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Home powered subwoofer hum

S

Slickone

Diamond Member
Very ocassionally, I'll come home and as soon as I open the door, I can hear my JBL 12" powered sub in the other room with a low pitched hum, loud enough to be heard at the other end of the house. I've turned on a light switch before and it quit, but last time i had to unplug/replug in the sub's AC power. What's causing this?
 
Originally posted by: glen
Is the frequency about 110hz?
Your power occilates at that frequency unless you live in Europe.
Click to expand...

Um, no. North America is 60Hz.

Does the sub's amp have a grounded plug (three-prong?) It should. Possibly that outlet has a bad ground, OR you're getting a ground loop b/t the sub and the receiver, via the RCA input.

Your HT receiver and the sub should be plugged into the same outlet/surge protector. That should take care of a ground loop. If your outlet itself has a bad ground, a qualified electrician should be called in to fix it. You don't want to mess with it if you don't know what you're doing. Good luck. 🙂
 
99.9% of the time, the hum is from ground loop problem from your cable TV. disconnect your TV cable from your system and see if the hum is still there.
 
My JBL PB-12 hums when I turn it up high as well. I usually keep it at about 60-70% because anything higher is too goddamn loud anyway. I have hardwood floors which doesn't help.
 
I'll go with the prevoiusly stated ideas of a ground problem. I can't explain why and I'm not sure if this was wise or not, but my roommate in college was getting a constant hum, nasty sounding, so he took one of those three-to-two prong adapters and put that on his three pronged plug from his sub. Plug the 2 prong part into his powerstrip and viola no more hum. Try it out.
 
my sub isn't grounded, but it switches itself off and goes into standby mode so it doesn't hum much
 
Originally posted by: richardycc
99.9% of the time, the hum is from ground loop problem from your cable TV. disconnect your TV cable from your system and see if the hum is still there.
Click to expand...


ding-ding-ding-ding!
 
Originally posted by: Staley8
I'll go with the prevoiusly stated ideas of a ground problem. I can't explain why and I'm not sure if this was wise or not, but my roommate in college was getting a constant hum, nasty sounding, so he took one of those three-to-two prong adapters and put that on his three pronged plug from his sub. Plug the 2 prong part into his powerstrip and viola no more hum. Try it out.
Click to expand...

Is that safe?
 
Several things mentioned here don't apply to me because:
The sub has a two prong plug.
It's plugged into a power strip/surge protector along with the HT receiver. As far as the outlet having a bad ground, is there any other way I can verify myself? The TV and receiver that are plugged into that surge protector have no problems.

This isn't a sound I get when playing music. As I tried to note, the hum happens when I am not using it. It doesn't happen often, but every few months I'll come home and it's doing it. It's loud. It sounds like it could damage the sub. I'm often gone for days at a time and don't want this to happen for that long of a period. I don't want to unplug the sub every time I leave (it's hard to get to). In the past when I turned on (and off) a light (maybe only in the room but not sure), it would stop, but the last time I had to unplug/replug the sub's A/C.

There is no cable TV hooked to the receiver.

 
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