Hope this helps someone with RFI problems


I have been living with a severe RFI, or what I thought was an RFI problem for quite some time. At high volumes, I was able to get an Oldies FM station signal out of my speakers when I listened to vinyl. Moreover, I always thought that the sound was lacking in detail and dynamics.

I tried EVERYTHING. Changed phono stages, bought ferrite clamps, strange paper stuff to put on top of my equipment, cable wraps, I even used tin foil over cabling. Changed the location of my equipment numerous times. Bought new cables, etc. I was even considering selling my tube based system and going solid state.

Some things worked alittle, some were a total waste of money and time. Was eventually able to dampen the radio station but there was still alot of noise. Needless to say I was aggravated.

On a whim, last week I brought an APC Smart-UPS unit home from work and installed it in my system. Turns out, the radio station and all the interferance was actually coming from my AC. My house is one big antenna.

The detail is stunning, dynamics are incredible. The music sounds like music again. Needless to say, I already purchased a PS Audio powerplant to replace the APC UPS unit.

I hope this helps someone with the same type of problems effecting their system. I really could not be any happier right now as I have been trying to get rid of the noise problems for 2 years.

-Rich
rich62

Showing 1 response by atkatana

Have a similar problem but it does not appear to be coming from the AC mains. Long and short, tube based phono pre is the problem. If one holds the wires up and about I can actually tune a fine selection of channels through the speakers, and I mean a clear and listenable section of radio stations . Dedicated AC, line conditioners et all did not do the trick. I have been able to repress the noise to a good degree with ferrite clamps. (5-6 bucks a shot at Radio shack) If you go that route clamp everything.... line in out, power speakers, everything.

I have had a solid state phono pre home and it does make a difference. Not wanting to go that route (I really enjoy the tubes with phono) I am somewhat at a cross roads. I can now listen provided I keep the volume down about 10-20db below where I would like it. Basically records are now at best mostly background music. On my proceed pre if I would normally listen at say a setting of 40, best I can currently do is about 20. Somewhere between 20-40 the hum, crackle and then voices of radio hosts kick back in and its all sorta lost.

Best I have found so far is clamp everything in the chain. All cables, speaker wires etc.... everything. This got me a listening volume between 20-30 on a good day.. a little shy if you want to get into something with a bit of bite, but at least useful. At the moment I am waiting on another Solid state unit to see if I can live with it. I also had a suggestion that I try some tube rolling as some tubes are less prone to RFI then others. Thinking of giving that a shot as well. Was wondering if anyone has any experience with this sort of problem and had any luck with rolling tubes?

After talking to a couple dealers in the area, I got a consistent question about where I live, and unfortunately for me, my little town outside of Philly came up over and over again as a problem area. You know.... that ugly feeling when the third of fourth sales guy in a row says "Do you live in.... town such and such", cause we always have problems there. Wonder if we can get real estate agents to start listing this sort of information for the audiophiles out there that have to live with it. :)