Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions What to do with a problem called Grounding

There is a long standing issue between the MCA and the Axiom DSP. This was discussed for a bit with Andrew last year and if I plug in an RCA cable between the DSP and the MCA with nothing else connected. (ie not even a Pre-Amp hooked up) the MCA generates a ground loop humm. If I used an XLR cable, then that humm was eliminated.

Since those tests, I bought myself another two cheeper amps that I was going to use for surround channels as I got a new pre-amp as I was using a receiver before that has pre-out connectors.

The new amps can be hooked up to the DSP via RCA and they generate ZERO humm. SO I know that the MCA is not playing nice with the Axiom DSP.

I have been playing with the Marantz AV7005 and it has it's own funny quirks. I have a couple mini HTPC boxes that I used to run linux and my KODI and another to run a music media player on. For some reason, these pc's hooked up to the Marantz make funny noises through the speakers when the hard drive or network is accesses. I can take the same pc's and hook them into my old Pioneer receiver and it makes no sound what so ever.

I am now thinking longer term. Simply sell off the AV7005 and MCA5 amp and recoup my money that was spent on them, the theoretical added sound benefit I got from them vs the aggravation and trouble is not worth it. I have the old Pioneer receiver and with the two Amp/One that I have can run the LFR's

I can look into getting a better set of crown amps, or something different in the future. I can sit tight for the time being and just enjoy my music and TV with the old equipment that I have and wait for 2-3 years for Atmos and DTS-X to become common old school or die out replaced by something better and upgrade to them later for hopefully cheep.