Well I know that subject line may look funny, but it's true. I was plugging my serial cable into the empeg tonight to load hijack 289 and was using my fingers to guide it in place. As soon as I touched the empeg's case I felt that familiar old tickle running through my fingers.

The current was flowing from the empeg case to my PC's case (via the shield on the serial cable). I snapped my voltmeter up and measured 94 volts AC between the two!! Naturally I thought this to be strange and immediately suspected the empeg power supply. Indeed, I unplugged the power supply and measured the voltage between each contact and my PC case and they both gave 94 volts AC.

I haven't confirmed that the live AC source is originating from the power supply yet, but I'm fairly certain considering I don't get the same behaviour between my PC and another PC which are both earthed.

This could explain the soft humming noise I've always had when I've got my empeg hooked up to my hifi amp and powered by the stock IEC supply. In fact, I never use the stock supply for hifi purposes anymore because of that.

Is this potentially A Bad Thing?


Thanks,
Aragon