Robbbby, please stop quoting entire posts. If you feel a need to quote please limit it to the point you are addressing. And if you click on “reply” to the right of a post, the forum software will place a pointer indicating to whom you are responding.
Got it. Probably ruled out via testing at other people’s homes, but have you used an induction current sensor around your ground path to see that current isn’t flowing on it. A normal fluke wouldn’t sense it since you have to connect two terminals to have a potential.
Does the Pre hum through headphones without amps connected?
Sounds like the noise is generated and dissipated in the power amps themselves. that is why when you lift the ground, noise does not go back out through the ground wire into the system and contaminate the system.
I wouldn’t use single ended wires in my system any more after I discovered balance blows away single end by a mile in sound quality. I use to use WireWorld Platinum Eclipse 7 RCA’s and found the XLR’s really are much better. The WW Platinum Eclipse 8’s XLR’s are the best I ever heard. Forget it, you don’t know how good your system can sound until you try one of these balance cables.
I have not gone to those lengths since I don’t have the sort of equipment on hand to test.
If there was any leakage on the ground conductor that is solely the fault of the equipment in my opinion, is it not?
I have not tested the headphone jack in that manner. Will put it on my list.
Of course balanced will sound better. I mean anything will sound better than unbalanced with this hum.
My real gripe at this point is that clearly it’s an issue, others have confirmed it. Yet psaudio won’t just admit it, instead I’m sent on a wild goose chase spending hours and hours troubleshooting something they know I won’t actually ever resolve.
I’ve tried audio sensibility statement, Nordost blue heaven and various other monoprice style cables. Clearly not the best of the best, but I really doubt a $2000 cable will be less prone to hum than a $600 cable.
No it is never going to matter what brand of SE cable you use or the cost the problem is going to remain just like Fremer found with a $25K preamp and well over five figures worth of cables. The two BHK amp products want to see an XLR cable. By the way the Audio Sensibility cables are very good and a clear step above a lot of dealer sold cables. I have owned a loom of Stephen’s cables for about four years and they are all used in a second system.
Since you say you have returned multiple sets of gear to the PSA office I assume you live in the Greater Denver/Boulder area? If so call Cap at Audio Envy in Fort Collins. They make very good cables factory direct and you can get his top XLR cable for $179 for 3 feet with a 30 day trial policy. I am using his IC’s and SC’s in my Main system and they replaced much more expensive cables.
As his XLR cables are all 110 ohm they can all be used as a AES digital cable.
Looks like the problem is inherited in the amps themselves. What I’m suggesting is either find some good balanced ic’s and live with it, or sell the amps and buy something without the problem.
It is definately inherent to the amps as I have tried the SE connection with six different preamps over four years and the result is always the same no matter whether the preamps circuit is fully balanced or SE with XLR outputs.
When I first received my BHK I was using the Modwright LS-100 which though SE has a pair of XLR outputs. As all my previous amps had been SE I only had SE IC’s too. When I hooked the amp up I immediately got the hum but remembering Fremer’s review I put on the cheater plug and ordered the matching XLR cable from Audio Sensibility which resolved the problem and the cheater plug came out. It didn’t matter that the Modwright was a SE design the BHK just wanted to see the XLR cable.
Because people expect them mostly and some people may be happy with the work around because if they are plugging the amp into a PP or Line conditioner that is grounded that mitigates the use of the cheater plug. I doubt this is a unique situation just the only one that has a forum.
You have a valid point, but I think a more relevant question might be: Why do some people not experience hum with SE interconnects? It is my understanding that this is not a universal experience with the BHK preamp and/or BHK amplifiers.
For some reason eliminating the SE inputs would probably eliminate some potential buyers whether or not they were ever going to use them or not. The same reason many companies put faux/convenience XLR outputs/inputs on SE circuit amps and preamps.
Ground is supposed to be a sink, but a stronger current from elsewhere will push against the grain and make its way into other devices in the home. This is because electricity will always look for places to go of lesser resistance. Do you know if your home has an external isolation transformer that’s center tapped to ground?
Since SE tends to be tied directly to ground, you could be experiencing contamination from outside in. It’s really hard to predict.
There isn’t a device in the world that can protect it’s ground from this. The whole function of ground is to shunt electricity some place safe.
The differential setup isolates ground from the signal path and uses it solely for shielding and shunting excess energy.
