I am fairly certain that the amp is not the issue. When it is connected to my Anthem AVM 30 it (Speakers) are silent. When it is connected to my Marantz AV7005 it hums and hisses. It is not the AMP.
I have an issue sent up to level 2 tech at Marantz.
Their First Response was:
"This is typically due differences in grounding schemes between the amplifier and the preamp. Do you know what grounding scheme your power amplifier is using?"
- Ok, mabye its just me, but how many of you know the grounding schemes your amps use? Needless to say I sent an email to Anthem Support
Here is all I could find from some review
"Now, with that in mind, we can talk about the fact that the PVA-7 (and the MCA-5 for that matter) boasts an incredible S/N ratio of -122 dB. Good grief! That's as good as no noise at all man. This industry-leading electrical silence was a primary design goal of the amplifier series, and part of attaining it called for going without chassis ground which requires double insulation AC techniques to maintain safety certifications"
The PVA 7 does have a Ground connection screw on the back of the unit. Could I connect that to the Ground Termanal of my Monster Power 3600 MKII?
At this point I am probably going to going to return it and just spend the extra 3.5k on the AVM 50V apparently Anthem is going to support 3D via their HDMI in the next few months. I thought 1499 for a preamp was a little too good to be true, now I know better
You don't know it is too good to be true.
Peng is correct. If your read my posts you will see that this double insulated nonsense causes a lot of grief. I can be pretty certain both units are OK, but the chassis are at a different potential. And yes, Marantz are correct you do need to understand the grounding scheme of your units.
Disconnect your units and see if you have him from the headphones from the Marantz, if not it is fine. We know you amp is fine. So the problem has to be that the chassis are at different potential. This is virtually bound to happen to varying degrees when mixing brands.
So what I would do is find a screw on the chassis of both units. Get the paint off. Use copper wire with ring lugs soldered on and connect the chassis soundly and connect that link to ground.
Then you may have to ground the chassis of any other "double insulated" units on a case by case basis.
The problem is that a very small difference in potential between the chassis of interconnected unit, or other parts of the system for that matter will result in hum. I don't care what they say on the AVS forum. Send them here for the true scoop.
You do have to be really obsessional about ground planes in systems and try as far a possible to understand the ground scheme of your various units. I know this is a "wet towel" problem, but there are no short cuts or easy answers. The double insulated is a short cut that often backfires.
Here is what I'm talking about. I just shot a few more pictures for you.
My Marantz AV 8003 I know has its chassis well grounded to the rack by the mounting bolts. So some other units have to tied in. Note the 4 gauge copper. The potentials involved are so low, that the resistances in your ground plane interconnections must be kept extremely low.
Here is a close up of a grounding to a double insulated unit.
You even have to tie in the power receptacles, as the AC line as too higher resistance in the ground path.
