How noisy is my line? Audio Prism Noise Sniffer


A friend and audio journalist had this Prism device, and he plugged it into various outlets when I visited him. It gave a clear sense of which outlets were noisy and how effectively his conditioners were helping with noise.

 

He said these were not made any longer. Does anyone know of another tool like this?

It seems like it could save someone with clean power (or a quiet outlet) a lot of money from conditioners/regenerators which would not necessarily help.

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Showing 1 response by mijostyn

Audio electronics do not run on 110 volts AC. They run on DC from 5 volts on up. The job of any well designed power supply is to filter out all AC and regulate the supplied DC voltage accurately.  If any "noise" (which is AC) gets through sell it and get a piece with a decent power supply. 

Having said that there are instances were filtering can make a difference. As an example, the high voltage power supplies that charge the diaphragm of electrostatic loudspeakers is very simple. There is no current involved. It uses a step up transformer to get to 250 volts AC then a voltage amplifier of serial diodes and caps to get to 6000 volts. Any noise online might be amplified in the process and affect the diaphragm's performance.