I've had an old 8-track system hooked up to my computer for years now as an amp. The sound transmission material in it is gold, which is lossless, which is perfect. However, recently the 8-track has started doing an intermittent staccato buzzing sound that lasts on-and-off for a couple seconds, then goes away for sometimes minutes, sometimes days. Does anyone know what causes this?
I've also noticed an identical sound coming from my old discman which I use to play CDs in my car, but I'm pretty sure it's just coincidence and the two aren't actually related.
Possible Cell Phone interference. Is your Blackberry from work turned on and near you when you're using it? Smart phones send out and receive data constantly, not just when you make a call or when you send a message or receive a message.
I used to have the same problem with the old Yamaha amp that's been in the house since forever. Could be a grounding problem, which is common in all those older setups.
I've never heard of the blackberry thing (because I've never owned anything more futuristic than a $19.99 flip phone), but once you rule that out I would bet you that it 's a wiring problem.
Ditto to Spammman. If they're within a few metres, phones on the Rogers network in Canada (and Verizon in the US, I believe) will make anything with speakers make that "staccato buzzing sound" you described whenever they send or receive a call or text message.
There's really no solution to it, but try testing out that theory. It's a fairly distinct pattern when the phone-clicking sound happens.
I used my cell phone with Verizon during full blown shows on a variety of soundboards with no issue.
I think it depends on the equipment in use. It happens readily with standard unshielded, unbalanced audio cables (analog RCA cables, headphone cables). If you are using pro equipment, the cables are usually balanced (XLR) and well-shielded. I'm not sure if the balanced thing makes a difference or not, but part of the reason for using balanced audio cables is supposed to be their resistance to interference.
If you really want to hear a wacky sound, have someone call you on your cell phone. The "boop-da-ta-boop da-ta-boop" noise happens every few minutes when your cell phone checks in with the cell tower (or vice versa). When a connection is being established, it's like a long, loud, continuous buzz. Fortunately it goes away once the connection has been established. But for several years at work I could tell when my phone was going to go off, before it actually started ringing, because of the audio interference. Things are a lot better now that I'm running a TOSLINK cable from my compy to my audio receiver.
Here's an article that traces the causes a little bit more:
Unfortunately for me, the connecting cables between the amp and the speakers are built in to the speakers, so unless I want to dismantle them and replace the cabling that way there's nothing I can do. I guess I'll just have to, I don't know, turn my phone off when I'm at home.
