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Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 09:47 PM
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I recently was looking at the Audio Asylum site for additional tweaks to my home theater system and came across using short pieces of copper tubing to shield the ends of your AC power cords from RF/EMI radiation. As we all know, having RF or EMI radiation entering your system creates a harshness to the sound with your digital sources. So going to my local hardware store, I found short pieces of copper tubing called copper unions to help cover the IEC and AC male plugs of my power cords. Make sure to install the copper unions touch the backs of your components to ensure coverage to protect the ends of your power cords. If your system is like mine, you will immediately notice a better balance in sound, especially with bass, a greater sense in imaging and a darker background. Luckily, purchasing these copper unions is inexpensive and if you go to Home Depot or Lowe's, they have a liberal return policy if they don't work for you. I would suspect if you use fully shielded connectors and power cords, the copper unions probably won't work for you.
You can experiment using a non-contact voltage tester to determine RF or EMI issues in your system. I purchased a Greenlee GT-16 tester from my local Lowe's and chased each power cord in my system. Installing the copper unions eliminated the RF/EMI that the tester found in my system. Overall I have been quite happy with my tweaked system. Using the copper unions turned out to be a very inexpensive option that returned big returns in my enjoyment of my home theater system. You should give this tweak a try. I think you would be pleasantly surprised like I was. |
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