Huuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmm

[MarcAshken]

I've got Alesis m1 active mk2 monitors, and the hum on the is like a bee or sumit. it sounds like electrical hum, is this common to all active monitors, is there some way to rid myself of this hum? Could it be that i have eight plugs goin into 2 sockets?? Please help if u can, i'm probably being really dumb. Thanx

 

[Synkrotron]

do they still hum when nothing is connected to the audio inputs?

 

[MarcAshken]

No, it stops when i remove the xlr connection from the back of the monitor.

 

[mano 1]

plug all your stuff on the same power strip, sometimes it helps

i do have hum problems again now that I moved to a new house, but last year this fixed the same problem

 

[Manic Man]

Balnced cables

Make sure you are using balanced cables... If you have xlr to 1/4" cables make sure the 1/4" end is TRS...
GOOD LUCK!

 

[MarcAshken]

Thanx, I am using xlr to 1/4" jacks, what is trs? i made the cables myself, by just soldering to the ring and tip on the 1/4 end and the l and r on the xlr end, i'm using two strandspeaker cable so i had no earth wire to solder to x. WHat should i do man, u seem to know ur sht. Plz help if u can.

 

[mano 1]

TRS is basically 1/4 connectors with 3 wires instead of 2. They look like Stereo connectors but in fact they are more like "compact XLRs"

 

[Tim20]

Be carefull there, you could be making a wiring disaster.

A 1/4" TRS is a Tip, ring, sleeve. The tip is hot or +, the Ring is the cold or - and the sleeve is the ground/shield.

The connection should probably be like this:

Using a 2 wire with shield cable

Tip to pin 2 (xlr)
Ring to pin 3 (xlr)
Sleeve to shield (xlr)

Hope this helps.

 

[Tim20]

oopss that is: sleeve to pin 1( xlr) ground/sleeve

 

[mano 1]

Lots of people remove the ground wire from all their audio connections, since all devices are grounded thru their power cord... You could try that.

 

[TheAgent]

Plug all the audio stuff into the same power strip, take everything that's not audio stuff and put it on a different one. If it continues try moving the power strip to a different socket as well. If it's still happening, go buy some cables of reasonable quality and try those.

If not any of that then I don't know, maybe try a power conditioner of some kind? I don't know if that will help.