Speaker hum when house A/C kicks on

[itschris]

I just turned the A/C on the house for the first time this year. The house was quiet and I was sitting near my system. When the A/C kicked on, my one Def Tech tower clicked and hummed for a few seconds as if it picked up a signal or something and the sub was trying to do something. It's only the one speaker it seems. The other one doesn't do it.

Thoughts?

 

[Adam]

Chris, is that tower plugged into an electrical outlet? I got that impression from you mentioning a sub in it. If so, is all of your equipment plugged into the same power strip/power console? A good power console will provide a common ground and some level of noise isolation, so it would be surprising to me that only one component had that issue if you are using one.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Sorry to hear of this nuisance.

Seems to me that internal sub amp of the speaker is doing something fishy there.

So it constantly hums the whole time the AC is on?

Yet another reason I hate having amps inside speakers or subs.

 

[Speedskater]

As Adam wrote, plug everything into one ordinary power outlet strip, even if it takes some long extension cords. If everything is good that way, get a little Kill-a-Watt meter and check the voltage at different receptacles with the A/C on and off. If the voltage at some outlets goes up and some go down when the A/C switches on you have a problem.

 

[Rickster71]

Does it only hum for a short time, just when the AC starts?

If you've had these speakers and nothing has changed, and last AC season this problem didn't exist.
If so, I'd suspect the start capacitor or the contactor in the AC unit.

 

[itschris]

I got ambitious a month or so ago and pushed the cabinet out to tidy up the wiring and move some stuff around. I'm wondering if I plugged that speaker into a different outlet than it was before. The hum isn't constant. I just sort has the initial small pop when it kicks on and hums then it slowly fades away after a few minutes.

 

[Adam]

...start capacitor...

Ah, I know it well. And, after having the house be something like 90 overnight one night because I didn't know where to get one on a Saturday afternoon - I have a spare.

 

[itschris]

Thanks guys. Well... I'll start by seeing where this one is plugged in. I'll change outlets first and see what happens. When I walled in the one set of triple glass doors where the system is, I know we daisy changed from the one outlet in the corner. There was an existing outlet on the opposite side... the right side... which was on a different breaker. I'm wondering if I plugged it into that one. The only thing of consequence running on the other set is the wine cabinet. It's big, holding about 450 bottles, but doesn't seem to cause any issues when the chiller kicks on.

We're nearing a complete A/C redo here soon. I'm hoping to make it through one last summer because I can't bear the thought of paying all that money. Our current system is seven years old and we're looking at about $12K or so for the replacement setup.

... but if it makes my music sound better, then I guess it's worth it.

 

[Speedskater]

We could help you deal with those 450 bottles of wine.

 

[itschris]

We could help you deal with those 450 bottles of wine.

My wife does pretty damn good all on her own. She's not very athletic but you'd awake a sleeping giant if you got in between her and the grape juice.

I didn't get home from the office until about 11pm last night. I was in no mood to deal with wires. On top of it, it got cold again in FL so the a/c wasn't even on. I'll screw with it tonight. I'll be leaving here at a decent hour today.

 

[lsiberian]

You could go without AC. It's not like it gets hot in Florida.

 

[itschris]

You could go without AC. It's not like it gets hot in Florida.

The thing about this time of year... one day it's 80, the next it's back down to 60 like today. We went to Captial Grill for lunch and were gonna sit outside because it's located in this nice higher end shopping area called International Mall. It's always kind of fun to watch the parade of women off to go shopping. But not today... we were out there for 5 minutes and went back inside. Just too damn cold with the wind today.