Static Shock?

Yes, very simple. The air in the room you house your system in, is much to dry, solution would be to buy a humidifier.

Short of changing to non-static carpet (like they use in Vegas hotels) or wearing shoes with conductive soles (like they use in operating rooms) you'll have to touch something else that's grounded just before you touch that tonearm!

A painless way to do this is to make a fist and touch ground with the knuckle of your forefinger :~))

Try getting a can of Static Guard. And spray it on the carpet in front of your system. Works for me.

Static electricity from finger can cause erratic playback for some CD players with metal buttons, took me long time to figure this out, here are some tips:

-Remember to touch rack/shelf first and this will discharge most of the static.
-If you have remote control use this instead of physically touching metal buttons
-Buy some Static Guard spray and spray on cloth pad kept near CDP, touch this to discharge static.

Spindrifter,

Check out my response to this question dated Jan 10, 2004. Hope this clears things up.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1073696856&openusid&zzV1rowt8&4&5#V1rowt8

i saw a show on tv about how they make fireworks & the employee's had to touch a wood block before entering the complex to discharge any static,maybee a cool lookin hunk of wood would work for ya.

mike.

A humidifier has saved me , the sharper image has one that is controled by a remote and keeps things stable ,plus I figure it is better for the morado veneer on my Thiel 7.2's , give it a try !

I have been experiencing the same thing. When I wear my house slippers I always get a nice jolt. My Hi-Tech "hiking boots do the same thing. My tennis shoes do not produce the static. Neither do my bare feet.
I have isolated the source of the static and it has to be the material from my listening chair.
It doesn't matter if everything is powered down or not I still get the same jolt when I touch any of the knobs.

I have had the same problem for a number of years. This topic comes up every autumn, but my solution has been to 1) use a humidifier, 2) keep a window open in the room.

The window doesn't need to be open a lot. You just want to counter balance the affect of the furnace.

I'm not sure keeping the window open is such a good idea, as you're just letting cold dry air in, and letting warm moist air out. The furnace doesn't take any moisture out of the air. What happens is the relative humidity drops when you heat air up. This means the air feels drier because it can absorb more moisture when it is warm. With the window shut, the humidifier and your breathing will fill up the air's excess absorbtion capacity, and increase the absolute and relative humidity. By opening the window, the moisture from the humidifier and your lungs will leave the room. The cold air outside may have a high relative humidity, but it has a lower absolute humidity on a per volume basis than the air you are letting out of your room.

Static electricity in a fireworks factory - now THAT'S a serious problem!!!!

I live in So. Cal. & in the fall when the Santa Ana winds kick up the humidity drops down to single digits. This can create some serious finger arcing. For some reason during this condition when I touch my Krell KRC2 pre it will send it in to "mute/standby" mode. I will have to reselect an input, then take it off of mute. I have gotten into the habit of touching the rack first almost every time. The humidifier sounds good, but I wouldn't want to introduce any type of corrosion enhancer to the equipment. I just need to ground myself out. Wood doesn't conduct electricity so it must always be metal in my house.
Fireworks factory, where is the smoking section..?
-John

Simply touching the rack first works in my system. I also remember reading somewhere that someone had a bare copper wire hooked to their rack and they slid the wire through their hand before touching the system.

As suggested earlier, a humidifier will provide significant improvement. A whole house humidifier connected into your HVAC system will help the humidity and make your home feel more comfortable.

Enjoy,

TIC

Ground the rack and be sure to make contact with the pillars/ground,before contacting components.

Jsd52756,

Whole house humidifiers are typically installed to work with the heating side of HVAC. However, Santa Anas certainly have the ability to "dehydrate" the atmosphere, but at the same time, one would not usually be turning on the heat during such an event. In this case, perhaps a portable cool mist humidifier in your listening area would suffice.

Since we are talking about humidifiers, perhaps a brief discussion of the concept of RELATIVE humidity is in order: In simple terms, 100% relative humidity is the condition whereby the atmosphere is completely saturated for a given temperature. Any further increase in moisture results in precipitation of some form. Said a different way.....as the temperature rises, so does the atmosphere's ability to contain higher amounts of moisture; and conversely, as the temperature falls, so falls the atmosphere's ability to hold as much moisture. Hence the term, "RELATIVE humidity", because the value is relative to a given temperature.

BUT, at the typical temperatures we are comfortable keeping the inside of our homes, RELATIVE humidity at a level of 40 to 50% (optimum) should pose no danger of promoting corrosion. This level of moisture is not high, it simply is not arid. It is a level of moisture which averts static discharge, and is healthier for our upper respitory systems, without approaching humidity levels which would promote corrosion or the formation of molds and mildews. Moreover, it is the typical target humidity level for a whole house humidification system.

The bottom line is, add the humidifier, keep your doors and windows closed, and enjoy the cessation of sparks, feel more comfortable, and reside in an atmosphere which is more conducive to good health.

Hope this helps.

GW