Static electricity and my Denafrips do not get along


I’ve never had this problem before on other gear but my Pontus 2 freaked out when I touched it last 2 nights. When I touch it lights fade and music fades out. Take my hand off and all goes back to normal. It has gone into stand by mode by its self. It has not done any damage it sounds fine and plays well. 
 

It has been cold and using fireplace both times it happened. After looking back I had shoes on both time if that matters. I’m going barefoot now. I did pull out my static wrist tether haven’t used it yet but I am a little paranoid don’t want to fry it. Do  I really need to resort to a tether in the winter a little extreme! 
 

I did remember the ddc going into Pontus had its  ground plug removed in its power cord to solve a turntable ground loop problem from a while back. I forgot that cord was in there. I removed that cord and put in better power cord. Not sure is that could cause a problem. 
 

Anyone experience what I have with static and how do you address this issue. I did contact Denafrips and was told to touch unit before pushing buttons. I was told this long ago and always touch chassis before pushing buttons. That’s what caused the problem touching the chassis.

paulcreed

We use a whole house humidifier in the winter made by AirCare.  I think it was around a couple of hundred dollars 2 years ago when I bought it.  This puts around 5 gallons of water daily in the air.  In my upstairs room, the humidity right now is 27% and on the main floor of our home where the humidifier is located, the humidity is 50%. 
Since using this, I have no static problems.  I used to get a static shock often before and my fingernails would get brittle and split.  Not anymore.  

In my last house I had a terrible problem with static.   I mounted a brass plate on a shelf of my built in ( a former closet) and grounded it to earth.   I would touch the plate before touching my preamp or DAC and no static.   

oddioftl, I like that were did you find earth ground? I saw a guy on you tube use a computer power cord and used the barrel plug that goes in the computer as a ground to hold onto, not sure if that would work. 
 

Thanks milpai, I tried touching wall last night and it shorted out dac

 

soix, stereo5, not sure if I want to deal with a humidifier but if all else fails I will do it.