60 Cycle hum and HumX

I feel your pain! I also have "audionervousa" Just relax and enjoy the music. For what its worth, a friend of mine who has a VERY expensive system uses the HumX on his Conrad Johnson Act2 MKII preamp to get rid of minor hum and did not notice any loss of SQ.

I read all of the discussion forums on this problem and finally purchased a $.78 3 prong to 2 prong converter to isolate the ground and diagnose. Diagnosed, I then disassembled the male portion of the Hubbell, disconnected and curled back the ground. The other two wire are WELL insulated up into plastic housing so no chance of cross connection.

Problem completely solved. Re-plugged in power cord (which now sounds much better without 3-2 prong converter) and I'm on MY way. Others warned of electrical safety so you might read those also.

I looked at the HumX descriptions on the Ebtech site, and it's not clear to me what its design is internally. The product description just talks vaguely about filtering the ground line.

That said, I can't envision any way in which it could be hurting your sound quality, given that it improves your hum situation.

Please note though that their product description sheets caution against using the HumX with power strips, and say in one place that its total current rating is 10 amps (amperes, not amplifiers :) ), and in another place (the document under "downloads") 15 amps. I hope your power amp is not too high powered, and I would look carefully at how much current your system would draw at full power, and leave some margin relative to the lower number (10 amps).

If it turns out that your total current draw is close to 10 amps (or more), try placing the HumX on individual component power cords, one at a time, and maybe you'll be able to achieve comparable results that way.

Regards,
-- Al