Hope this helps someone with RFI problems

Rich,
Thanks for the thoughtful, and I'm sure helpful, post for a lot of people. I wonder if there is an easier way of eliminating this RFI without getting an expensive power conditioner?

I am curious, do you have dedicated circuits for your audio? Dedicated circuits eliminated huge amounts of noise in my system and the best tweek for the money. Glad you got results.

Rich, I've had the same problem for years. Mine is pretty low level RFI, but annoying nonetheless. Thanks for sharing your discovery!

Elseb: dedicated circuits would be a great addition. But it is cost prohibitive for me. I live in a stone home built in the early 1930's. Tearing into the walls and running new lines would be far more expensive then purchasing a power regenerator. Plus, there is no way that my wife would go for it (she has been very understanding through this process, but that would set her over the edge).

Sherod: It is not just a power conditioner. I have used several power conditioners on my system which have not made a substantial improvement in limiting the noise when listening to vinyl. I needed a conditioner with an on-line uninterrupted power supply and an isolation transformer because my AC was so horrible. Unfortunately, these types of units are expensive.

Therefore, anyone with a problem similar to mine should borrow an APC UPS unit from a computer setup and place it in their system to determine if the AC is the cause of the noise and RFI in their system. In my opinion, it is the cheapest way to figure out if you should spend the $$ for an expensive power regenerator/uninterrupted power supply unit from PS Audio or APS or similar company.

For me, the most aggravating part of this hobby is trying to figure out what equipment will improve the sound of my system before I shell out the money. For the most part, if you have a nasty RFI problem, you essentially have to purchase and try everything that supposedly corrects the RFI noise to see if it actually works. I must have wasted hundreds of dollars (if not thousands) on pointless tweeks and conditioners before I stumbled on the real reason for my problem.

Rich

Have a similar problem but it does not appear to be coming from the AC mains. Long and short, tube based phono pre is the problem. If one holds the wires up and about I can actually tune a fine selection of channels through the speakers, and I mean a clear and listenable section of radio stations . Dedicated AC, line conditioners et all did not do the trick. I have been able to repress the noise to a good degree with ferrite clamps. (5-6 bucks a shot at Radio shack) If you go that route clamp everything.... line in out, power speakers, everything.

I have had a solid state phono pre home and it does make a difference. Not wanting to go that route (I really enjoy the tubes with phono) I am somewhat at a cross roads. I can now listen provided I keep the volume down about 10-20db below where I would like it. Basically records are now at best mostly background music. On my proceed pre if I would normally listen at say a setting of 40, best I can currently do is about 20. Somewhere between 20-40 the hum, crackle and then voices of radio hosts kick back in and its all sorta lost.

Best I have found so far is clamp everything in the chain. All cables, speaker wires etc.... everything. This got me a listening volume between 20-30 on a good day.. a little shy if you want to get into something with a bit of bite, but at least useful. At the moment I am waiting on another Solid state unit to see if I can live with it. I also had a suggestion that I try some tube rolling as some tubes are less prone to RFI then others. Thinking of giving that a shot as well. Was wondering if anyone has any experience with this sort of problem and had any luck with rolling tubes?

After talking to a couple dealers in the area, I got a consistent question about where I live, and unfortunately for me, my little town outside of Philly came up over and over again as a problem area. You know.... that ugly feeling when the third of fourth sales guy in a row says "Do you live in.... town such and such", cause we always have problems there. Wonder if we can get real estate agents to start listing this sort of information for the audiophiles out there that have to live with it. :)