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Currid won't be removing any safety earthing from my suggestion. The ground loop needs to be removed - when it's powered via a laptop usb connection there's no ground connection and is safe. If the usb port on the MiniDSP is a shielded USB port then it means that there will be an uneccessary ground connection if it's used via a grounded USB plug (which might be causing the ground loop). Additionally, if it's plugged in via the PSU there shouldn't be a ground connection but if there's a ground hum then something funky is going on there. It could be a faulty PSU. By lifting the ground on a power connection connected to the usb port of the MiniDSP they're not creating anything that's any less safe than plugging it into a laptop.
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Agreed, I don't want to remove safety earthing. The phono leads are new (and expensive) shielding should be excellent on them.
How does the laptop usb port lift the ground? Surely there's something cheap and similar which does the trick?
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Removing ground from something isn't advisable but doesn't mean something bad will definitely happen. Ground is there more as a safety measure. Removing ground to check if that is the source of an issue, if done carefully, can be hardly labelled as dangerous.
If by removing the ground the hum is gone, that solves the issue and kind of proves there was a ground loop. Btw when you break a ground loop everything is still grounded!
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gorgonzolach
Currid
PedroPinto
@dbr
Removing safety earthing from your electronic equipment is a bad and potentially dangerous solution. The PSU for the MiniDSP won't be grounding it, there's only 5v + - coming from the PSU. It's the phono cable shield.