So I was changing a lightbulb last night…


I had just finished listening to a record and decided to change a lightbulb that had gone out directly above my turntable. When I started unscrewing the bulb I noticed a faint buzz coming from my speaker. I then turned the volume way up on my amp and tried again. Turns out the buzzing was happening when my hand touched the metal light fixture, not the lightbulb. 

At first I thought the tubes in my phono stage were picking up an EM field from the light fixture and out of curiosity I grabbed a piece of foil and covered the phono stage and then tried tapping the fixture again, same buzzing. Then I switched the input on my amp to my DAC and tried the tapping, no buzzing. Switched the input back to the phono stage and tapped the fixture, buzzing continued. Then I covered the tonearm with the foil and the buzzing went away almost completely. 

So it appears my tonearm is picking up some sort of signal from the light fixture but only when I touch the fixture. If I turn the lights off there is no buzzing when I tap the fixture. The setup is in the basement and I use LED lights that are recessed in the ceiling and wired to an “LED” dimmer switch. The audio gear is on a dedicated circuit.

Any of the knowledgeable folk on here have an explanation for what’s going on? Doesn’t effect SQ AFAIK since the buzzing only occurs when I touch the metal fixture. Seems odd but I thought it was interesting and maybe a chance for me to learn something from the members. 

I uploaded a video of this happening to Imgur that I’ll try pasting here:   
 

 

Cheers

durte30

@Durte30 There are 'dimmable' LED bulbs and 'dimmable' LED dimmer switches.

I have had many buzz, even one light out of a box of 'dimmable'.  Go ahead and waste some money and try an incandescent bulb..and let us  know!  Cheers to you as well!

Pretty interesting.

I am assuming it is the electrical field.
 

  1. Is the tone arm grounded to anything?
  2. Do you know if the lights and the gear are on the same side of the 110v that makes up a 220v pair?

@holmz The tonearm is grounded to the back of the phono stage. As for the light circuit and audio circuit being on the same side, I’m not sure. I’ll take a look later and report back!