Small Buzz still audible in speaker.... JC1's ?

[neverwouldof]

Is it possible that JC1's are producing a small amout of buzz/hiss in speakers when volume is all the way down? I have everything hooked up to HTPS 7000 sig. series conditioner. But still getting a slight amount of noise. Buzz not audible at 5 feet. Is it normal to always have some noise in speakers when amps are on and 1-2 feet away from speaker? When i hit the mute button on C1 processor it disappears. Conditioner is hooked up to dedicated 20 amp outlet. The issue comes when rear surround is on and seating is 4-5 feet away from surrounds and buzz can be heard. That is the farthest away the speakers can be placed. Peter... you have nine... any buzz at 2 feet?

Thanks for any help.....

Keith in Sunny (and warm) Florida

[mitch57]

It sounds like you may have a ground loop issue. Do you have a cable or SAT box connected to your system? If so you can try unplugging the coax from your box and see if the sound goes away. You can also try touching a piece of ground wire from a screw on your SAT/Cable box and then touching it to once of the screws on your JC1.

I had a severe ground loop issue after I switched from Dish to Direct TV. I connected a ground wire from my Tivo DVR to my Halo A51 and it completely silenced the buzz.

You might also try using a cheater plug AS A TEST ONLY! I wouldn't recommend using one as a permenant solution.

There are numerous posts on this forum that relate to your problem. Do a search on "Buzz/Hum and you should find several posts on the problem.

Let us know what you find out.

[Peter Nielsen]

Is it possible that JC1's are producing a small amout of buzz/hiss in speakers when volume is all the way down?

First, make sure that the "balanced/unbalanced" switch on the back is in the correct position. If it's in the wrong position, then there is audible hiss.

Another possiblilty is that you hear the background noise because you have speakers with abnormally high efficiency (close to 100dB/1W/1meter).

Are you using XLRs? If so, try using RCA to see if this helps.

Peter

[J.H.]

I had hum/buzz in my system and Parasound told me to turn the gain controls down some on the amp and it went away instantly. What he said was my speakers are so sensitive [92db] they are picking up sound from the amp. So we turned it down some and problem gone. J.H.

[psychdoc]

I feel like I also need to ask about the possibility of a cable box being present in the mix. I also had a buzz until a small cheap filter (vrd 1ff) was attached to the coax cable prior to entering into my AVS 2000 which is then fed into the HTPS 7000. Once the filter was attached, BINGO....no more buzz.

But, you mention you can get rid of it by hitting mute. So this might not be a problem. Play with the connections and settings until you isolate the problem. Good luck.

[Peter Nielsen]

I had hum/buzz in my system and Parasound told me to turn the gain controls down some on the amp and it went away instantly. What he said was my speakers are so sensitive [92db] they are picking up sound from the amp. So we turned it down some and problem gone. J.H.

FYI, the JC-1 does not have a gain control.

RCA has 4dB less gain than XLR, which is why using RCA might help to some extent...

Peter

[neverwouldof]

Cable box is unplugged

I had the cable line from wall going through the monster conditioner before unplugging. It is still the same when plugged in or completely unplugged. The conditioner helps but still has that slight buzz. Should it be completely silent if you have volume turned down all the way? If i turn off C1 processor and amps still haven't shut off yet... the buzz does go away. So my guess is it is something with wiring around the Processor possibly interconnects which are XLR 110ohm Have,Inc 10ft cables. Even when i first received cables and ran one amp to one speaker with everything seperated i still had small hum. I'm going to pull out C1, Denon, JC1, and speaker into middle of room with no wires crossing all hooked up to conditioner and start from there. If that doesn't work i'll use them all as anchors in my lake.

Venting.... Monster HTPS 7000 sig series $1499 retail is supposed to help this problem...correct? Guess they have very good advertising skills and i'm a sucker.

[neverwouldof]

meant to say

My question meant to say.... Should the speaker be completely silent when volume is turned down all the way?

Keith

[neverwouldof]

FYI, the JC-1 does not have a gain control.

RCA has 4dB less gain than XLR, which is why using RCA might help to some extent...

Peter

Peter, I did try to use some decent quality RCA's and the buzz actually increased.

Keith

[Peter Nielsen]

My question meant to say.... Should the speaker be completely silent when volume is turned down all the way?

Ideally, it should.

In the real world this is not always possible.

My Magnepans are dead silent with the JC1s. You can put the ear to the speaker and still don't hear any buzz/hiss. However, they are also extremely inefficient speakers @ 85dB/1W/1m

Oh, BTW, do you hear a BUZZ or a HISS? If you hear a buzz (60Hz), then you probably have a ground loop problem. If you hear a hiss, then it's a gain problem.

Peter

[Peter Nielsen]

When i hit the mute button on C1 processor it disappears.

Keith, I re-read your original post and noticed the statement above.

NO! THIS IS NOT NORMAL!

Since hitting the mute button stops the buzz, you can probably rule out the JC1s, speakers and preamp<->JC1 interconnects.

The problem is probably a ground loop of some sort between your preamp and source.

When thinking about what you say about RCA's between the preamp and JC1s increasing the buzz, it's very clear that you have a ground loop problem. RCAs will often make an existing ground loop problem much worse than what XLRs will exhibit.

Try using a cheater plug on your source equipment. To examine the problem, first unplug all source (and video) equipment from the C1, leaving just your power amps plugged into it. Can you hear the buzz now? (I hope not! If you can, then add a cheater plug to your C1 and try again).

Assuming that there is no buzz with no source connected to the C1, then start by plugging in ONE SINGLE source and see if that one works with the cheater plug. If it does, then try to remove the cheater plug. If it doesn't work, then that device is the problem and you need to use a cheater plug (or ungrounded cord) with it. If it still works without the cheater plug, then try adding one device after the other until the problem appears. When the problem reappears you have located the culprit! Divide and conquer always works, although it gets a bit tedious at times :T

I might state the obvious, but did you try to flip the JC1 ground switches to "lift"? (This probably won't help, since it sounds like your ground problem is with a source component...)


Peter

[neverwouldof]

yes flipped to lift...

Thanks for all of your good information Peter. I will try the cheater plug like you said (have to figure out what that is first). I also noticed i nice buzz from my circuit breaker panel in my garage.... wondering if i should start looking into that as well. Brand new house of 2004 with 200 amp service. I will update once i get it all pulled apart again (really looking forward to dayoff now...not). Thanks everybody for your 2 cents... all good info!

Keith

[Peter Nielsen]

I will try the cheater plug like you said (have to figure out what that is first).

See picture. Costs around 98 cents from your local Lowe's Hardware or Home Depot.

The functional idea is that it breaks the connection for the third pin (ground). The adapter in the image has a spade connector that lets you do (whatever) with the ground. This spade is probably useless, and if you find an adapter without it, it will work just as well!



Peter