Tech: Speaker Wire Upgrade

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This won't help at all. The noise is picked up in the amplifier board,
so it is already in the signal that goes to the speakers.

Moving the speaker wires and changing the hum is probably coming from
some other effect.

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

This won't help at all. The noise is picked up in the amplifier board,
so it is already in the signal that goes to the speakers.

Moving the speaker wires and changing the hum is probably coming from
some other effect.

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Try running the speaker wires through one of those clamp-on ferrite
chokes; that may help suppress noise that is being picked up by the
speaker wires. You'll want to install the ferrite choke as close to
the sound board as possible. Radio Shack sells a clamp-on ferrite
choke (#273-105) that runs about $5.

Joseph "Tony" Dziedzic

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

martin wrote:
> This won't help at all. The noise is picked up in the amplifier board,
> so it is already in the signal that goes to the speakers.
>
> Moving the speaker wires and changing the hum is probably coming from
> some other effect.

Mmmm, yes and no. It depends on where it's picking the noise up from
in the first place.

On my Star Trek NG, for example, I went to coaxially shielded wire.
There was SUCH a large outrush from the capacitors on my homebrew floor
flasher driver board that it leaked into the audio system. Quad
shielded RG6 cleared it right up! But I wasn't running any real
-power- over it, just was using it to carry the line level outs to the
crossover and amplifiers.

I would play around with the routing of the wires inside the head
before I went and changed the wires, though. I'd definitely keep it
awayyyyyy from the DMD board.

Archived from groups: rec.games.pinball (More info?)

Right - so a few millivolts picked up in the cable is amplified in the
amplifier and delivered to the speakers. If there's enough electrical
nois in the cab to drive the speakers, there's a much bigger problem.

It could be that noise is getting back into the ground of the
amplifier. Coax won't help there either. Tony's ferrite trick might
work. But the real problem is inadequate grounding.