[Mediahound]

Audiphile cable and power conditioner makers often market that their products help reject EMI and RF interference. Is it really something we need to worry about for audio?

Aside from audio, I'm also wondering about any health affects from EMF from say a small in-wall breaker box in the same room I hang out and that my audio gear is set up in.

How would one even measure these things or test for it?

 

[bigshot]

Ground loops and RF interference aren't generally subtle. If you can't hear them easily, they most likely aren't a problem. This sort of thing would most likely be a problem with computer sources rather than standalone audio components.

I can't help you with the health aspects. That isn't something I worry about.

 

[someguyontheinternet]

Here is a video on this topic including measurements:

 

[bigshot]

I'm not interested in that video, but I will offer a general comment... Remember with speakers you have at least a 35dB noise floor in the room itself. For low level noise in the signal to be audible, it would need to be at a volume that would overpower the room tone. That means that the noise had better be considerably over -45dB, raising peak level a LOT. In a video in my sig, Ethan Winer does an example where he puts a horrible buzzing sound under music and drops it 10dB at a time until it becomes inaudible behind the music. It disappears after -40dB with headphones. You can only hear it in the silent space between songs. So if the silent space between tracks sounds fine, you probably don't have a problem.

RF interference isn't common as long as you use halfway decent cables and don't live near a radio transmitting tower. There's no reason to worry about it unless you can clearly hear noise.