Electrical buzzing sound, or else I'm imagining it

[dogorman]

For about a year now I've either had an intermittent problem or an intermittent psychosis, and it's turning out to be really difficult to tell which one it is:

The sound from my system is often dry, reedy, really unpleasant -- even my girlfriend can hear it -- and the problem seems to be of an electrical nature. There's a sort of a buzzing noise through the upper midrange and low treble -- sort of the audio equivalent of those little trickles we used to see on the television when dad was running the electric carving knife in the next room.

If I experiment with different connections (interconnects, power cables, etc.) I can sometimes -- but not always -- make the sound come booming in, perfect, so there's no possibility at this point that what I'm hearing is speaker damage. The trouble is that the bad sound doesn't always go away when I do this little disconnection routine (I've tried every configuration, scientifically), and it always comes back, no matter what I've swapped.

One other symptom that might be interesting: when I get really lazy in my detective work and start connecting speakers to an already powered-up amp and preamp, I can hear a whisper of cloudy-sounding static, almost like the sound your ear would make if it was full of water. I know a person should never hook speakers to powered-up equipment, but in the past when I've done this incredibly stupid thing I haven't heard any such crackle.

It's not the source because it happens on different sources, and it's not any of the cables because I've switched them all out at least once. It's not RF pollution because I've treated the whole system extensively and, besides, it's in the wrong frequency band.

The mains in my house are NOT grounded, so at this point I'm thinking that it's a buildup of fault energy in the amp or preamp, but why would that affect the sound intermittently, and why only in this very peculiar, difficult-to-pin-down sort of way? Could a "bad cap" be the culprit? Any ideas are appreciated. I don't *think* I'm delusional, because non-audiophile friends can hear the difference, but on the other hand this problem has spanned several configurations of gear.

[RGA]

Well if it affects all components you have tried then it's not a component problem. TV Cable coming into your home could be the culprit but it usually just has a constant hum.

I would suggest getting the power company to come out and check - it's usually free. If not this unit might do the trick - it takes the AC coming into your home - converts to DC and then back to a perfect AC. I think they sell for around $400.00 which is kind of steep and there are higher models. But it has a 30 day trial so might be a last resort for you.

http://www.psaudio.com/products/p300.asp

[basite]

I think they sell for around $400.00 which is kind of steep and there are higher models. But it has a 30 day trial so might be a last resort for you.

http://www.psaudio.com/products/p300.asp

that P300 is good for sources, but it's 300 watt output ain't gonna cut it in a full system.

their power plant premier will do, but it's kinda pricey, as in too damn expensive.


maybe a good filter will do...

have you tried listening at night? sometimes there is less noise on the AC lines then. If you don't (or notably less) experience the problem at night, then it's not in your system at all, but on the AC line, and in that case you'll be needing a filter, or a conditioner. Both can be expensive...

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

[JohnMichael]

I just went to your profile to see a list of components to see if anything might give me a clue but no info. You also say the mains in your house is not grounded and I do not know where that is allowed. The greatest source of low level noise and distortion was from my last integrated amp picking up noise from being plugged into the ground. As soon as I removed the ground plug from my power cord the noise stopped.

[dogorman]

Front ends are Arcam FMJ-CD23 and Oppo DVD player
Preamp is McCormack MAP-1
Amp is McCormack DNA-HT5
Speakers are Linn Ninkas
Interconnects are Blue Jeans LC-1
Speaker Cable is cross-connected coax by Element
no power conditioner because my APC-H15 added too much noise
Significant RF tweaks and d-i-y room treatments, though

As for the mains being grounded or not, or allowed or not, I think the devil's in the details -- some of which I don't know or don't know how to articulate. What I meant was that the three-pin electrical sockets that we're all used to seeing in our houses are also in my house, but may as well not be. The house was built when the old fashion, two-pin system was in use, and the previous owner upgraded the outlets without upgrading the wire. As with many circumstances in old houses, it's not an explicit code violation until you try to hire someone to ignore it while they do some other type of work you need.

