Oh, I almost forgot. Something else that changed the way the noise was happening in the system:

Altering the way the RCA cables were connected to amplifiers seemed to change the amount of noise in the system. I am using two different brands of cable for the fronts and the rears, and I think there was some ground loop problems between the front and rear channels, possibly because the two brands of cables had different amounts of resistance. For instance, this...

       Empeg front->4ch amp front
       Empeg rear->4ch amp rear

...produced more noise than:

       Empeg front->Ysplitters->4ch amp front and rear

And I was able to use the pass through connections on the amp to do the following:

       empeg front->4ch amp front->passthrough->4ch amp rear
       empeg rear->subwoofer amp

Since I hadn't ever used the empeg's fader for anything but diagnostics (my front/rear balance is carefully adjusted at the amp gains and I never change it), this was the best solution because it both gets rid of a ground loop, as well as allows me to control the subwoofer level with the fader.

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Tony Fabris