light dimmers question

kyyuan · « **on:** 6 Feb 2006, 02:48 pm »

Do light dimmers affect a dedicated circuit? After installing a dedicated circuit, I still can hear the impact of turning on/off the lights using dimmers. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Ken

avahifi · « **Reply #1 on:** 6 Feb 2006, 02:53 pm »

Dimmer circuits are really bad news anywhere near an audio system. They broadcast lots of nasty buzzes both airborne and into the house electrical wiring. Avoid them.

Frank Van Alstine

kyyuan · « **Reply #2 on:** 6 Feb 2006, 03:03 pm »

Quote from: avahifi

Dimmer circuits are really bad news anywhere near an audio system. They broadcast lots of nasty buzzes both airborne and into the house electrical wiring. Avoid them.

Frank Van Alstine

Thanks Frank. So, if I'm inferring correctly, dimmers will still affect dedicated circuits. Right? My house is full of dimmer circuits (pretty much every room) installed by the previous owner. I guess the upside is that they do save energy.

Ken

avahifi · « **Reply #3 on:** 6 Feb 2006, 06:23 pm »

Not all dimmers are necessarily bad. The normal (lower cost) types work with a triac that chopps the AC up into little bits and spits out only part of the bits, resulting in gobs of high frequency high energy transients too.

It can be done better, the best thing to to is ask a good electrician, what is available is out of my knowledge.

Frank

Ethan Winer · « **Reply #4 on:** 7 Feb 2006, 07:33 pm »

Ken,

> After installing a dedicated circuit, I still can hear the impact of turning on/off the lights using dimmers. <

Right, typical dimmers radiate a huge amount of RF energy, and that permeates the house, separate circuits or not. The best solution, though bulky and expensive, is to use variables transformers. In case you're interested, here's an article I wrote for Recording magazine showing how I wired transformer dimmers in my home:

www.ethanwiner.com/dimmers.html

There's also a section about clicks and pops describing DIY methods to filter those out.

--Ethan

avahifi · « **Reply #5 on:** 11 Feb 2006, 04:52 pm »

I read your very infomative article on dimmer, etc., Ethan, and found it to be right on. Thanks for providing the link to AudioCirle visitors.

However, you did overlook one of the major causes of HUM in audio systems.

Its simply because the equipment does not know the words.

Frank Van Alstine

Ethan Winer · « **Reply #6 on:** 12 Feb 2006, 05:01 pm »

> Its simply because the equipment does not know the words. <

I knew that!