annoying buzz from home ent. system

[dave123]

I have an annoyying buzz comming through my speakers, which intensifies when there is no sound. I figure this is 60 cycle hum or something similar, as my guitar does the same thing.

Everythings (the tv, the satelite, the dvd player) audio output is attached to my reciever. all the electrical plugs and coaxil cables go through the Belkin PureAV.

Anyways, i have been trying to fix it relentlesy. I reconnected everything to make sure every connection was rock solid, i bought a belkin PurAV in hopes it would filter out the noise. It did to a small extent, but its still getting a lot of feedback when the satelite input is on (ie i am watching satelite)

I have no idea what to do, i know little about speakers and home stereos. I am thinking of getting a specialist to come in and fix it.

[ctown6412]

You are going to need to do it step by step to find where that ground loop is coming from as it could be ANYTHING as you alread know. This post is rather piece meal but theres just so many possiblities so I will generalize a bit.

Look at what other electronic devices are hooked into the power circuit that your stereo is on. There are lots of electronics that can cause interference to your power system such as Cordless phone station,wireless network base station, microwave, florescent lights, clock radios, etc, so your problem might not be releated to your theater equipment.

You can try to disconnect all your equipment and hook it up one by one. If you have no noise with just the reciever then work your way up your component rack untill the sound starts and you will have found the source.(unhooking includes removing the power to each component as well)
Turn the volume up fairly loud on the reciever when nothing is hooked up and see if you can hear even a faint hum.(possibly its the reciever thats got a problem.

But before you start the above I would first concentrate on that satellite.
You may need to ground your dish or replace the switch on the dish. (the coax going to the dish does carry voltage to control the LNB so since you say when the satellite is on it causes more problems it makes sense to start there.

Unplug then sat stb and see what happens to the system
If you unhook the satellite lnb line from the sat stb does the noise go away?
If so then look at the dish,lnb,cable run,phone line, or switch as possible culprits.
Then work your way thru that sat stb, unhook phone, and coax

We could give you hundreds of ideas but start with the basics first and see what happens. Piece by piece is the way to go and work your way "out" from the reciever.

Ground loops or "humming" can be VERY frustrating but its usually something pretty simple in the end.
JUST BE PATIENT!

Good luck and if you have questions and need something clairfied just ask!

[dave123]

i'm not home till sunday or monday, But i'm gonna start at square one...I really can't wait to fix the problem though none of my friends seem to notice (care). Of course they all go home and watch 27" monitors, so why complain.

I have a wireless modem about 15ft from the home entertainment setup. Should i move it farther?

[ctown6412]

You can try unplugging that wireless route and see if its the cause. That would be a nice easy solution. I just hope it does to turn out to be a really easy fix but I do have my doubts.

"though none of my friends seem to notice (care). " Yeah my wife is the same when when I complain about motion artifacts or if im in the wrong surround setting she just rolls her eyes but its these little things that can drive a guy nuts!

[dawtcalm]

is it the same for different inputs to your receiver?
What volume do you have the receiver at? If it's pretty high you'll get buzz too, if possible up the volume of the input device so that the receiver doesn't have to also up the volume which will affect the quality...

[dave123]

Just rewired everything...clipped the speaker cable wires expose part to length. They were an inch long and i took them down to about a cm. Seems to have solved the problem. I also added paradigms to the rear. Sounds sick now...thanks guys.

just waiting for fs to deliver my tv for the 4th time...till then, i will have to listen to my dvds :P

[Superchunk]

Originally Posted by dawtcalm

is it the same for different inputs to your receiver?
What volume do you have the receiver at? If it's pretty high you'll get buzz too, if possible up the volume of the input device so that the receiver doesn't have to also up the volume which will affect the quality...

Since his problem is solved, I'll piggy-back onto this thread.

.com - why do you ask about the different inputs? Because I'm having the exact same problem, but I'm getting an extremely loud (full volume) hum from my subwoofer. I have only narrowed it down to knowing that it only does this on digital and pro-logic, but not on stereo (although the sub is still being used on stereo).

I'll go now and try to narrow down things a bit. I have a wireless router nearby, and a wireless phone, and just about everything else. I tried unplugging those two items to no avail.

Any ideas as to why it would only be on digital and prologic and not stereo?