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I've checked the archives for this but haven't been able to find what I'm looking for, so here goes.I'm getting a "hum" in my cable TV/ISP line that is driving me nuts! I have the cable split twice, once when it comes into the house for upstairs/downstairs, and again when I split it for TV and Internet service. The hum occurs ONLY in my two-channel setup (Sonic Frontiers Line1, two Bryston 4B-ST's in dual-mono, etc) which gets the audio feed from my 35" Sony. I've had the cable company out three seperate times to check their cable and installation, but as soon as they see the tubes on my Line1 they point their fingers at it and say all sorts of nasty and derogatory things about my system! If I unplug the cable at the wall, the hum goes away. I have to unplug my cable to watch a DVD and get the sound through my stereo, and I'm tired of this crap!
With the cable disconnected, all is fine. My Bryston's have "ground lifts", and there is no hum in either position with cable unplugged. As soon as I plug in the cable with the ground lifts out, "HUMMMMMMM"! (I've even showed this to the cable guys, but my confidence in them is GONE). I'm not real keen on trying those three-into-two cheater plugs on the preamp to lift the ground,so I'd like to try something different.
Oh yeah, I've tried using a Panamax Surge Protector/Line Conditioner with coaxial feed in's & out's with mixed results. The hum was decreased, not eliminated, and the picture quality went to hell.
I've seen two products that allege to reduce/ remove cable hum. Mondial makes a "Magic Box" and a "Magic Splitter" that they claim will reduce hum, and Tributaries makes a "Ground Guard" that breaks the ground loop by using a transformer to isolate the ground. Both are available from Music Direct, and the Ground Guard is available from Audio Advisor.
Has anybody used either of these products, or something similar, and if so, do they work? If they don't do squat, any other suggestions?
Thanks for your time, everyone, and have a Happy New Year!
Jim
Follow Ups:
First of all, an apology to all who read my earlier post and probably thought I was an idiot! I must have been doing my search in the wrong section of AA 'cuz when I did it again in THIS asylum I found TONS of info on cable induced hum.Next, a Thank You to "Dust Cover" for setting me straight on my mistake, and also offering a solution!
FWIW, the hum is 99% gone, and best of all, the fix was free! After doing alot of archive searching I looked at my cable hookup going into my house. The cable "ground", to use the term loosely, was just a strap around the electrical drop/feed pole on the side of my house, and has about four coats of paint on it. I went to the basement, opened up my electrical panel, found the earth ground wire for my electrcical service and noticed it went outside to a rod stuck into the ground DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH THE CABLE FEED BOX! Well, this was too good to be true! I took about three feet of 12 gauge Romex, stripped it to get the bare ground wire out, and connected it between the cable "ground" and the earth ground, after sanding all connections. Fired up the stereo- NO HUM!
Thanks again, Dust Cover, and to all the previous threads I used to fix this pain-in-the-ass problem!
Their is a product from I believe parts express that does the same thing for less than 20.00 . If you go to the AVS forum and type in words like ground guard or Mondial or ground loop hum, you will find it. I had a friend over the house who is an electrician. We went outside and saw the cable TV ground was hooked up {tied in} to the electrical ground of my house. He took a cheap Radio Shack ground rod, attached the cable ground to it {so it was completely seperated from my electrical ground} stuck the pole in the ground and the hum was gone forever. Took about 2 minutes.
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