Check Your Grounds
zingo
Posts: 11,258
I've always avoided hooking my speakers to my TV because of the ground loop induced by the connection. I had always guessed it was caused by the cable not being grounded, but every time a tech came out, I'd always ask and they'd always tell me it's grounded. Almost bought one of those Jensen transformers for cable a while, but never got around to it.
Well yesterday my father-in-law and I were listening to music, and I had hooked up the TV to my amp (against my better judgement) just to watch the Olyimpics and listen to the sporting on something other than TV speakers. I was complaining because of the ground loop buzz, when he suggested we go checkout the ground connection for ourselves; what we found was sad.
Not only was the ground wire loosely (if at all) clamped to the main ground, but both had been painted at some point! We took a few minutes to sand the paint and corrosion off both wires, and reclamped them very tightly. Heading back inside and firing up the horns, all buzz was gone!
The moral of the story; never trust your cable repair tech...
Well yesterday my father-in-law and I were listening to music, and I had hooked up the TV to my amp (against my better judgement) just to watch the Olyimpics and listen to the sporting on something other than TV speakers. I was complaining because of the ground loop buzz, when he suggested we go checkout the ground connection for ourselves; what we found was sad.
Not only was the ground wire loosely (if at all) clamped to the main ground, but both had been painted at some point! We took a few minutes to sand the paint and corrosion off both wires, and reclamped them very tightly. Heading back inside and firing up the horns, all buzz was gone!
The moral of the story; never trust your cable repair tech...
Post edited by zingo on
Comments
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Good point. Years ago about the same thing happened to me. I went ahead and put a brand new ground stake in and all was well.
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Glad you found it! Unlike you in the wet climate, those of us in drier areas can even have to water the ground stake. The connections can all be good, but if there is no moisture in the ground, no discharge occurs.HT Optoma HD25 LV on 80" DIY Screen, Anthem MRX 300 Receiver, Pioneer Elite BDP 51FD Polk CS350LS, Polk SDA1C, Polk FX300, Polk RT55, Dual EBS Adire Shiva 320watt tuned to 17hz, ICs-DIY Twisted Prs, Speaker-Raymond Cable
2 Channel Thorens TD 318 Grado ZF1, SACD/CD Marantz 8260, Soundstream/Krell DAC1, Audio Mirror PP1, Odyssey Stratos, ADS L-1290, ICs-DIY Twisted , Speaker-Raymond Cable
