mains spur clicks and pops...

Posted by: ken c on 17 January 2002

i had assumed that a mains spur would eliminate those annoying clicks and pops that you hear through speakers whenever the boiler, or fridge, or ... switches, but i can still hear these, even though i have a 6mm (cooker cable) spur. anyone else experience this? i actually have two consumer units, one for the house and the other (6 way) for outhouses and my office, wherein my hifi lives. any experience gratefully received.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 18 January 2002 by Mark Packer
Does your spur have an independent earth spike?

regards,

Mark

Posted on: 18 January 2002 by ken c
Does your spur have an independent earth spike?

no. is this the missing trick?

mark, many thanks for responding.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 18 January 2002 by Alex S.
Strip light starter motors are evil little popping devices.

The N805 tweeters clicked like mad when I revved up the lighting but then settled. When I added two spurs the tweeters got much quieter. Now I've changed speakers the clicks are louder again.

I have only noticed a noise as the lights are fired up, don't know if they degrade sound all the time whilst on. I may start a new 'fakey fart' scandal by a/b-ing lights on/off.

BTW no star earthing.

Alex

Posted on: 18 January 2002 by ken c
quote:
However, none of this will effectively eliminate the clicks and pops you mention, infact it is more than likely to make them more obvious. What you need is a mains suppressor or equivalent to eliminate these noises. Problem is, they usually eliminate the dynamics from the sound at the same time, so its a bit one or the other.

ah, so i guess i was wrong in assuming that a mains spur would eliminate these annoyances. i am not going to buy a mains suppressor as they also serve as very effective music suppressors - as you rightly point out. i hope to get round to installing a proper dedicated hifi mains earth this coming summer.

alex: i too have quote a few fluorescents in the house, but they are on a different (ring) circuit -- and i guess i was assuming that this woul isolate them -- i dont really fully understand this earthing business -- doesnt seem to be any consensus of views -- seems to be an art rather than a science.

mark packer, were you suggesting that a separate earth for my spur would do the trick?

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 18 January 2002 by ken c
If you've (say) a fridge that's creating noise, then fit a cheap mains filter onto this. These filters are available from larger electrical retailers & computer shops - just watch out for the overall power rating.

jamzie, many thanks. will try this. hopefully my spur will not "see" whatever i install. its a bit hard to figure out how this wont affect things when the clicks travel all the way from a fridge (say) on an isolated ring to my sbl's at end of my system on a completely separate spur... phew...

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 18 January 2002 by ken c
richard, many thanks:

Preferably by installing its own consumer unit as the first unit the mains power reaches as it comes into the home.

this sounds like its worth pursuing. i had kind of assumed that if you have more than one consumer unit, they would be "in parallel", so that there is no "first" consumer unit that power reaches as it enters the house -- sounds like i have the wrong model. will check and if there is need for this to be changed in any way, i'll have it changed. what we do for our hifi!!!

I'll be trying all this myself shortly to see how it works and I'll let you know how I get on. Interestingly in my last house I did have the Stereo circuit completely isolated as described above and I never - never - heard any kind of pop/crackle interference from other equipment in the house. So I'm hopeful.

yes, please let us know how you get on. i will also be trying a few things and will report anything significant i find.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 18 January 2002 by JosephR
quote:
Originally posted by lobo:
It seems that you lot are saying noise travels along electrical wirings, but I always thought the click and pops you hear are caused by air-borne RFI generated by other appliances (fridge, flourescent light starters, etc.)? If this is the case, it explains why you still have interferences even if you have a separate hifi spur.
Lobo

From the "Fragrant Harbor" ! You mean flourescent light starter problems are air-borne ?

Anyway, if that's the case, how do you change the fluorescent light starter into something that won't cause problems ? Is there any alternative to them, besides changing the lighting designs ...

Posted on: 19 January 2002 by Michael
I am having a separate spur installed on Monday.
It will have its own dedicated switch box which will be first in line after the meter and before the main house unit. It will have 10mm2 cable into an unswitched MK socket.

I was advised that this was the best way to go about it, rather than run a spur from a spare switch in the main box.

I have to say though, that I get no pops and clicks on my system even now on the ring main... apart from in phono mode using a MM cartridge and then only very slight.

I will do some tests when the new spur is running and let you know.

Posted on: 19 January 2002 by ken c
i think you have a good point on RFI. i suspect that there are several "points of entry" of RFI into a hifi system -- cables acting as aerials, circuits acting as radio transmitters (high bandwidth prefix), the actual mains wiring, and airborne. the trick is to determine the dominant route, (dunno how to do this), but i guess it doesnt do harm to attack on all fronts. my first experiment will be to try a suppressor in the circuit in which the offending applicance is connected -- if this works, it will kind of suggest a significant amount of this noise may be mains borne. i will thererefore install a seperate earth fo my spur, and at the same time, make sure its as isolated as possible.

will report if i stumble on anything significant, but these problems tend to be very specific to location - so my experience may not easily extrapolate.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 19 January 2002 by JosephR
Thanks, Lobo. My first attempt at getting another "dedicated" line has failed because of this. So I'm back to my other "dedicated" line, which is shared with the AV system, and which surprisingly is immune to any clicks and pops, unlike the new one.

I've tried the Audioprism QuietLines. Damn if the dynamics were squashed !

So now, will try to look for the electrician who did my older one ... Michael's solution is something to investigate as well.

