Strange ground loop...?


Hey,

I just hooked up a new amp and I'm having a strange noise issue. Only in my right channel, I get this high-pitched whine... maybe around 2khz. My left channel is dead silent.

The problem seems to be an interaction between my DAC and my amp. If the DAC is off, the amp is silent.

The amp is an 84' yamaha, so the cord has no ground. There is a ground screw, though, and I have connected that to my power conditioner, hoping this would solve it... nope.

I've tried plugging the amp straight into the same outlet that the power conditioner is plugged into (into which the DAC is plugged in). That actually did work... but I don't want to run my amp straight into the wall.

I suspect I just need to find a proper place to run that ground wire...

Any ideas?
djembeplay
Hmm, no phono in... just a pair of RCA's. It's a Yamaha M-40 power amp.

The plug isn't polarized.

In the manual, it says to connect the ground to the pre-amp ground if there is a buzz. Unfortunately my pre-amp has no ground.

You were right about switching the ICs. Last night I started to think... 'wait, this doesn't make sense that it would only be coming though one channel.' I swapped the ICs with another pair, and the issue was solved.

I have no idea how this could happen - maybe something is wrong with the shielding on one of my ICs? They are brand new, so I didn't suspect that at all.

Incidentally, I had to turn my amp on and off many times while switching power configurations around. Also, some music was distorted in that right channel (crackly, fuzzy) at times... could any of this have damaged my amp / speakers?
IC shield is grounded at one end only (if it's RCA). Try to reverse one that gives you trouble.
Hmm... interesting. Well, the cord is already going back... but that's good to know for the future.

Any chance the static distortion did speaker / amp damage? Everything sounds fine, but I would like to know if such distortion is the same as amplifier clipping...?
Post removed 
Post removed