I purchased 5 Noise Harvesters for my hifi/home theater/living room and spread them around to various outlets. All 5 lit up like Christmas trees with constant blinking. Wow! I haven’t had a time to run a lot of tests, but I do seem to hear a difference. Even my wife commented. I’m still getting a hum thru at least the L/C/R though (although I did not expect the Harvesters to correct that).
In any event, a few questions for the experts:
(1) Apparently my power is very noisy/dirty, where do I go from here to clean it up and lower my noise floor?
(2) I’ve still got some outlets in the room that are not covered, is it worth buying even more Harvesters?
(3) In a dark room, the constant blue blinking is a distraction - OK to cover the light with electrical tape?
(4) I’ve tried unplugging devices to see if the hum goes away, but it doesn’t seem to work. Any thoughts on how to address that issue?
Thanks in advance! Love the Harvesters so far - my initial reaction is they are well worth the price.
Certainly alright to cover them with electrical tape. Won’t change a thing.
More Harvesters will help but unfortunately their imanpact is one of diminishing returns by number. i.e. 1 helps a lot, 2 twice as much, but then it takes 4 to reproduce, then 8 etc. It can get out of hand and expensive quickly.
I would start to think about a Power Plant if you cv
If you’re running a cable box, try disconnecting it from the system. either disconnect the HDMI out to your system or disconnect the coax going to the cable box itself. Turning the unit off or disconnecting the power cable from it did nothing. The hum was caused from the coax coming into the house. This alone just might eliminate your hum issue.
I had this same exact issue several times in different variations of my system, and every time, it was the stupid cable box causing the issue, well the coax coming into the house anyway. What I did to solve the issue was connect said coax cable into my APC H15 power conditioner first, then out of that into the cable box. The APC removed the hum completely.
A couple years ago, we went one further step and canceled our cable subscription complete and got rid of the box. If we want to watch anything these days, we just fire up the Roku.
Anyway, like I said, IF you are running a cable box, that just may be causing your hum issue.
I too think it could possibly be hum from the cable into the house. If you discern that to be the case, there are filtered you can purchase that will eliminate it. . . just add the filter and another short length of coaxial cable.
At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious, your next step is to isolate the hum. Once you are sure of the culprit, then you can take steps. I would not spend significant cash on a regenerator or power conditioner until you know what you are dealing with. Do some “googling” on how to conduct the search. Good luck.
I agree with Scott1, FIRST find and eliminate the source of that hum. Hopefully a relatively inexpensive fix. I was lucky not having hum in my listening room/system/office.
In my experience I first experimented with 5 noise harvesters and they would blink a lot, especially when my oil furnace fired up. At the same time, added a PSA Detect and noticed some improvement in sound quality.
I later added a dedicated 20 amp circuit. ($800) to serve the stereo system only. To save, we ran the wire conduit outside the wall. We may eventually cover it with wood fascia. I noticed some more improvement in sound quality, so worth the expense.
This is the order of cleaning your electric that you should take. Now the NR in my old circuit still blink a lot; but the ones on the dedicated circuit rarely blink, except while the oil furnace fires.
BTW I do want to buy an expensive PSA regenerator. Currently with my system’s good sound quality, I am not ready to add this component. At a cost of 5K to 10K, I mention this last, because after you solve your hum problem, you may not want to spend any more. Admittedly, they are very expensive; but if you do, one nice feature of the PSA regenerators is that you get a 30 day trail at no charge. If not happy, just return and thank Paul.
If you haven’t already searched the PSA forum for discussions, there are many good ones covering dedicated circuits and regenerators. Paul has a couple on “Ask Paul”/utube.
My house is new construction (built a year and a half ago). I had the builder add a dedicated 20A line that I’m using. There is also a 15A shared line that is in use. In all honesty, when I wired everything up I had not thought about isolating the audio to the dedicated 20A. I had ordered the extra line as I was afraid all the components and eventual power amps would draw too much power in addition to an electric fire place that draws 12A in the same room. Now being better educated, I need to consider re-wiring all the power.
If you have a Electrical Metallic Tubing (EMT - conduit) system, it’s easy to re-wire. Most likely you have Romex, otherwise known by its NEC classification as NM cable. Much more difficult to re-wire. If you can, just use the dedicated 20A cct. You’re golden!
Back to your hum, this is a wild guess on my part because, I know nothing of your house, set up etc. But that electric fire place, have you been able to test to see if that is the source of hum? Turn off all the circuits at your main panel for a couple minutes, if possible, except your listening room, what happens to the hum?
Also write up a list of your components and electrical appliances on the circuits in your listening room. Some of the forum readers may be of help.
Is it a white noise hum or a low frequency (mains) hum?
Is hum getting louder with volume or stays same regardless of volume knob?
Is any equipment using tubes/valves?
I guess I was in-artfully calling it a “hum”, it’s really more of a “buzz”.
Haven’t tested with respect to loudness specifically, but will do so. It is not so loud or obnoxious (or present) that I sense it while music/shows are playing, except to the extent that my Atmos in-ceiling speakers are silent while there is sound in L/C/R.
No tubes/valves.
Equipment:
KEF R11 towers, matching center
All surrounds and Atmos heights are in-ceiling KEF Ci200THX
Marantz SR7012 AVR
Parasound A23+ to power L/R
If there is no source audio being played (i.e. AVR and amp are on), there is a buzz throughout all the speakers. It is more audible in L/C/R such that you get a distinct “buzz” sound.
If a source is playing, I don’t notice the buzz coming through L/C/R. I also don’t notice it much in the in-ceiling speakers, unless there is absolutely no content there, then you can hear it. With in-ceiling speakers, I just think it’s not as audible as the L/C/R firing it right at you.
To diagnose the hum/buzz unplug each source one at a time until the hum /buzz goes away. Make sure you do not have the receiver input selector on the source you are unplugging.
If the hum/buzz does not go away, then turn off your receiver and Parasound amp, then disconnect them from each other. Turn them back on individually. If one still hums/buzzes, it is probably broken and needs to be fixed. If they both hum/buzz, then it might be something else in your house.
Electronic ballasts for florescent lights can cause hum.
If the Parasound and Marantz hum when connected to each other, they may not be compatible.
My guess is going to be; the source of the hum is one of your video components, most likely the television or a cable/satellite receiver.