Readers of the forum probably remember a discovery I made regarding lack of proper grounding for safety and guarding against hum in Schiit Jotunheim. It seems that we may have a repeat of that same case with another Schiit product, the Saga preamplifier.
A forum member reached out to me regarding hum in his Saga preamplifier. He is in Europe and I don't have access to his unit so he sent me pictures of what is inside. Here is the overall shot of the inside of the unit:
Looking at the chassis, the paint and protective coating remains which means that the top of the unit is likely not making a good connection to the rest of the chassis. As such, hum from the transformer can couple to the volume control just as it did with the Schiit Jotunheim.
Focusing on safety issues, just as well we see an IEC mains connector that does not have its earth/safety ground connected to the chassis:
As I showed in the case of Jotunheim, there needs to be a proper green earthing lug to the chassis such as this example:
This is a tube amplifier with potentially high voltages running around in the PCB in addition to the power supply input. So this is more of a serious safety issue than what occured in Jotunheim.
My response to the owner after receiving the pictures was to reach out to Schiit and ask them if this is proper or not. He lives in Europe and sadly Schiit just told him to ship his unit at his expense to the European distributor. With round trip shipping expense becoming a substantial cost percentage of the cost of the unit, that is an improper burden on him. He is hearing hum in his unit and likes a resolution.
So I told him that I would post the data here in the hopes that Schiit sees it and does the right thing by reaching out to owners with such issues and performs remedies free of charge to them. These are both safety and performance issues in my opinion that must not be there. It is only right that the company goes out of its way to troubleshoot them lest they want to be known as a company that doesn't care about safety of its customers or audio performance of their products.
At the same time, if Schiit believes these products are to spec and compliant with safety marks on the unit, it would be good to read that affirmatively.
A forum member reached out to me regarding hum in his Saga preamplifier. He is in Europe and I don't have access to his unit so he sent me pictures of what is inside. Here is the overall shot of the inside of the unit:
Looking at the chassis, the paint and protective coating remains which means that the top of the unit is likely not making a good connection to the rest of the chassis. As such, hum from the transformer can couple to the volume control just as it did with the Schiit Jotunheim.
Focusing on safety issues, just as well we see an IEC mains connector that does not have its earth/safety ground connected to the chassis:
As I showed in the case of Jotunheim, there needs to be a proper green earthing lug to the chassis such as this example:
This is a tube amplifier with potentially high voltages running around in the PCB in addition to the power supply input. So this is more of a serious safety issue than what occured in Jotunheim.
My response to the owner after receiving the pictures was to reach out to Schiit and ask them if this is proper or not. He lives in Europe and sadly Schiit just told him to ship his unit at his expense to the European distributor. With round trip shipping expense becoming a substantial cost percentage of the cost of the unit, that is an improper burden on him. He is hearing hum in his unit and likes a resolution.
So I told him that I would post the data here in the hopes that Schiit sees it and does the right thing by reaching out to owners with such issues and performs remedies free of charge to them. These are both safety and performance issues in my opinion that must not be there. It is only right that the company goes out of its way to troubleshoot them lest they want to be known as a company that doesn't care about safety of its customers or audio performance of their products.
At the same time, if Schiit believes these products are to spec and compliant with safety marks on the unit, it would be good to read that affirmatively.