{"id":383,"date":"2009-01-30T10:15:48","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T17:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/?p=383"},"modified":"2009-01-30T10:15:48","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T17:15:48","slug":"reducing-audio-buzz-for-the-average-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/?p=383","title":{"rendered":"Reducing audio buzz for the average guy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boulder Linux User Group<\/a> mailing list had a short but interesting discussions today.\u00a0 Karl Horlen asked how he could reduce a constant buzz he was receiving from his power amp\/speaker connected to his laptop.\u00a0 The buzz only occurs when the power supply is plugged in.\u00a0 I found this problem interesting since I was getting similar noises in recordings I made to my laptop when I played them back.\u00a0 Audio from music and video files did not have this noise.<\/p>\n

Steve Queen made the observation that this is likely a ground loop problem<\/a>.\u00a0 In layman’s terms this means there are two competing ground points:\u00a0 one on the laptop plug and one through the power amp.\u00a0 To get rid of the buzz you have to eliminate one of those points.\u00a0 Steve also noted that a more distant power outlet for the laptop would probably aggravate the situation.<\/p>\n

One possible solution is a three-prong to two-prong converter for the laptop which you can buy at local hardware stores.\u00a0 This is usually a fairly inexpensive solution.\u00a0 An alternative would be to use more expensive isolation transformers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another possible cause of a buzz from your audio is EMI – electromagnetic interference.\u00a0 This can come from the electronics within your laptop.\u00a0 Switching to battery powered speakers on your laptop can help deteremine if this is a ground loop problem or EMI.\u00a0 If the buzz goes away with the battery powered speakers it’s likely a ground loop problem.\u00a0 If not, you have some EMI problems.\u00a0 Solving the EMI problems may require an external USB connected sound devices that do A\/D conversion outside of the laptop (instead of using the internal sound system).<\/p>\n

It was also noted by Mat James that, in his experience, laptops don’t always have a ground or the ground from the power brick doesn’t propogate to the laptop.\u00a0 That would mean the noise is not being caused by multiple grounds.\u00a0 Fortunately, plugging and unplugging a few fairly inexpensive devices (the power cable on the laptop and battery powered speakers) will help make that determination.<\/p>\n

While the ground loop problem may address Karl’s problem, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t address mine.\u00a0 I haven’t isolated the buzz yet though I suspect it’s just a cheap microphone.\u00a0 It’s also possible that the noise comes from the ground loop problem because the external stereo the laptop speaker port is connected to is active when I record.\u00a0 So I’ll just have to dig around a while till I figure that one out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boulder Linux User Group mailing list had a short but interesting discussions today.\u00a0 Karl Horlen asked how he could reduce a constant buzz he was receiving from his power amp\/speaker connected to his laptop.\u00a0 The buzz only occurs when the power supply is plugged in.\u00a0 I found this problem interesting since I was getting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,12,8],"tags":[166,134,168,169,170,167,97,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-acer-aspire-1690i","7":"category-audio","8":"category-hardware","9":"tag-battery-powered-speakers","10":"tag-boulder","11":"tag-cheap-microphone","12":"tag-electromagnetic-interference","13":"tag-ground-loop","14":"tag-isolation-transformers","15":"tag-laptop","16":"tag-recording","17":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe9t8-6b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.graphics-muse.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}