60HZ heavan.....

Any one else like the 60HZ hum of AC threw power lines ?? Whare i used to live thare was a sub station across the street and id go to sleep with the sound of the stepdown transformers humming ..and after a strong storm thare was a faint hiss of corona and the occasional crack of an arc making it to ground thay never did fix it .it was the best sound in the world ...I miss my substation http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/frown.gif....Come to think of it how can AC make a hum ?? How does it make a transformer make that beautiful music ??http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/confused.gifhttp://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/smile.gif..

 

The AC current itself is silent, but the alternating magnetic field can generate a vibration if anything is a little bit loose, and it's that physical vibration that you hear.

Of course, poorly designed or shielded audio equipment can transmit 60 cycle hum to what you're trying to listen to, and that's not very pretty.

 

Power supplies are buggers for that. When I was messing with my radio transformer you could hear the power supply in the CRO buzzing, it was a nice saw wave it was making when you demodulated it from AM.

Hifi power supplies are pretty complicated things these days... you've got to have a good balance between response time and the quality output, and of course making sure that it isn't buzz like a bumble bee.

The nice hum in substations I'd imagine is a combination of the steel parts vibrating gently with the ceramic.

 

Kind of like falling asleep to the waves crashing on the beach, i guess????

Roger