120 hz hum-- not from my audio gear but from my house-- what to do about it?

[Timcognito]

So at my house, I hear a low rumbling, usually late at night, sometimes in the morning, sounds like a truck outside but a few blocks away. If it was a constant tone, it wouldn't be so bad, but it randomly changes like the truck engine is skipping. When I go to sleep, I have to mask the sound with an air filter machine at bedtime, which works out OK.

But I've been trying to figure out what causes it, and last night it occurred to me that the cause might be natural gas pipes, since they are on the side of the house where it appears to emanate from, and I use gas heat (although this happens even when I'm not using the heat). I did a quick internet search and somebody has looked at this possibility in depth:

https://docs.wind-watch.org/Kohlhase-180215-infrasound-hum-gas-pipeline-syndrome.pdf

Just throwing this out there for consideration and discussion.

We have that here in Moss Beach. Some cities use grinder pumps on larger waste lines that have a level or up hill runs. There's one a block away from my home. It took me 30 years to figure out that was the truck idling sound sometimes at night.

 

[ehabheikal]

I continue to be plagued with an ever present 120 Hz, ambient, hum of unvarying loudness inside and outside my new house and , indeed, all around the neighborhood. Flipping off the main circuit breaker to my house does not change this in any way.

I'm left with the theory that this is mains hum originating in the power lines around my house and throughout the neighborhood.

It's incredibly frustrating in that I've done so much to ensure the lowest possible noise floor with my audio gear only to have that completely negated by this ever present "wrong note" lurking throughout all my precious recordings.

If my listening preferences were for loud rock, pop, hip-hop, etc. genres this would not be much of an issue at all, but virtually all of my listening is in classical and similar genres where passages of low dynamics are very frequent and important parts of the music's impact.

I'm at my wit's end with this and am without any practical solution except to relocate which is, for many reasons, virtually impossible.

I have had high frequency tinnitis since i was a teenager. Learnt to get used to it. And yes i reduce the noise floor on my audio system only for it to be messed up by my tinnitis

 

[Fahzz]

We have that here in Moss Beach. Some cities use grinder pumps on larger waste lines that have a level or up hill runs. There's one a block away from my home. It took me 30 years to figure out that was the truck idling sound sometimes at night.

Here's hoping that it won't bother me as much now that I have an idea what it is.

 

[Timcognito]

Here's hoping that it won't bother me as much now that I have an idea what it is.

The old theory by a few neighbors was they are moving things around at the radar station still in service since the 50s one mile from my house. I still think sometimes that is it but one part of me wants it to remain a mystery. But its there everybody here hears it and it is not a vehicle.

 

[nagster]

I previously rented a room on the first basement floor of a 10-story building as a storage and work room.
I noticed that when the surroundings were quiet, such as at night, I could feel the ground rumbling in my room. There were some changes over time, but it was always there.

During the building's annual electrical equipment inspection, we investigated and found out that the cause of the problem was a transformer located outside (!?) the electrical room on the 4th basement floor. The vibrations were propagated through the structure. To my surprise, several transformers were placed directly on the concrete slab. Furthermore, although it was a common area that anyone could enter, there was an exposed transformer.

Well, aside from safety, my problem was vibration, so I repeatedly requested the management company to take anti-vibration measures, but nothing progressed.
(The transformer inside the electrical room was floating with rubber.)

Once you notice it, it always bothers you. I moved. .

 

[Andolink]

so I repeatedly requested the management company to take anti-vibration measures, but nothing progressed.

That's exactly what I would expect.

Outside of the very tiny population of us audiophiles, I think background hums and such are virtually never noticed by anyone and are cetainly not deemed to be worth the effort and expense of doing anything to mitigate or eliminate.

 

[pseudoid]

...but nothing progressed.

...sugar in the gas tank? evilgrin.gif

 

[keks8430]

Buckels me as well.

The 120Hz hum is not caused by tinnitus, but by 2x 60Hz from your power grid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_hum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetically_induced_acoustic_noise
In Europe we have a 100Hz hum from our 50Hz grid, see the REW measurement below.
We live in a quiet area, no traffic, no overland cables.

