Weekly Q&A: Answers | Week of March 11th, 2024

"There's somethin' hummin' in my system..."

Q: So, here's a question.

All of my equipment is plugged into an Audioquest Niagara 5000. That, in turn, plugs into the wall. The other day, I noticed a 60hz-sounding hum, and I diagnosed it as being a dimmer (or the lights controlled by the dimmer, which are LEDs on a track) in the room - when turned off, the hum went away.

What I find confusing is that if we know all power is going through the Niagara, and everything is sharing that ground, and part of the point of the Niagara's design is to filter both power *and* ground...how would an external device like a dimmer or bulb be able to "reach through" the power conditioner and inject noise? *Especially* given that 60hz hum is one of those things you're going to encounter on a fairly common basis.

-Dave

A: We asked Audioquest to comment, and VP of Engineering Garth Powell gave this answer:

“Excellent question! The first thing to determine is whether the 60 Hertz hum or buzz is coming from the loudspeakers (woofers or subwoofers), or whethe…