Do wall wart wires have the potential to introduce noise into my other hi quality cables?

Just wondering because some of them have "ferites?" if that's what they are called? You guys told me what them thingies are supposed to do but I forgot.

Thanks
Dagmar

Comments

  • mantis
    mantis Posts: 17,032
    This is something I have not seen happen. Usually as long as you keep them away about 6 inches you should be fine. If you have to cross a cable with a DC all wart cable just do it at 90 degrees.
    Dan
    My personal quest is to save to world of bad audio, one thread at a time.
  • pitdogg2
    pitdogg2 Posts: 24,481
    Bruce most wall-warts are inherently noisey in their own right. The ferrite cores in the wire help to remove radio frequency noise either from the wall-wart itself or from external sources so not to feed into whatever they are plugged into.
  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 32,927
    edited February 2019
    Power supplies matter a lot in all aspects of analog and digital hifi.
    There are (ahem) at least three different flavors of wall warts.

    1) AC supplies -- which are (usually) just a step-down transformer. The wire (typically zipcord) will be carrying low voltage 60 Hz (in the US) AC which certainly can induce hum into other circuits.

    2) DC linear supplies -- in the best case, the wire will be carrying fairly pure DC at a nearly fixed voltage (assuming a "stiff", well-regulated supply). Essentially a fixed, local magnetic field.

    3) DC switch-mode supplies -- these bad boys is trouble; there will be (there may be) relatively large amounts of RF hash riding on the DC. Digital stuff doesn't (shouldn't) much care -- but it can induce all kinds of nastiness into any analog circuits, especially anything using tuned circuitry, oscillators, mixers, etc. Radios (of the good old fashioned analog kind, AM or FM) are probably the most at risk, but most analog circuitry can act as a receiver of some sort and stands to suffer in the presence of that crud.

    IMO and IME, of course.
    YMMV.
    et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
  • tonyp063
    tonyp063 Posts: 1,044
    #3.
    This is your concern.
    *Most* wall warts are SWPS (emphasis on the PS) and will/can/might introduce cruft into the audio chain.

    *some* SMPS are not PoS'es.
    Some.