Originally Posted By: tfabris
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In my home studio, noise floor is everything, and I can't abide fluorescent or LED lights of any kind. (Or dimmers of any kind, which often induce their own buzz, either audibly or injected into the house current so that it shows up in the audio recording). What I don't understand is what audio recording studios (including my own) are going to do in the future when incandescent bulbs no longer exist.
Hum, buzz, induced noise - it is possible to control and isolate electrical noise, but it requires willingness to make changes.

A decade or so ago I listened to an engineer describe how he designed and built a sound recording studio with the specific objective of eliminating electrical noise. It was successful, and he related a story about a guitarist that came in to use the studio. He was accustomed to adjusting his amp until he could just barely hear the background buzz. Powered up in the studio, he was concerned that his amp was not working. He turned the volume up, then turned it up some more. No buzz or crackle, it seemed like it was off. Turned it up some more. Still quiet. Someone suggested he try playing something, and the amp responded at huge volume. There just was no AC hum, it was completely clean sound.

Electrically noisy equipment can be tamed and silenced. Shielding, well configured grounding and electrical isolation techniques can be very effective.

As I posted previously, dimming CFL and especially LED lighting by messing with the AC waveform (aka 'dimmers') is bass ackwards. Provide clean power to the lighting and have the lighting itself control brightness. Use high quality DC electronics for the LED dimming and control.