will a power conditioner help me? (1 Viewer)

[Chriss M]

I've been trying (without success) to remove a slight hum in my system caused by my H/H AVR520 receiver. I've pretty much narrowed the cause of the problem to something with the electrical wiring in the house. It's definitely not a CATV ground loop, it still buzzes when nothing (other than speakers) are hooked up, and it's not the unit itself (had it checked out at an authorized service center).

Would a power conditioner, possibly somethign like a monster HTS2600, help to clean up the incoming power and remove the hum? Or am i going to need to look into the wiring of the house to see what else is on the circuit that could be the source of the problem?

 

[Sankar]

Quite possible. I had a similar issue in my house. I had a new ground rod installed, two dedicated 20A circuits put in, etc etc. These measures eliminated a major portion of the hum, but not completely (it was still audible 6 inches from the speakers). Finally, I added a Monster HTS2500 to the equation .. and this appears to have eliminated it for all practical purposes. Now I can hear the hum only if I stick one ear to the speaker, close the other and concentrate (and this does not change as the volume is turned up using an empty input).

Do you get the hum even without external amps? I never had the hum when I was using my Denon 3801 as a receiver though ... its only when I added external amplification that all these issues popped up (as expected) ..

 

[John Tompkins]

Chris,

You also have the option of installing a dedicated 20 amp line which is what I did and it resolved all humming problems that I had.

An electrician will do it for about 150.00(cheaper then a good conditoner} and it only takes about an hour to do. You could do it yourself for about 30.00..

 

[brian a]

I thought having your amp and source on different circuits increased the chance for ground hum.

 

[Sankar]

I thought having your amp and source on different circuits increased the chance for ground hum.

I assume that this question is for me? (since I have 2 20A circuits)

I had 2 circuits put in since there were economies of scale at the time. I have tried plugging everything into one circuit to see if there is any impact on the hum -- the fact is that it did not seem to matter. Whether I used one circuit or both, the hum was the same. This would seem reasonable since the 2 circuits are grounded properly together. Currently, I have all equipment (amps, receiver as pre-pro, TV, dvd, Sat/HD tuner, BFD, etc) all go through the Monster HTS2500 on one circuit. The second circuit is dedicated to the sub-woofer which is physically located some distance away. As I said earlier, the inclusion of the HTS2500 eliminated the hum for all practical purposes.

There was one source of hum which I had a devil of a time resolving .. this was with the power supply unit of my iScan Pro line doubler. You see, the iScan Pro has a power adapter which provides 12V DC power to the unit (looks like one of those Radio Shack 12Vdc adapters). Now for some reason that I cannot figure out, this uses a 3 pin grounded plug (why? there is no metal "body" and after all we are finally providing DC!) ... as long as this was in the circuit, I would get a hum. I finally resorted to a cheater plug for this adapter. I doubt that this would represent a safety hazard, but I guess that one of these days, I should open the adapter to see what's going on inside ..

 

[Chriss M]

thanks guys. i might try picking one up today after work. if it doesnt help, i can always just return it.

any important differences between the models in the monster line...2600, 3600, etc.. ?