We use a whole house humidifier in the winter made by AirCare. I think it was around a couple of hundred dollars 2 years ago when I bought it. This puts around 5 gallons of water daily in the air. In my upstairs room, the humidity right now is 27% and on the main floor of our home where the humidifier is located, the humidity is 50%.
Since using this, I have no static problems. I used to get a static shock often before and my fingernails would get brittle and split. Not anymore.
Static electricity and my Denafrips do not get along
I’ve never had this problem before on other gear but my Pontus 2 freaked out when I touched it last 2 nights. When I touch it lights fade and music fades out. Take my hand off and all goes back to normal. It has gone into stand by mode by its self. It has not done any damage it sounds fine and plays well.
It has been cold and using fireplace both times it happened. After looking back I had shoes on both time if that matters. I’m going barefoot now. I did pull out my static wrist tether haven’t used it yet but I am a little paranoid don’t want to fry it. Do I really need to resort to a tether in the winter a little extreme!
I did remember the ddc going into Pontus had its ground plug removed in its power cord to solve a turntable ground loop problem from a while back. I forgot that cord was in there. I removed that cord and put in better power cord. Not sure is that could cause a problem.
Anyone experience what I have with static and how do you address this issue. I did contact Denafrips and was told to touch unit before pushing buttons. I was told this long ago and always touch chassis before pushing buttons. That’s what caused the problem touching the chassis.
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I’d get a room humidifier and leave it on set it to 55% humidity, and when you’re ready to listen just turn it off. I use this one that works well and is cool air so very energy efficient… Get these filters — getting two sets of two filters is cheaper (the unit uses two filters), and you have another pair on hand when needed. I’ve been using this for over 10 years and still works great. Hope this helps, and best of luck. |
oddioftl, I like that were did you find earth ground? I saw a guy on you tube use a computer power cord and used the barrel plug that goes in the computer as a ground to hold onto, not sure if that would work. Thanks milpai, I tried touching wall last night and it shorted out dac
soix, stereo5, not sure if I want to deal with a humidifier but if all else fails I will do it. |
I used to own a Classe amp and preamp where I would get a pretty good static shock when I touched them in the winter time. The preamp would go into protection mode and shut down. My solution was to touch the nearby fireplace tools first, and get my "shock" there. I also tried zapping the preamp with an old Zerostat gun and that seemed to help. I replaced the Classe separates with a Musical Fidelity integrated amp and I don't seem to have the problem anymore. |
oddiofyl, I ripped apart some Romex I had laying around and ran some bare copper wire out a window and clamped it to a water faucet in the back yard. Ran it behind rack along the wall between molding and carpet behind curtains and out window you can’t even see it.
I can now touch Pontus without fear of damage. Thanks everyone |
Carlsbad2, that’s what I thought too, I thought about taking the hot and neutral and breaking pins off on a power cord and only using ground in the wall and a while coming off iec outlet on cord but wasn’t sure if that was a good way to go. Or just going into unused ground in the outlet/wall.
soix, wire is sitting in a hole under a brass footer for now. I plan on building a plate if I keep it this way. This was a fast solution only took 10 minutes. At least a solution because when you see your dac’s lights fade and music disappearing it’s a bad feeling. Dac becomes a boat anchor. |
@paulcreed You could plug a speaker banana into the ground pin only and don’t bother with the 2 pins that provide power. |
Carlsbad2, solder a banana on to my solid core wire and cram it into an outlet is a smart idea may go with that one, I think I have old cheap Furutech power plug in a box somewhere I could connect my one wire to earth ground and plug it in the wall. Honestly I really thought I fried my dac couple nights ago. I’ve been doing this a long time and have never seen a component react to static that way. I live on gulf coast so we only get 1 or 2 months of winter so I rarely run my heater or fireplace, it was 15 degrees 2 days ago now it’s 70 degrees and I’m wearing shorts today. So this static thing is kind of new to me. It’s always humid down here. |