What actually generates the double frequency is yet unclear, technically, we need a nonlinearity.
That could be a rectification or clamping due to mechanical housing of a transformer.

Interesting that the second harmonic at 100Hz is stronger than the fundamental, while higher harmonics are not visible.
Could be due to a gain from a wall or building resonance, but did not find data to confirm.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I couldn't help but think of this thread while watching this:

 

[Audiofire]

 

[Andolink]

I couldn't help but think of this thread while watching this:

Really interesting! Thanks for posting this.

The high-pressure gas pipeline theory and the tinnitus theory are the most plausible to me. If there was some way of getting a detailed map of these piplines in the area where I live that would be fascinating.

I've had the standard, most common, type of tinnitus most of my adult life but my hearing the hum(s) began just a year ago when we moved into our new house. I suppose It could be that my tinnitus just coincidentally morphed into this different mode at around that same time.

 

[Fahzz]

Really interesting! Thanks for posting this.

The high-pressure gas pipeline theory and the tinnitus theory are the most plausible to me. If there was some way of getting a detailed map of these piplines in the area where I live that would be fascinating.

I've had the standard, most common, type of tinnitus most of my adult life but my hearing the hum(s) began just a year ago when we moved into our new house. I suppose It could be that my tinnitus just coincidentally morphed into this different mode at around that same time.

I have tinnitus and I hear the rumble at my house only, and more so in certain locations in the house and it's not constant. Sometimes louder than others. Music and TV and an air filter at night mask it sufficiently. It started a couple of years ago, and it did make me nuts trying to figure out what was causing it and how to stop it. Once I started reading about gas/water/sewer lines, That made the most sense to me, and I've been able to deal with it since then, Because I can't do anything about it.

 

[Andolink]

Music and TV and an air filter at night mask it sufficiently

The hum wouldn't bother me much or maybe at all if I weren't an audiophile with a lifelong quest for accurate, distortion and noise free reproduction of high quality recordings. The now apparent impossibility of that arising from this new intrusion from my environment frustrates and saddens me as I increasingly accept the hopelessness of this state of affairs.

 

[Philbo King]

Benn Jordan has a Youtube video about this. While the evidence is not bulletproof, it points towards audio resonance in high-pressure gas pipelines.

 

[Jaxjax]

Exactly! That's the thing that's driving me batty. What's the source of this hum?? My wife hears it too so it's not my tinnitis or one sided hearing loss. In fact, my hearing problems exacerbate my already acute sensitivity to background noises of all sorts, hums, autos, sirens, airplanes, etc., etc. And, as I said, when I walk down to the end of my street or anywhere else in my neighbohood, if the ambient noises are relatively low, there's the hum.

Is the hum similar to mercury vapor type outdoor lighting .? Bad indoor lighting .? Mercury vapor drives me bat shit crazy & so does bad indoor lighting. I get ringing from time to time but I have hearing damage. We have under ground power & our transformer in the corner of property gets noisy but were used to it.

 

[Andolink]

Is the hum similar to mercury vapor type outdoor lighting .? Bad indoor lighting .?

No. It's a continuous 120 Hz hum with another, much more wispy sounding hum a major 3rd above it. I've heard it in a variety of places other than my house when the general ambient noise gets below a certain level. For example, a store I was in a while back had a small room which was a repurposed former bank vault. I noticed as I went inside this room, with the sudden drop off of ambient noise, the familiar hum was again clearly audible.

This fits the theory that it's me ( my tinnitis maybe) and not something external in the environment.

By the way, my wife now denies hearing anything in our house like what I'm hearing as a hum.

 

[JohnnyAudio]

I have had this problem in every house and apartment I've ever lived in. It seems the electrical wiring in homes, offices, etc. always emits a 120 hz hum audible in varying degrees throughout the building. I've always been particularly sensitive to this and it has always undermined my attempts to achieve anything close to the audio ideal of a "black" background. Being primarily a classical music listener, it's especially noticable and annoying during the frequent very quiet passages in most of my favorite pieces.

Is there any way to defeat or at least attenuate this highly distracting noise in my listening environment?

It must be your gear.

"every house and apartment I've ever lived in."

