xevman
Member
So to break it down I have a very annoying ground loop buzz after adding an additional amplifier to my chain of devices. The problem was with one of the amps, buzz came through the my Woo Audio WA6-SE and was very loud at all volumes. I removed everything including my PC so it was just the 2 amps and 1 dac so my setup looked like this.
D90 DAC -> A90 AMP (balanced xlr)
D90 DAC -> WOO WA6SE (unbalanced rca)
Connected simultaneously and PC was also disconnected from this chain so the issue is between the dac and amps
I decided in order to diagnose this I had to lift the ground on both the D90 and A90 so I went and did so by insulating the ground pin on both wall plugs. Now before you call me an idiot I didnt just blindly do this. I got my multimeter out set it to volts ac and checked to see if the chassis on both the A90 and D90 were live but the multimeter read 0 volts to ensure it was safe to proceed. Not to my surprise it removed the ground loop and the Woo Amp became silent.
Now I did a continuity test between each of the devices with my multimeter and all the devices beeped when I tested them for continuity between each other does this mean now they effectively are grounding using the WA6-SE mains ground instead of their own mains ground?
Secondly is there a safe long term solution I can possibly try rather than doing this cheat method and lifting the ground? I'm going to pack up and disconnect the amp until I know that there is a long term safe fix for this issue which I can try.
Any help advice or insight would be greatly appreciated...
D90 DAC -> A90 AMP (balanced xlr)
D90 DAC -> WOO WA6SE (unbalanced rca)
Connected simultaneously and PC was also disconnected from this chain so the issue is between the dac and amps
I decided in order to diagnose this I had to lift the ground on both the D90 and A90 so I went and did so by insulating the ground pin on both wall plugs. Now before you call me an idiot I didnt just blindly do this. I got my multimeter out set it to volts ac and checked to see if the chassis on both the A90 and D90 were live but the multimeter read 0 volts to ensure it was safe to proceed. Not to my surprise it removed the ground loop and the Woo Amp became silent.
Now I did a continuity test between each of the devices with my multimeter and all the devices beeped when I tested them for continuity between each other does this mean now they effectively are grounding using the WA6-SE mains ground instead of their own mains ground?
Secondly is there a safe long term solution I can possibly try rather than doing this cheat method and lifting the ground? I'm going to pack up and disconnect the amp until I know that there is a long term safe fix for this issue which I can try.
Any help advice or insight would be greatly appreciated...