Line conditioners: your experience?

[JoeKa]

Hi pulsarian geeks!

One month ago I had to move my studio to a new place. Now, in that new room, my Quested monitors produce a well audible amount of hum, which I suspect might be induced by the halogene light dimmers. Since those are a fixed part of the whole room´s electrical circuitry box, I cannot simply replace them, plus there´s no guaranty they are indeed responsible for that hum. However, I would seriously prefer to get rid of that noise, the sooner the better.
Now, I hope getting a line conditioner will help me, but I lack practical experience with those. So I´d be happy to hear from you fellows, who use line conditioners, what brands offer good stuff for affordable prices, how good are chances that I will really get rid of the hum, can two line conditioners be stacked to feed a single setup (if the setup needs too much power to be powered thru a single conditioner)? Any hints on DIY line conditioners (circuitry plans+part lists, maybe even complete kits)?
All kinds of knowledge about these items is highly appreciated.
Cheers, Joe

[garyb]

i seriously doubt that a line conditioner would be the fix. you most likely have a ground problem. an electrician is probably the best fix. you'll probably want to get your entire system on one properly grounded breaker.....

[valis]

Try plugging your monitors and gear into the same outlet (with proper power distribution of course). If its a ground lift it could be just from having tapped different points in the room.

[JoeKa]

Thanks, but I know about ground loops and phase offset induced hum, and took care of all those options from the first moment. It must be something different, and dimmers are a typical source of hum.

[garyb]

once again, it's probably a job for an electrician, but if it's the dimmers, you may be able to sheild them better if the ground is proper. otherwise, you'll need an isolated breaker. a line conditioner that is more of a power supply(like hospitals use), MIGHT help, and it would assure you of a pure sine wave ac output, but what an expense! fixing the wiring would be cheaper, although a sure sine wave ac source is nothing to be sneezed at....

[borg]

you need a transformer rather than a power conditioner. the transformer in a way seperates your connected gear from the rest of your house, eliminating fridge power up noises and such...
i don't know of any plug and play products/packages. i just asked a guy teaching electricity, and he told me 'to look for a transformer'.
this probably isn't of much help.

you might have better luck if you go to a a specialized store selling electrical parts for the prof electrician. if you explain to them this 'fridge and dimmer noise' and 'transformer', chances are great they will know what you're talking about.
it's not cheap, depending on your power consumption (Watt).

[garyb]

isolation transformer.

[JoeKa]

uhm.. well... I guess the maximum load in my studio might peak up to 1.8-2kW... average usage is unlikely to exceed 700W, though.

Yeah, an isolation trafo is the core of a full voltage regulator (that will really output a fine, fully stabilized sine wave power), but those things are much more expensive than a normal line conditioner, which is basically a filtering unit to eliminate noise and peaks only.

[CroNiX]

Have you tried just leaving the lights off? If that works, just add secondary lighting?

[JoeKa]

LOL great idea mate! As simple as it is, I haven´t tried that yet.

[Vasfed]

On 2005-04-23 16:14, JoeKa wrote:
LOL great idea mate! As simple as it is, I haven´t tried that yet.

best idea is always simple

[hubird]

E=MC2