 

[pseudoid]

This fits the theory that it's me ( my tinnitis maybe) and not something external in the environment.

I had heard thought that tinnitus 'ringing' was at much higher frequencies/harmonics of the AC PowerLines (ACPL).


OT#1: The inhabitants of North America -- with an ACPL grid operating @60Hz -- report uncomfortable flickering when visiting countries w/ACPL @50Hz.
OT#2: In the case of the aerospace industry -- primary concern being the size/weight of onboard transformers, motors and power supplies -- made their ACPL @400Hz.
imho >> There is nothing more annoying than ACPL @400Hz, as any traveler is well familiar with... yet w/very little complaint.

 

[Andolink]

I had heard thought that tinnitus 'ringing' was at much higher frequencies/harmonics of the AC PowerLines (ACPL)

I've come across a few sources that mention a version of tinnitis of the low frequency variety that could be what people like me are experiencing.

It's described here under the heading "Some Subtypes": https://www.audiology-associates.com/blog/the-4-different-types-of-tinnitus/#:~:text=Low-frequency tinnitus: Perhaps the,, rumbling, or deep droning.

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

Almost 20 years ago, my bachelor work in electrical engineering was about electromagnetic fields and waves and the ICNIRP definitions and limits. As a music producer I always respected my body's sensory feedback and I also have huge respect for mother nature. One of the most impressive things on university I learned, was, when the professor lecturing the MAxwell equations, the theoretical foundations of electrical engineering, always humbly said - despite their amazing fruits in working products, like radio or mobile comm - "according to the current theory".
The humbleness, not to claim to know everything, despite working products proving the equations correct, unlike sadly all stupid social "sciences" do, but to view the current level of scientific knowledge only as a small part of a probably much, much bigger reality, totally resonated with me.

When I had researched the ICNIRP levels before, I hadn't been able to find hard evidence based foundations of the radiation levels (i.e. SAR). Studies that potentially showed cancer in mice, or changes in behavioral patterns, were rejected and ridiculed - I was outraged about that and asked my professor about it, and he was surprised, too. Had absolutely no clue.
(btw later I noticed a similar lack of knowledge, when a professor, who was lecturing ecological heating technologies and a strong believer in CO2-caused climate warming, knew nothing about the H2O radiation gap and the logarithmic absorption behavior of CO2. But he almost got mad, only because I asked him about the diagrams I showed him.

Most people do believe, that academia was neutral and science based. Maybe that was decades ago, I do not know. I experienced first hand even on my purely technical university, that was not the case. And intolerance, ignorance and arrogance had infested even the mathematics based engineering faculties back then already.


Long story short:
If you know, that already 20 years ago, when electromagnetic waves were much longer (and therefore much larger than the size of body dimensions or even cells of living beings), the ICNIRP rules of limiting exposure to EM radiation, were just random numbers, and if you only look at the reduction in wavelenght that happened in the last 20 years (and continues to be done without any studies of side effects), then you must be really ignorant, not to be open minded about possible negative consequences, if the regulatory bodies and the scientific community all over the world show no longer any interest in potential harm from new technology.

I personally also noticed in the last summer a very low hum.
I switched off the circuits but it was there.
I went outside and it vanished. I went into a corner outside the house and it became stronger - sounded much like a low frequency resonance.
I had no clue that this even was a topic and noticed it only afterwards, because I searched for a potential reason of what I was hearing.

Now what has changed in the last years?
4G, now 5G wavelengths everywhere.
Mass installation of heat pumps (known to create infrasonic sound).
Concentrations of huge windmills (known to create infrasonic sound).

And all that is done without any objective long term studies on human wellbeing, perception, fauna and flora!
We really are acting like apes in front of red nuclear buttons, while we ridicule every warning voice, that it may be warranted to study long term effects first.

I have no clue, what the source of this phenomenon is, but among several other signs, I see it as a warning to the species - just like the body also warns us with all kinds of gentle symptoms, before we become really ill.
IMO if we as species do not stop being that ignorant and arrogant, and continue to act, as if we would know everything, then the result of not acting sane will be, that the laws of the eternal will correct this incredible stupidity and ignorance...