Ground Loop Isolators - why such a secret?

[DigitalMan]

For a long time I had been fighting with buzzing noise from my studio monitors that were hooked up to an audio interface and PC in all sorts of permutations. Often times when the mouse moved I would hear buzzing noise. I tried balanced versus unbalanced, routing cables away from each other, switching from wireless to wired mice. Nothing worked.

Then one day I stumbled across a post somewhere about ground loop isolation to fix the problem.

It worked perfectly. It was conclusively the problem with my setup, which I expect is no different from a vast majority of setups out there.

So why are they not front-page news? Even better, why don't audio interfaces just build them into their packaging?

For $30 I solved a long-time frustrating problem.

Here's what I am using now (and I've also used an inline isolator built into a cable for a different configuration with equal success):




I hope this helps someone save some time and a lot of troubleshooting.

 

[brianrost]

They are very much not a secret. They are band-aids commonly used in live performance setups. In a studio situation, it’s always best to locate the source of the loop and fix it but if you run out of options a ground isolator will do the job.

For balanced cabling, you can get inline transformers as well as ground lifters. I keep a lifter in my gig bag, useful for amp DIs with no lift switch.

 

[EvilJ]

They are very much not a secret. They are band-aids commonly used in live performance setups. In a studio situation, it’s always best to locate the source of the loop and fix it but if you run out of options a ground isolator will do the job.

This ^ 100%

 

[eniac]

This is what I use:

Radial IC-1 IceCube Line Isolator

 

[DigitalMan]

They are very much not a secret. They are band-aids commonly used in live performance setups. In a studio situation, it’s always best to locate the source of the loop and fix it but if you run out of options a ground isolator will do the job.

For balanced cabling, you can get inline transformers as well as ground lifters. I keep a lifter in my gig bag, useful for amp DIs with no lift switch.

View attachment 7040603

View attachment 7040604

I've been aware of line lifters for live performance forever. It just never occurred to me that was the problem in a home studio situation that is pretty straightforward. I mean, using the same outlet for PC and monitors seems like it would be more common than not (with the audio interface powered by USB from the PC). And there are endless other suggestions that hide the actual solution.

I guess I don't understand why every single small studio doesn't need ground loop isolators. In other words, given one shared, grounded outlet, how can anyone NOT have this problem?

 

[icarus88]

I guess I don't understand why every single small studio doesn't need ground loop isolators. In other words, given one shared, grounded outlet, how can anyone NOT have this problem?

This may be a marketing strategy, many things are used to combat hum (XLR cables, ground lift diboxes, noise gates etc.) If you solve the problem at its root, there is no need to sell them, they cannot make money.