FallenAngel
Headphoneus Supremus
Hey guys,
I just "finished" my big amp - CKK-III PreAmp, GainClone amp, AlienDAC and source selector all in a single chassis with the transformers.
After dealing for a long time with noise issues from the AlienDAC - specifically, the speakers make noise when I work on the computer. For example, I open a web browser which takes a quarter of a second and I will hear a little buzzing noise from the speakers.
I have the chassis earth grounded. All of the components (even the AlienDAC) are also grounded to the chassis through their own ground loop breakers, all tied together into a star. The ground loop breakers consists of a 10 Ohm / 5W wirewound resistor in parallel with a 0.1uF film X-type capacitor rated at 250VAC as amb suggested in his site under "Wiring & ground".
Still all this grounding did nothing to remove the noise from the speakers.
Then I did something that worked which I can't explain. I removed the star ground from the chassis and the noise went away! Why is this so? I can definitely say I'm happy with it, but I just don't understand why this happened. Any ideas?
There is still a slight hum from the speakers when nothing is playing, but it is so quiet that I have to have my ear right up against the speaker to hear it. I'm fine with it, but of course will be playing with the grounding more to figure out what I can do to fix this last bit. Probably I'll start connecting/disconnecting components one by one in hopes that it gets resolved.
So, any ideas why disconnecting the grounds from the chassis fixed my AlienDAC noise? Oh, and just to notify, I had this AlienDAC feeding many headphone amps without noticing any noise, it's only with this monstrous all-in-one-box thing that I've noticed any noise.
Thanks
I just "finished" my big amp - CKK-III PreAmp, GainClone amp, AlienDAC and source selector all in a single chassis with the transformers.
After dealing for a long time with noise issues from the AlienDAC - specifically, the speakers make noise when I work on the computer. For example, I open a web browser which takes a quarter of a second and I will hear a little buzzing noise from the speakers.
I have the chassis earth grounded. All of the components (even the AlienDAC) are also grounded to the chassis through their own ground loop breakers, all tied together into a star. The ground loop breakers consists of a 10 Ohm / 5W wirewound resistor in parallel with a 0.1uF film X-type capacitor rated at 250VAC as amb suggested in his site under "Wiring & ground".
Still all this grounding did nothing to remove the noise from the speakers.
Then I did something that worked which I can't explain. I removed the star ground from the chassis and the noise went away! Why is this so? I can definitely say I'm happy with it, but I just don't understand why this happened. Any ideas?
There is still a slight hum from the speakers when nothing is playing, but it is so quiet that I have to have my ear right up against the speaker to hear it. I'm fine with it, but of course will be playing with the grounding more to figure out what I can do to fix this last bit. Probably I'll start connecting/disconnecting components one by one in hopes that it gets resolved.
So, any ideas why disconnecting the grounds from the chassis fixed my AlienDAC noise? Oh, and just to notify, I had this AlienDAC feeding many headphone amps without noticing any noise, it's only with this monstrous all-in-one-box thing that I've noticed any noise.
Thanks