[dogorman]

UPDATE:

Last night I went to a friend's house with all of my stuff. The friend's house is relatively new construction in a quiet suburb, far from urban multipaths and overhead wires, and his listening room is carpeted and plushly furnished and big. We dutifully plugged everything in, powered up, dropped in the first disc and....

....and it sounded exactly the same. Terrible.

This experience would seem to suggest that my problem isn't RF pollution or lousy AC main power, or for that matter room acoustics. We experimented a while, at some indeterminate point trying some of his Acoustic Research interconnects, at which point the kind of musuc that the system should be making all the time came roaring in without a hint of buzz or rattle -- as if I'd just bought replacements for everything and put it all together right next to my own rig.

I suppose it's possible that the whole thing will be fixed from this day forward, simply because his cables are more forgiving than mine. Much more likely, it seems to me, is that the problem has something to do with the act of making and breaking the connections. Either there's some sort of fault energy building up in my rig and it's somehow being dissipated by the act of breaking and reestablishing the connections, or there's a cracked connection inside one of the pieces of equipment, or there's some trouble with the terminations on some of my cabling (which is all essentially brand-new, so I want to think this last possibility isn't it).

Any further thoughts, based on this experiment, would be greatly appreciated. My friend bought me two pair of these AR interconnects, on the spot, but I'd be lying if I said that I thought the magic bullet had been uncovered for a total outlay of twenty-four bucks.

[JohnMichael]

Sounds like things are sounding better. The AR IC's are good for the money. Since the problem was now solved with the switching of cables I would tend to think that the Blue Jeans IC's were creating a compatability issue between components. If the cables are fairly new you might want to send them back to Blue Jeans to make sure they are working as designed. A bad solder job can happen in production and that can create problems.

[dogorman]

The only caveat is, the rig has sounded better before too -- and always right after a reconnection.

I'm game to try the AR's (can't beat the price) but I suspect that the problem is either a cracked IC socket or sockets, or perhaps the ungrounded outlet is causing a buildup of fault energy at the point of contact between the sockets and the ICs. Next experiment if the AR's don't permanently do the trick is to scientifically try breaking one set of IC contacts at a time, to isolate.

[Luvin Da Blues]

.....and the previous owner upgraded the outlets without upgrading the wire. As with many circumstances in old houses, it's not an explicit code violation until you try to hire someone to ignore it while they do some other type of work you need.

Not sure of your local codes but up here in Canada this is legal in a retrofit situation as long as the first outlet upstream in the circuit is a GFCI type plug.

[dogorman]

Getting closer!

I just tried this exact sequence, and it worked:

1) I stopped the CD player but did not power off
2) I shut the preamp and power amp off (preamp into "standby")
3) I disconnected the speaker cables at the speakers
4) I disconnected the CD-player from A/C power, and re-established
5) I disconnected CD-player ic's at the CD-player end, and re-established
6) power on the preamp and the power amp (with no speaker connections)
7) reconnect the speakers
8) push "play"... and everything was PERFECT.

....So what does everyone think, now?

[dogorman]

I recently downloaded Ethan Winer's test tones from the RealTraps website to see how much of the problem was real, and how much of it was psychosis.

When playing the 300Hz sine wave I was able to hear a not unpleasant "tubular bells" sort of note, accented by a much drier, less pleasant overtone about a half-step below the main note in pitch -- rather like the sound that animation studios use to simulate a housefly. If I raised the volume, both the tubular-bell note and the overtone would decrease in pitch, and if I lowered the volume they would both increase in pitch (I know that sounds crazy, but I replicated the effect several times).

Also, the overtone briefly got louder if I adjusted the volume in either direction, then returned to its previous volume, relative to the main tone. The effect occurred equally when using my Arcam CD-player or my Oppo DVD player, to play the tone.

My question for the group: is this enough evidence for me to conclude that I'm facing a service issue with the McCormack stuff, or could all of these results be the combined effect of how the test-cd was burned, room interactions, dirty power (specifically, un-grounded outlets), normal performance of the test tones, and unadulterated psychosis, and/or stupidity on the part of the operator?