How is this for bizarre?!? (speakers picking up radio signal) *

I was just flipping a record and felt like I could hear the faint sounds of music playing from my speakers despite no source playing.

My system is pretty quiet and I have to get my ear right up to the speakers to hear a little noise when a record isn't playing. But damned if I couldn't hear Amy Winehouse singing ever so faintly.

I turned the volume up even more and put my ear right up against the speaker. I heard what sounded like a radio commercial.

Now, I don't have a single damn radio in my house and most certainly not one hooked up to any part of my system. But there it was.

Anyone ever experience this or have any idea how this could even happen?

Are my speakers possessed by the ghost of Amy Winehouse, who has come back to haunt me due to the over-commercialization of her music on the radio???

WTF?!?

 

Your speakers could be picking up radio signals. A friend of mine, who lives on top of a hill, has faint music and spanish voices coming out of his speakers all the time. It's a little weird.

 

Yeah, this used to happen to me all the time when I touched my tonearm.

 

Well, I do live at the top of a big hill.

 

Were you ever transported to another dimension? I think I'd like to try that one day.

 

I am no technician, but I see there are quite a few google results for "speakers picking up radio signal". From the one link i followed it could be the amp.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=333515

 

It happened to me as well. But in my case the culprit was the turntable/RCA cable. As soon as i dialed to phono on my preamp I picked up a radio signal. The problem was solved by using different earth/Rca cables between tonearm and preamp.

 

If it gets louder when you turn up the volume, then the signal has to come to your system before the amplifier.

 

And also the source line selected for amplification.

 

I had a bass amp that pulled this trick. The earth wire I'd installed to palliate the hum picked up stray radio waves. Time for shielded cables maybe ? (only if it interferes with the listening experience, if not don't even bother)

 

I have an iHome radio that I use in the bathroom when I'm taking a shower etc. In between songs, I can almost always hear the faint broadcast of Spanish radio.

 

Not so bizarre. It's very easy for certain kinds of electronic circuits to pick up radio signals -- especially if you're fairly close to a broadcast antenna. (I used to rehearse with a band in a building across the street from Madison Square Garden, and wah-wah pedals are notoriously good RF receivers and if the Rangers were playing a hockey game across the street and I switched on my wah, I got the play-by-play loud and clear!) In a home hifi rig a turntable and phono input stage are probably the most likely culprits. When you switched the selector to another source input, did the RF signal go away? If so, make sure you have good shielding throughout the phono signal chain to being with.

 

Indeed. I replaced my TT cables for Turquoise mega-shielded OFC w/golden RCAs first thing when I bought my TT in '95. Friends of mine told me their carts picked up phono signal but maybe it was the cables, who knows ?

 

Used to get CB radio transmissions all the time back in the day when everyone and their grandmother had one.
A real pain in the a** when I was making mix tapes.

 

That's weird. I heard my system doing the exact same thing yesterday. I thought I was crazy.

 

You must run some unshielded interconnects. Yes?

 

Yeah, take it off the phono in and see if it's still there. If it goes away, its the tonearm wire, phono pre RCAs or something. Better shielded cables or some different config is probably the solution.

 

As above, this is more likely a wire problem.

 

Brian - what kind of Phono interconnects are you using? I had the same problem when I first got my phono preamp and turntable. I was using some fairly nice interconnects, Audio Quest King Cobras I think....then I tried some old Monster Interlinks. Nothing worked....I was especially bad late in the evening. I decided to try some high end interconnects for my analog front end and ended up buying some MIT Shotguns......they were expensive but got a good deal on them.....as soon as they were in all I've heard is silence . I would take a look at that first.

- Buck

 

I own several guitar amps. One of my amps, a 1984 Marshall JCM800 (model 2204) loves to pick up RF when I turn the preamp gain amp. I have an almost identical amp (1980 Marshall 2204, JMP cosmetics) which is silent as a lamb. Sometimes it comes down to lead dress.

 

Reminds me of being on the phone (not a cell phone), and suddenly you hear someone else's conversation for a few seconds - and then it disappears...doesn't happen often, but it exists!

 

So you use Shindo inter connects? Do you have them plugged in the right direction? One end is grounded and one is not.

 

For the amount of resources you have invested in your system, not to mention the expensive set up guy, radio signals coming through the speakers is totally unacceptable.