So I was changing a lightbulb last night…


I had just finished listening to a record and decided to change a lightbulb that had gone out directly above my turntable. When I started unscrewing the bulb I noticed a faint buzz coming from my speaker. I then turned the volume way up on my amp and tried again. Turns out the buzzing was happening when my hand touched the metal light fixture, not the lightbulb. 

At first I thought the tubes in my phono stage were picking up an EM field from the light fixture and out of curiosity I grabbed a piece of foil and covered the phono stage and then tried tapping the fixture again, same buzzing. Then I switched the input on my amp to my DAC and tried the tapping, no buzzing. Switched the input back to the phono stage and tapped the fixture, buzzing continued. Then I covered the tonearm with the foil and the buzzing went away almost completely. 

So it appears my tonearm is picking up some sort of signal from the light fixture but only when I touch the fixture. If I turn the lights off there is no buzzing when I tap the fixture. The setup is in the basement and I use LED lights that are recessed in the ceiling and wired to an “LED” dimmer switch. The audio gear is on a dedicated circuit.

Any of the knowledgeable folk on here have an explanation for what’s going on? Doesn’t effect SQ AFAIK since the buzzing only occurs when I touch the metal fixture. Seems odd but I thought it was interesting and maybe a chance for me to learn something from the members. 

I uploaded a video of this happening to Imgur that I’ll try pasting here:   
 

 

Cheers

durte30

@durte30-

I would first bypass the dimmer completely and check to see if the issue remains. I’m not familiar with the type of LED fixtures you are using but there could be the possibility of noise if a frequency inverter is involved. I’d start with the dimmer-

@designsfx They are just normal fixtures. I switched out all the lights in my house for LED’s to save electricity but all of the lights in the basement would flicker when dimmed so I bought a dimmer specifically for LED’s and no more flickering after I wired that in. If this was really impacting my listening experience at all I’d probably pull the dimmer out and wire in a normal switch but I usually have the ceiling lights off when listening anyways and have a couple lamps on instead. So I’m not really looking for a solution I just thought it was interesting and that I’d share it here! Was also curious what was happening. 
 

@russ69 sounds like a business opportunity, ha!

I have all LED lights in my home and an LED turntable light and no real RFI/EMI issues. Also I have dedicated circuits. Interesting though, will keep an ear open for this.

@Durte30 There are 'dimmable' LED bulbs and 'dimmable' LED dimmer switches.

I have had many buzz, even one light out of a box of 'dimmable'.  Go ahead and waste some money and try an incandescent bulb..and let us  know!  Cheers to you as well!