Sunfire 12 User Manual

Page of 24
User's Manual
22
Hum
Adding any component such as a sub-
 woof er to an existing system will often 
give rise to a hum which wasn’t there 
before. Your Þ rst thought may be that 
the sub woof er has a problem, but this is 
more than likely caused by a “ground-
loop” in your system.
Follow these steps to isolate the main 
cause of the ground-loop hum (there 
may even be more than one cause).
• 
Try to have all of your equip ment on 
the same electrical outlet or circuit, see 
page 10 for more details.
• 
If your sub woof er is a fair dis tance 
away from your other equip ment, you 
may use a 15 amp extension cord as 
long as it has a ground con nec tion.
NOTE: Never remove the ground 
pin from any power cords. This is 
very dan ger ous.
•   Turn off all components in your system, 
including the sub woof er, ampliÞ ers and 
the preampliÞ er, before dis con nect ing 
or connecting cables.
• 
First remove every connection from the 
subwoofer to the rest of your system. 
Plug the subwoofer power cord back in 
and check for the hum. If it is still there, 
try plugging it into a different outlet in 
case it is picking up interference on the 
AC line.
• 
If you have followed the above guide-
lines for the power connections and a 
hum is still present, then there is one 
very com mon problem to consider: a 
“ground-loop” in tro duced by con nect ing 
a cable TV line to a VCR or TV, which is 
then con nect ed to the preamp. This can 
be addressed as follows:
•   Dis con nect all cables which come from 
outside the room, such as cable TV, 
satellite TV, or roof top an ten nas. Make 
sure that they are dis con nect ed where 
they Þ rst enter the room, so they are 
making no con nec tion to your pream pli -
Þ  er, TV, or any other component. If the 
hum is caused by the cable TV line, then 
you will need a “ground-loop iso la tor.” 
This is an in ex pen sive device Þ tted in 
line with the coaxial cable feed. 
• 
If the hum persists, disconnect all the 
source components one at a time from 
the back of the preampliÞ er until you 
identify the problem.
• 
If you are using the subwoofer’s line 
level inputs and there is a excessive 
amount of noise or hum present, using 
the speak er level inputs may yield a 
lower background noise level.
• 
Ground-loop isolators are available for 
audio lines and video. Once you have 
identiÞ ed which components are causing 
a problem, you can Þ t the isolators be-
tween the component and the preampli-
Þ er.
The subwoofer won’t turn off 
• 
The subwoofer should turn itself off after 
ap prox i mate ly Þ fteen min utes with no 
audio signal present. If not, check there 
is no back ground hum. The sub woof er 
may sense hum as a small signal and 
stay on. See the above hints to eliminate 
the hum.
The subwoofer won’t turn on 
automatically
The subwoofer should turn on when an 
audio signal is applied, or 12 VDC is ap-
plied to the Trigger inputs, or if the Start 
button is pressed. If it does not turn on, 
check the following:
• 
The subwoofer’s volume control may 
be turned down, or no signal is received 
from your preampliÞ er.
• 
Check the input connections.
• 
Check the Mode switch or menu on sur-
round systems to be certain that a bass 
signal is being sent to the subwoofer.
• 
Use the 12V Trigger for the most reliable 
on/off operation.