On January 20, 2024 at 15:51, Craig Aguiar-Winter said...
You are correct. It’s a 280535. I have the DA converter at home and looked at the wrong box.
You are also correct in that it’s different than what you see on line. I’ve used this balun many times. I was surprised to see that the product in th box is different than on the website. When tech support called me back he said that they changed the design and now it has grounds, a metal enclosure and shielded RJ45 connectors. I mentioned to him that the documentation was not updated as it matches the previous version. He took note.
I am dealing with a very minor hum. When I wire subs I run an RG6 and a cat6. This run is about 60ft and the coax isn’t suitable (loss of signal over the distance) so I’ve used the cat6 and a balun. The electrical for the sub is run back to the same surge protector as the receiver and the signal cables are not run parallel to any electrical. I switched to a balun and the signal level improved quite a bit but now I have the subtle hum. The balun I used is a cheaper Calrad model I happened to have with me. I’m going back and hoping that this one with ground loop isolation will fix the issue. There was no hum with the coax. The Calrad balun I used had been in use on my own system in my garage with no hum. So I don’t think the Calrad balun is creating the hum.
Craig
There's no reason that the coax should lose signal over 60'- your sub line out should be plenty to prevent it because 60 feet just isn't a long run. I would find out if the coax is pinched- losing the distance between the center conductor and shield reduces noise rejection.
Have you used a different piece of coax to see if it helps? I would also use my inductive probe from my signal tracer (Fox & Hound or any other) to find out if the hum is induced, or caused by bad grounding. Just because I have seen it work, try connecting the shield of the coax to the ground screw on the AVR or whatever is at the head end- it may eliminate all of the hum.
I doubt the Vanco analog audio balun will increase the signal strength in order to combat line loss- it may and I have seen slightly hotter output from PAC isolation transformers used for car audio (you could try using an isolation transformer if this proves to be a ground loop- Jensen and Edcor are two of the better brands).
Subs and power amps generally aren't powered through surge protection unless the outlet used for each is specifically labeled for those and protecting a sub that's 60' from the rest of the system isn't quite the same as if it were next to the rest of the system. Maybe you could use separate surge protection at the sub- it could eliminate the hum. I know some Munster power strips had Amp and Subwoofer labeling, but those were terrible- I connected one with their Dr Noise POS that was used to sell their stuff and when I turned the level control up, I could hear a baseball game broadcast- when I used it with my $7 Office Depot power strip, it was silent. I still use that power strip 25 years later and with the power going out last weekend complete with arcing at the transformer 75' from my house, nothing cooked.
