I have bought a headphone amplifier and I connected it to my PC sound card (SoundBlaster ZxR). To my unpleasant surprise, when they are connected them with RCA cables I can hear some low level electrical noise. Not hum, but something that's something else. Probably because I have an UPS, I don't know.
I connected both to the same power strip... touched a wire between the cases, still noise.
I have a cheap ground loop isolator and, with that in circuit, there is complete silence. But then, I am unhappy of having a transformer adding distortion between the two.
Is there a decent ground loop insulator, with >12kohm impedances, that doesn't break the bank? I am looking at bandwidth but mostly distortions.
Alternately my amp has balanced inputs... but changing the sound card output from single-ended to balanced, with an active circuit, might have the same noise.
Any other ideas?
LE: Problem solved. The fancy Monster cables are in the trash bin and older RCA cables from 80's are doing a great job.
I connected both to the same power strip... touched a wire between the cases, still noise.
I have a cheap ground loop isolator and, with that in circuit, there is complete silence. But then, I am unhappy of having a transformer adding distortion between the two.
Is there a decent ground loop insulator, with >12kohm impedances, that doesn't break the bank? I am looking at bandwidth but mostly distortions.
Alternately my amp has balanced inputs... but changing the sound card output from single-ended to balanced, with an active circuit, might have the same noise.
Any other ideas?
LE: Problem solved. The fancy Monster cables are in the trash bin and older RCA cables from 80's are doing a great job.
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