Obnoxious Ethernet Powerline Devices

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Have to share with the community the final resolution of a frustrating effort to eliminate noise in my analog front end. For more than a year I had been struggling with a persistent issue of raspy low level hum and strange, seemingly random popcorn noise in my phono stage. I tried every combination of grounding approach between my equipment I could think of but beyond a certain point just couldn’t lower the noise floor further. Enough I told myself! I finally systematically unplugged every device regardless of what it was sharing the same AC circuit as my rack one by one and tested.

Viola! The culprits turned out to be two TP-Link powerline adapters I had been using for networking. I unplugged both and poof, beautiful silence from my phono stage. I use a Furman SPR 20i AC regenerator for power conditioning. It’s obvious these powerline adapters emit back on the AC circuit hash so intense it can get past heavy duty power conditioning. Both are now in the trash and I’m going hardwired point-to-point networking from now on. I can’t imagine how many of my other electronic components (e.g. video) were being assaulted by the noise these adapters produce.

Not sure how many of you have struggled with the same problem or how many of you are using powerline adapters, but if what I’ve discovered is any indication get those devices off your AC circuit!

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Very interesting as a number here have used such adapters and have reported enjoying great results.

They have always made me conceptually uncomfortable so I have never been tempted to use them.

Great job isolating the problem.

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The damn things ought to be illegal. The have, amongst many other issues, made short wave radio virtually unusable in most urban areas, let alone the audio mess they cause on vulnerable devices.
I dislike them strongly!!
:slight_smile:.

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I use Powerline adapters and have had no problematic results. They are always on a circuit, that has nothing to do with my main audio lines. All of my wall warts are isolated. The Audio lines are a separate circuit and that circuit is on a different phase of my household power. You run into real problems in high rises when other people plug in their powerline adapters.

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I have had success and have had problems. They are a last resort device in my book.

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