Excessive hum
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@mandmshrader said in Excessive hum:
@peter-denny
Put in a ticket. They will send a replacement. The new supply fixed the issue for me.As did mine! Replacement power supply DID fix my hum issues when using Taylor Expression System II
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Same for me, grounded power supply removed the hum completely.
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I just get one Spark.... i use a ordinary instrument jack i had such a noise with nearly all the preset i could get from the cloud. Simply unusable, unplayable.
I live in Belgium (Europe), no ground on the power supply. I plug it directly on the wall outlet. Still the same noise, it's no more a hum, it's a noise.On a sparkle of mind, i just change my jack cable, i use a very good one (Neutrik to say so).... Miracle, no more noise, not even a hum....
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@dodudidier Congratulations on solving your noise problem! And thank you for sharing your solution with us!
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Plugging the USB on the amp into a USB port on an earthed PC or other device has totally removed the hum from my spark
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@craig-1 send a request to PG for a replacement earthed 3 pin power supply
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This thread started 7 months ago and this company are still sending out spark amps with dodgy power supply, this is company is a joke
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When I got my Spark I played a Gibson Les Paul through it no hum. I then tried a custom built guitar with humbucker pickup and it would hum when not touching the strings or cable. Upon closer examination of the guitar I realized the guitar does not have a ground wire from the volume pot to the tremolo plate. I soldered a wire and hum disappeared. I never noticed the issue on other amps so if your guitar is not grounded properly it will hum through the spark. If you do not want to use a noise gate I would suggest possibly checking to make sure the guitar is grounded properly, To me the hum was a good thing because it made me ground the guitar properly. A properly grounded guitar will not hum or will at least barely hum. I still notice a very small amount when lifting fingers off strings but its practically not even noticeable compared to being unbearable before. So since Positve Grid did not put alot of work into the power supply and provide a good ground you need to use a quality grounded guitar, With that said the amp is incredible and alot of fun! Good luck!
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Same story as above...Hum only with my acoustic (taylor es2), PG sent me grounded power supply and hum totally gone!!!!
It could be our homes. Maybe the neutral line (used by the 2 prog chord as a ground) may have noise on it from other appliances etc. in the house. The 3 prog allows a closer ground to earth. I suggest PG ship the grounded supply as standard equipment.
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@joepeggio It’s clearly a power supply grounding issue. PG knows they have a problem, but continues to ship the amp with a crappy power supply. If PG was concerned about customer satisfaction, they would include the much needed, grounded power supply with every order. Instead, they only respond when the customer contacts them about the issue, then they will send the grounded power supply. After putting their customers through a very long wait before receiving their new amp, the customer waits again for delivery of the power supply that should have been provided in the first place. This implies that they really don’t care about their customers satisfaction. Come on PG, just do the right thing and ship the power supply with the order instead of jerking your customers around. Your customers deserve to be treated better than this, and ultimately, PG is hurting itself. Bad press has destroyed many businesses. Do the right thing...... !
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@grs me too. Hum victim. I think it’s a known issue. Shame they didn’t fix it or send a grounded PS. What a shame. Cool product otherwise.
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@snx691 well said. If their business model is to wait people out instead of addressing the problem as seems to be the case. I get he shipping crunch and the pandemic have made doing business the right way even more difficult. Sad. Great product otherwise. A real shame they didn’t opt to resolve with a simple PS upgrade.
Update: it’s still an issue, but slightly less awful when I put the amp behind me or face away from the thing. I think the inherent initial instinct is to get right up on it to play with the knobs and buttons. Try to back off some and see if it persists. That said, I’ve still never owned an amp (inexpensive or otherwise) that hummed this badly. -
Hi there, same problem. Same excuses from Positive Grid. Still waiting on a replacement, grounded power supply from them. Bought this one Dtk 19V 4.74A 90W for Asus Toshiba Ac Adapter Laptop Computer Charger Notebook PC Power Cord Supply Source Plug Connector Tip: 5.5 x 2.5mm
Problem sorted. In the meantime you can plug into a computer and this also sorted the problem for me.
PG know well what's going on but don't seem willing to deal with it.
Hope this sorts your problemHappy Christmas
Frank
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Had the same problem. What finally fixed the problem was grounding the amplifier case to the AC outlet ground. I did this by connected a wire from the ground of the guitar cable to the center screw of the ADC outlet plate ( local AC ground ). Buzzing went away. It appears that the lack of a ground connection from the case of the amplifier to ground is a problem.
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Still waiting for a solution to the buzzing problem from Positive Grid but I thought I would pass this along. The problem can be solved it appears by grounding the amplfier to a local ground ( I did this by grounding the ground case of the guitar to amplifier cable to the local AC outlet ground screw holding the cover plate on ) . For the positive grid engineers ( and I assume you probably already know this ), the power supply i received with the unit has a terrible common mode problem and this is why grounding the amplifier works. The supply does indeed have 9 volts DC between the output pins but the voltage from any one of these output pins to local ground appears to be about 50 volts AC! This is what is causing the problem. This large common mode voltage (which is now on the guitar when you plug it in) is being converted to a differential 60 Hz input signal from the guitar because of stray and unbalanced capacitance in the guitar. To fix this you need to send better power supplies to your customers without this common mode problem.
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Before I placed my order for a spark I asked this exact question with me being in the UK and from what people have reported with the power pack not being a grounded type could I ask for a European/UK spec plug when they sent me mine. I got a reply of not everyone is having this problem and if I do then contact support and then they would send out a replacement.
I chose still to place an order knowing that and even knowing the problems people have had waiting for their units to arrive. So far they quoted me a month after ordering before shipping ordered 23rd December 2020 - originally quoted 27the Jan 2021 before being shipped and yesterday that changed to Feb 03 2021.
Once i get mine I’ll report back but I did see a chap on YouTube who just plugged his spark using a usb-b to usb-a wire into his laptop and that solved it. I was wondering if having a grounding plate attached to a wire and connected to a part of the unit would solve the problem. I’ll have to see how I get on when it arrives.
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@kain-harkins I complained to Positive Grid about this and asked for a "fixed" power supply. They told me that they didn't have any separate supplies to send me and that it wasn't clear that this was the probem. They told me that I needed to send back the amplifier, get a refund and then order the product again. I asked why this would fix the problem ( have they made any design/manufacturing changes etc. to fix the problem) and have yet to get an answer.. At this point I am waiting for a return shipping label. For some unknown reason they have yet to send me the return label. I am perplexed why they told you they would send you a replacement power supply when they won't send one to me.
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@scampj yeah that doesn’t make any sense to me either.
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@kain-harkins Forgot to answer your question about using an USB connection to fix the problem. It is my guess that connecting the USB cable essentially grounds the amplifier and hence the noise goes way. This is essentially the same thing I did by grounding the guitar cable ground to the local outlet socket ground. Both methods eliminate the large common mode voltage on the amp and hence plugged in guitar and thus the noise goes away.