's been at least 10-15 years ago since I experimented with this, and I can't claim to have gained much knowledge through systematic testing since I was happy with the sonic results very quickly. I was inspired by Christina Kubisch's electrical walks. I tried both very thin wire gauges, like around 0.1mm or even less, with around 100 to 200 windings on a piece of 4-inch pvc pipe. I was also gifted a huge roll of 1mm wire at the time, and built a simple 'weaving frame' to make larger diameter antennas like they used to make for radio communications. These had much less windings but still picked up some very interesting sounds, I think because of their larger diameter. Generally, they seem more 'omnidirectional' than the little ferrite core inductors. I remember using an inductor calculator at the time: Some photos of what's left of these experiments here: /g/MicBuilders/files/DIY%20Inductors Would some of the ham radio enthusiasts in this group care to chime in? Perhaps they can provide some insights on how to 'tune' these kind of devices. Despite the fact that we're looking to capture here is the very EMF interference that they're trying to reduce ;-) D |
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Le 29/05/2024 à 10:53, goldenhours_71 a écrit?:
These had much less windings but still picked up some very interesting sounds, I think because of their larger diameter. Generally, they seem more 'omnidirectional' than the little ferrite core inductors.Ferrite or ferromagnetic cores concentrate magnetic field. It's what make them more sensitive compared to a coreless inductor of same size and turn number. Since lines are concentrated directionality is increased. Anyway this type of antenna is inherently directional. I remember using an inductor calculator at the time:Inductance is almost irrelevant, unless you want to tune the antenna for a certain frequency range, but it's probably not the case. You want to receive base band signals, in the audio range. Increasing the turn number increases the received signal, to a limit where the increased impedance creates a low-pass filter with the preamp's input impedance. Would some of the ham radio enthusiasts in this group care to chime in? Perhaps they can provide some insights on how to 'tune' these kind of devices.This has nothing to do with radio, it's audio bandwidth. Tuning the circuit, by adding a capacitor in parallels would result in a band-pass filter. It would be useful only if you ant to pinpoint one frequency range at the detriment of others. |
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I missed the beginning of this thread, so this might be unhelpful, but what about using a guitar pickup? (single coil obv) there are loads of cheap pickups out there that may be so-so for guitar use put provide a coil (or two) with 10k winds or more for not much money.
They are infamous for picking up EMI remove the magnets, use a high impedance input and either pick one that already has iron slugs as polepieces or install your own ferrite core as the shape of the coil and bobbin permit? they are quite sensitive to capacitance, so you'd want the electronics close to the coil and probably several Mohm input impedance. |
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Great info on this thread. I have some documentation of electromagnetic listening here: including a link to my favorite solution: "telephone pickup coils" are iron core coils with suction cups on them, pre-wired to a 3.5mm mono plug. I buy them for , chop off the plugs, and solder them into pairs for stereo. Way too much fun for such low effort!
But remember, all of these coil-based pickups are based on simple induction. There's no rectification going-on, so they are limited to human bandwidth (20-20k) and close range. You asked about the Soma Ether, which is different because, as they say on the Soma website:? ETHER is not just an inductive sniffer like some projects you can easily find online. A simple low-frequency inductive sniffer will be silent in most places that are full of sounds in the video. Such devices need to be placed close to an emitting source and will not work on a street. All they contain is a coil and a low-frequency amplifier. In comparison, ETHER has a regenerative circuit and a demodulator, making it an actual radio wave receiver, not just an amplifier of low-frequency magnetic fields. However, ETHER can perceive the low-frequency magnetic fields as well. But, honestly, if your goal is to scan objects in close proximity (0-20 centimeters), a simple inductive sniffer will work cleaner and more focused due to its narrow band and lower sensitivity. ETHER was designed to be a part of your walks in the city and may even pick up sounds in a forest or at the seashore (I have such experience). Also, ETHER can perceive the electric component of the radiation as well, capturing radiation that is far above the audio range and is much more sensitive. Therefore, it has a significantly different design, functions and implementation than a simple inductive sniffer even if in some cases their functions can overlap.With that said, I have borrowed a Soma Ether from a friend and found that in urban locations it was mostly overwhelmed by rather static buzzing textures (likely from Wifi) regardless of the settings or orientation. It is very sensitive, so this constant sound mostly swamped the local inductive fields I was interested in. I didn't try it in a more off-grid location, though. Your mileage may vary. |
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What an interesting thread. While going down a reddit-rabbit-hole on the Soma Ether, I fell across a link to . Similar to the ideas in this thread, it is a sort of "crystal radio" for EMI.? (Ok, it's actually a crystal radio, and would receive AM stations with the right inductor/capacitor combination). So, yet another way to pull some interesting audio from the RF and EMI around us.
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underwood
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