Slight buzz through speakers

You have a cable box. What company do use for cable service? I have found that conventional cable causes RFI hum that is impossible to eliminate. There are two ways to fix this problem:

1) Hire a service that uses light to conduct the signal, like Verizon FIOS. The FIOS signal is clean because it is carried by light up to your home. Light signals do not cause RFI. Once it reaches your home, the light signal is converted and runs through CAT 5 cable. This short run does not result in RFI. When I switched to Verizon FIOS many years ago, I was shocked when the faint hum was completely eliminated.

2) Another option: Get rid of cable service and use exclusively streaming for content. This will eliminate cable RFI as long as you don’t hook any of your equipment to conventional cable.

3) I have found that the expensive,’high end’ fancy looking power line and cable filters are totally useless. The best way to clean up your power line is to hire a master electrician to install dedicated lines for your audio/video system. You might be surprised to find it is not significantly more expensive than the useless high end filters that are marketed today. This is a permanent simple solution that won’t break down, become out-dated, does not require updates and does not take up rack space or floor space.

4) Hum can also be caused by poor, loose connections and/or old, frayed cables. But, in my experienced, I have found the the cable source was always the worse offender for hum, interference, RFI.

5) In conclusion, I bet most of the hum is from cable, not the power lines. Here is a simple test: disconnect cable from all of your equipment. If the hum disappears, you have identified the culprit.

6) One last thought: The hum may be due to a noisy transformer in the new McIntosh. If that is the case, that is the way they are made, unfortunately. If you feel the sound/performance is not significantly better that the Marantz, return it and get your money back.

6) GOOD LUCK! Let me know if this works!

The RCA cables are worth a try, but I doubt that will make a difference.

The third prong in the plug is the ’ground’ which can pick up RFI. This can be defeated with a two prong plug converter.

Sometimes there is a hum in standby, but it clears up when content is played.

If the McIntosh has a noisy transformer, nothing will eliminate the hum. Try putting your ear to the unit while it is turned on, with no content playing in a very quiet room. Better yet, if you have access to a good stethescope, use the stethescope to listen for hum coming from the unit. If you hear a slight hum coming from the unit, it has a noisy transformer. If that’s the case, they are probably all made that way.

If you like the new McIntosh better than your old Marantz, try calling Marantz technical support for additional ideas. With or without hum, it should out-perform the old Marantz by a significant margin to justify the cost.