Grounding and Audio Equipment / Static
- Thread starter cyriousn
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chris kennedy
Senior Member
- Location
- Miami Fla.
- Occupation
- 60 yr old tool twisting electrician
Paging Doctor Fine, Doctor Fine.
walkerj
Senior Member
- Location
- Baton Rouge
Does your stereo have a 3-prong plug?
zbang
Senior Member
- Location
- Roughly 5346 miles from Earls Court
Grounding usually won't reduce static, just hum. If you're using a radio, a better antenna would help.
LarryFine
Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
- Location
- Henrico County, VA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
(In my deepest Lurch voice: ) You rang?
Cy, there is no one single answer. It depends on, among other things, what you mean by static. Intermittent buzzes or a steady hum? Any noise bars in the TV picture?
Jason's question is a good one, as is whether you have a cable or satellite tuner, or a powered subwoofer. PM me for my number if you wish. Talking is faster than typing.
What is going on is that I am playing music off of my desktop computer which has a three prong on it along with my monitor. I guess that is the only thing that is ungrounded because my turntables, mixer, and stereo all only have two prongs on them. But since the computer is the source of my music and the external sound card I use is powerd via a usb port on my computer, could not grounding the computer really effect the sound quality?
Steady Hum is what I am getting. Maybee its just the quality of my stereo, it's nothing special thats for sure. Could speaker wire have something to do it with also?
Steady Hum is what I am getting. Maybee its just the quality of my stereo, it's nothing special thats for sure. Could speaker wire have something to do it with also?
Speedskater
Senior Member
- Location
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Occupation
- retired broadcast, audio and industrial R&D engineering
Lots of audio and video units are manufactured with two prong cords and they don't have static. The third prong is for safety. However the units that do have that third wire do add a ground-loop factor to the system.
all you should need to do is purchase a ground loop isolator, you can find them with a 3.5 stereo to female rca ends. or some come with rca's on both ends. I use these when I DJ.
Another option is to purchase an audio card which has either a FiberOptic output or a Digital SPDIF output ( orange connector ). sound blaster products has a few proven to be reliable. and affordable.
depending on the age of the audio equipment you are connecting too, I have seen people toast sound cards when connecting them directly from computer to sound equipment with chassis bonding causing voltage to flow to the sound card from the equipment.
if audio / video is being played from your machine on a regular basis , i would invest in a good sound card and isolator, or go digital output to sound equipment.
have a good week.
Another option is to purchase an audio card which has either a FiberOptic output or a Digital SPDIF output ( orange connector ). sound blaster products has a few proven to be reliable. and affordable.
depending on the age of the audio equipment you are connecting too, I have seen people toast sound cards when connecting them directly from computer to sound equipment with chassis bonding causing voltage to flow to the sound card from the equipment.
if audio / video is being played from your machine on a regular basis , i would invest in a good sound card and isolator, or go digital output to sound equipment.
have a good week.
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