Huh weird. I always thought qtips were designed for ears. And I always see compressed air at microcenter. But consumers are often known for doing things wrong. And if something sells, it sells even if it is wrong.

No argument there, but out of curiosity aren’t the cans of compressed air also designed for electronics?

I get that a company would want to stop other companies using the genericized trademark. But is there any problem for consumers?

As far as I can tell, you can still buy Kleenex brand Kleenex’s and Q-tip brand Q-tips, and coke brand coke.

This is a Velcro commercial, in case anybody else thought about clicking the link.

I am locked into a family plan with Spotify that I justify by thinking that we’re not actually family so we’re cheating them.

I see Quobuz also has a family plan but with the same proviso that you’re supposed to live at the same address. How strict do they check?

We have never had any problems on Spotify.

Is that better than a can of compressed air?

Do u use those little brushes?

How do scene kids relate to this image? Descend from emo?

Someone should make an Amazon for used gear, with the same fast shipping and return policy. BC you are right and the new stuff is often such low quality.

There is a goodwill near me with OK prices, but it is a crapshoot whether what you bought will work. From what I’ve seen, used gear shops where they repair and test are mostly for rare and expensive collectors items and not worth it.

I recently had to spend $160 to buy a used VCR capable of PAL/multisystem, on eBay.

NOT a polarized plug. The hum seems the same both ways. The hum is also unaffected by twiddling the volume knob

Ty!

Yes the house speakers (almost imperceptible hum, with the wires in the wall) are amplified by an Onkyo Tx-8011, which goes through a Niles audio HDS-6 high definition speaker selection system, with the protection toggle always engaged.

For protection, it says:

Disengaged:
1-2 8 ohm
1 4 ohm

Engaged:
3-6 8 ohm
2-6 4 ohm

But honestly I don’t have the users manual and I don’t know what it means.

Back to the test setup (with the louder hum; speaker wire NOT in the walls, just draped over the dining room table), the speakers are AR18s, U028144. The 2 pronged plug is NOT polarized. I’ll look for a DC power supply and see how that goes.

I’ll try the tricks! I’m betting the volume knob / potentiometer is a cause.

Update: twiddling the knob does nothing.

They are AR something from the 70s or 80s (?). They might have been built from a kit. I’ll update when I get home.

I’ll look for a ground conntector on the chassis.

I have other speakers in the house, which connect to a whole home stereo system with wiring in the walls, which have a very very slight hum at 0 volume, compared to these. That may be the whole house being slightly ungrounded? But it is different from my test setup, which has a noticeable hum.

This “test” setup is on top of the dining room table with the stereo plugged into a wall outlet via an extension cord. About 10ft each of 16 gauge twisted wire speaker cable connects the stereo to both the L and R speaker.

The stereo is this one: Daakro AK45 Stereo Audio Amplifier,300W Home 2 Channel Wireless Bluetooth 5.0 Power Amplifier System, Home Amplifiers FM Radio, USB, SD Card, with Remote Control Home Theater Audio Stereo System : Electronics

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0BX8TGZZF

Thank you for sharing your expertise!

There are already no input wires (it is using Bluetooth) so I guess it is not a ground loop.

Thank you for the education! I’m assuming that the inputs, if they are grounded, can lead to the ground loop?

Thanks I’m probably going to return these.

Right now, the stereo is connected to power and the speakers are connected to the stereo and that’s the only thing that’s connected. So, either the 60 hertz hum is being picked up by the speaker wire which is unshielded as far as I can tell. Or are you saying the stereo itself could be poorly designed? Because that is probably the most likely thing with an Amazon stereo.

For some reason, this stereo only comes with a two-prong power plug, not a grounded one, so that’s probably a bad sign.

I learned a little bit about ground loop and it seems like this mainly happens when you are plugged into power using two different sources? How is there a ground loop when the speaker is connected to the stereo and the stereo is the only thing plugged into power.

Count Olaf: “Going my way?”

The fun thing is that since Lemmy, piefed, etc are open source, theoretically anyone could learn how the algorithms work…if they had the programming skills to understand the code.