[nathanm]

I just discovered a very interesting phenomenon. A few weeks ago I had my ART DIO hooked up to my NAD that was amplifying the sound card output of my computer.  I was playing MP3s, as I usually do when I want to make an RIAA executive and his family have to sell sexual favors to various miscreants in order to buy a few meager scraps of stale 3-day old bakery at the local grocery; and every once and awhile the song would skip!  This was weird, cause I never had a problem with skipping before.  I eventually traced it to the act of me getting in and out of my chair!  A static discharge was causing the DIO to cut out momentarily!  I think the power supply was sitting on the carpet at the time.  Well, I've since moved the gear around and didn't think much of it.

Now I've got the CD player in the spare bedroom with the DIO running and I'll be damned if the thing doesn't skip from me getting in and out of my chair in the next room!  Wow.  Now that's what I call cables making a difference!   If I roll around on the carpet in my chair it goes haywire!  Shame on you ART, that'd never pass any kind of regulations! Well, actually I don't know where the ESD breakdown is exactly; maybe it's the unshielded HG audio wires.

Anyone else notice this?  Surely the Golden Ears would've noticed static altering the signal even if the DAC didn't skip, right?

[OBF]

A couple weeks ago I noticed something sort of similar but different with my DIO.  There's a bathroom that links the inside of my garage with a seperate storage area and everytime another person at my house would open the door from the bathroom into the storage area the power light would blink and the DIO would skip.  At first I thought he was opening a refrigerator out there and the light circuit was causing a surge or other power issue, but it kept happening every time he went in and out.  So I've been unplugging it when not in use, but I haven't noticed it happening lately.  I still don't know what the deal was?

[hairofthedawg]

I've always been really conscious of the ESD stuff, not just because of my job, but because after three steps across a flokati when I lived at Edwards AFB, I reached down to check my messages on the answering machine and completely trashed it with a ZAP!  I still like flokatis so I'm a lot more careful now...

cheers,

Dick

[mgalusha]

You might try grounding the chassis of the DI/O. I had similar problems when using a CAL Delta transport with it. I don't have any problems using an old Marantz CD-67 with the DI/O.