Location Of Equipment - SoundCraft Series 200 User Manual

WIRING
To take fuil advantage of your Soundcraft Console, with its excellent
signal to noise and low distortion figures, care must be taken that the
environment into which you place your console does not degrade its
performance.
Typical problems are hum, buzz, instability and radio interference.
These are usually always problems which are NOT of the console's
making. When finally traced, they turn out to be earth loops or an
inferior earthing system. Indeed, in some areas the mains supply
earth is inadequate and separate arrangements for earthing must be
made.
A separate technical earth should be installed in these instances, and
you should always check with your electricity supply company to
ensure that you do not infringe any regulations.
The installation of a successful earthing system requires careful
planning and strict adherance to the "rules". Outlined below are the
main points, which we hope will assist you in establishing a good
audio earthing system.
Central Earth
To provide optimum performance, there should only be ONE earth
point (Star Point) for the entire audio installation. Each separate piece
of equipment should run a separate lead to this point for its earth. It
is not good enough to "daisy chain" -joining several earths together
on their way to the earth point is NOT correct.
Separate Supplies
A separate mains feed should be used for the audio installation, and
ONLY for the audio installation. You should take a separate feed from
the distribution box and use another feed for any other mains outlets
such as lighting, kettles, etc.
It may be necessary to install an isolating transformer for your audio
supply, so that there is positively no interference from the other
mains feeds. The transformer should be provided with a Faraday
shield which should be connected to earth.
Location of equipment
NEVER place audio equipment near the mains distribution box.
Especially tape recorders, as these are particularly sensitive to
electro-magnetic radiation.
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