BTW, when you said air-borne, I remembered what the new electrician said, that the clicks and pops are airborne and caused by the fluorescent starters. A hifi dealer said it's not ...

[This message was edited by JosephR on SUNDAY 20 January 2002 at 02:15.]

Posted on: 20 January 2002 by Alex S.
So do starter motors cause continuous degradation by their very presence or do they just click as you fire them up?

Alex

Posted on: 20 January 2002 by Steve B
I don’t hear any clicks or pops with my current system. (Except when I’m playing records!) - 3 possible reasons I can think of:

1. My system is in an upstairs room almost directly above the consumer unit. So the cable run to the HiFi is very short. (and doing the separate spur was a doddle smile

2. The 5 series stuff (112/150) is less susceptible than the 3 series.

3. My appliances are well suppressed from causing this type of interference.

Hope this helps.

Steve B

Posted on: 20 January 2002 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by ken c:
i had assumed that a mains spur would eliminate those annoying clicks and pops that you hear through speakers whenever the boiler, or fridge, or ... switches


Ken,

you may be interested to know that my system is giving slightly louder pops and crackles since replacing my NAXO with SNAXO - it seems to be more open to this sort of thing.

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 20 January 2002 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by Jamzie C:
Rather than adding something to supress the problem (ie by fitting a 'hifi' mains filter), it's far better to solve the problem at source. If you've (say) a fridge that's creating noise, then fit a cheap mains filter onto this.


Jamzie,

it doesn't matter where in the circuit you put the filter, it still appears electrically across all items on the ring, and to some extent on other rings, too.

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 20 January 2002 by ken c
Ken,

you may be interested to know that my system is giving slightly louder pops and crackles since replacing my NAXO with SNAXO - it seems to be more open to this sort of thing.

i suppose you are not bothered. i doubt if sound quality is affected at all -- its just annoying to hear these noises every now and then, especially at night when i listen more deeply.

martin, many thanks...

by the way, before i forget, i meant to ask you -- i believe you have a prefix -- how do you have it connected, via hicap to bnc? or via 4 to 5 pin din to one of the high level inputs ? or using 52's power to 52 input 2b. as i have reported before, i find input 2b connected has the least RFI, almost non existent in my room -- i guess i could have got these answers from your profile -- just lazy -- sorry.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 20 January 2002 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by ken c:
martin, many thanks...

No worries.

quote:
by the way, before i forget, i meant to ask you -- i believe you have a prefix

Stageline, actually.

Actually, although I have a demo Stageline S in my system, my spangly new Stageline K should be ready to collect from my dealer next week sometime.

He should have ditched those abhorent phono sockets in favour of BNCs, too!

quote:
-- how do you have it connected, via hicap to bnc?

HiCap to BNC? BNC???

Major loss of FEPs for suggesting a connection strategy which breaks the earthing rules! The two separate cables will form a (small) earth loop.

Also, BNCs are a suitable impedance for a cartridge, not a pre-pre-amp to pre-amp connection. DINs are suitable for this.

On top of this, the signal has to go through straight-through boards, and it's better to go into a hard-wired socket instead.

quote:
or via 4 to 5 pin din to one of the high level inputs ? or using 52's power to 52 input 2b.

HiCap? I wish.

It's powered off input 2b.

Actually, the main reason for getting the Stageline (not including sound quality) was that the double run of cable (arm lead + SNAIC5) lets me get the LP12 much further away from the rest of the system. Big benefits to sound quality from this.

HiCap would help even more here, too. Hmm, or would it? RF is something I don't need.

quote:
as i have reported before, i find input 2b connected has the least RFI, almost non existent in my room

Small amount here with the 'S' model into 2b. We'll have to see with the 'K'.

cheers, Martin

[This message was edited by Martin Payne on MONDAY 21 January 2002 at 02:45.]

Posted on: 22 January 2002 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by Martin Payne:

you may be interested to know that my system is giving slightly louder pops and crackles since replacing my NAXO with SNAXO - it seems to be more open to this sort of thing.


For info, I called Naim about this today, and the SNAXO should be LESS susceptible to this sort of thing.

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 22 January 2002 by ken c
hi martin,

For info, I called Naim about this today, and the SNAXO should be LESS susceptible to this sort of thing.

did you have a chance to ask why? i.e. what have they done to minimize this in snaxo -- an answer to this may help us with insulating our installations against this annoyance.

anyway ...

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 22 January 2002 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by ken c:
did you have a chance to ask why? i.e. what have they done to minimize this in snaxo -- an answer to this may help us with insulating our installations against this annoyance.

Ken,

dunno. I will swap the NAXO back - if it reduces the problem then they have asked me to return the SNAXO for another check-over.

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 23 January 2002 by JosephR
I went to the Russ Andrews website and printed their document on Mains, very enlightening. I will be photocopying it for my electrician, and ask him to set up my "dedicated" line correctly.

Of greatest interest to me was the Electronic Starter to replace the ones currently in my fluorescent lightings. According to them, there is no other way to cure clicks and pops from the starters, except by replacing the starters with electronic ones. This is what I was looking for, and it makes sense, and should not degrade the sound at all. Will be ordering and find out ...

[This message was edited by JosephR on WEDNESDAY 23 January 2002 at 19:39.]

Posted on: 23 January 2002 by ken c
This is what I was looking for, and it makes sense, and should not degrade the sound at all. Will be ordering and find out ...

please let us know...

enjoy

ken