Krell KSA 200s ground hum


I picked up this amp a week ago and I REALLY like it. When I first plugged it in with nothing attached except speakers it was silent. Like small hiss from an inch away but one of the more silent pieces I have had. As soon as I hooked up an rca from my preamp there it was. Loud ground hum. So right now I have floated the ground with cheater plugs on everything in the chain. Silence all is good with the cheater plugs and the system sounds great. If I take the cheater plug off of any of the 5 pieces in the chain it’s back! All same outlet and dedicated 10 gage line. I mean I’m “ok” with the cheater plugs if need be but…….. any ideas? 

mofojo

Showing 1 response by panzrwagn

Earth ground vs. chassis ground. Uck. 

Back in the 70s Yamaha made a revolutionary pro live sound mixer called the PM-1000. Very clever audio design and totally modular so any of the 16, 24, or 32 input channel cards could be serviced separately. Cool. But, earth ground and chassis ground were separate, and ground from the mics brought in on Pin 1 through the modules then to earth. A floating ground. Not only was this hum-prone, if a grounded mic case ever contacted a hot AC source (it happens) it would blow every ground trace off every module on its way to earth ground. After having to same-day air freight ($$$$) an entire 32-ch mixer in a 3' X 6' road case yhalf way across the country to save a sold out 20,000 seat show, lesson learned. I was one a a small handful of techs in the country who was allowed to go in and modify the PM-1000s by building a proper ground bus on the inputs before anything could get to the modules. Looks like Krell may have made a similar design choice/mistake. That grounding scheme only works when everything else also has a floating ground. And that's a big assumption. If an upstream connection earth-grounds Pin 1, you have an instant ground loop, and a differential impedance which means voltage, which means hum.