Wait pays off - Hit the Spectral jackpot

[edorr]

Spectral equipment is extremely sensitive to grounding differentials. Unless your wiring from the amplifier outlet and front end outlet are absolutely identical in their length from your breaker box to those outlets, you will experience a problem with hum. Float the ground to your amps. Run your preamp grounded and the MIT interconnects will then be the ground for the amplifiers. The result will be dead quiet with everything still grounded. This is how I run my Spectral equipment. It sounds fantastic, dead quiet, and there has never been a problem. Give it a try, and you will see!

Just making sure I understand correctly -

So I would run DAC to preamp balanced and preamp to amp single ended (this is where I am using the single ended MA-X now), or do you mean just have AC to the preamp grounded.

AND I float the ground on the AC cords to my amp? How do I do this? I now have the ground wire on my plug disconnected, but this probably won't work with a shunyata cord (I think). I don;t want to disconnect the ground wire in the outlet (code violation). I can also use a cheater plug. How do you "float" power to amps.

 

[coopersark]

Just making sure I understand correctly -

So I would run DAC to preamp balanced and preamp to amp single ended (this is where I am using the single ended MA-X now), or do you mean just have AC to the preamp grounded.

AND I float the ground on the AC cords to my amp? How do I do this? I now have the ground wire on my plug disconnected, but this probably won't work with a shunyata cord (I think). I don;t want to disconnect the ground wire in the outlet (code violation). I can also use a cheater plug. How do you "float" power to amps.

AC to preamp grounded. I use cheater plugs on my Shunyata power cords that are connected to my Spectral amps. Bought them at Home Depot and I gave them a good polishing and cleaning before using them. Do this and listen to beautiful music without any grounding issues or worries!

 

[edorr]

AC to preamp grounded. I use cheater plugs on my Shunyata power cords that are connected to my Spectral amps. Bought them at Home Depot and I gave them a good polishing and cleaning before using them. Do this and listen to beautiful music without any grounding issues or worries!

Ha, the six figure cable guy uses a one figure home depot plug to solve hum issues! I'll swing by Home Depot on the way back from work and get a pair myself! Thanks. I may still put a call into Spectral, but if you have vetted this approach with your dealer and Spectral I should be OK. The amps are indeed dead quiet with floating ground. Without floating ground and using my balanced IC there was still a minor hum with ear to the driver.

 

[coopersark]

Ha, the six figure cable guy uses a one figure home depot plug to solve hum issues! I'll swing by Home Depot on the way back from work and get a pair myself! Thanks. I may still put a call into Spectral, but if you have vetted this approach with your dealer and Spectral I should be OK. The amps are indeed dead quiet with floating ground. Without floating ground and using my balanced IC there was still a minor hum with ear to the driver.

Yes, I have vetted this approach with Spectral and my dealer. I have been down your road! I can relate to your frustration from my identical first hand experience. FYI... The DMA 400's (and I assume the similar design DMA 300) are even more sensitive to the grounding issues than your DMA 360's. I also looked in to a high quality cheater plug and have not had any luck finding them on the market. I bought the cheaters at Home Depot and polished them with Blue Magic, using Q-tips and a clean flannel cloth. I then cleaned the contacts off with pure alcohol and followed by Caig Gold contact cleaner/enhancer. I wish that I could simply remove the ground on the Shunyata power cords, but alas, I view them as temporary as I typically upgrade them as Shunyata improves them over the years, and don't want to kill their resale value.