about filtering PODxt Live 6 Wall Adapter

[Jorge_S]

Hi!

A friend of mine has a PODxt Live 6 multi-fx which he powers with the original wall adapter. If possible, I would like to help him lower the noise of the muti-fx. His original Gibson Flying (90's) guitar uses EMG's, has been professionally setup, and has a good quality cable.

In the country we live it's not common to have grounded wall sockets, so the equipment is not earthed. Not even the adapter has a ground pin on it. Earth grounding a socket might be a possibility in the medium run for his home studio, but even with that accomplished the main problem is at his live performances, not all clubs/concerts he plays at have earthed sockets. He also uses really heavy distortion.

Is there any filter for the Wall Adapter which can be built to help reduce the noise? any other suggestions you might have?

thanks!

[DavenPaget]

Hmm ... Introducing the HuminatOr . Throw in amz's power supply filter and you are good to go .

[Jorge_S]

Hmm ... Introducing the HuminatOr . Throw in amz's power supply filter and you are good to go .

adapter cable already has a choke (a black cilinder), but no capacitor. I was also thinking on something with a couple of diodes and fuse to prevent short circuit at the capacitor level.

Any more ideas?

[defaced]

The Line 6 wall adapter is AC, I don't recall if it's 9 or 12v, but I do remember it's good to 2000 ma.  Inside the XT Live, it has a whole host of power supply components to rectify, filter, and regulate (if I remember right, it's been a while since I disassembled mine), 12, 5 and 3.3v rails.  In other words, don't mess with the adapter, it is not your source of noise. 

Also, the wall adapter will not have a ground.  This is intentional since plugging the device into a USB port or amp ties the XT Live to the computer's/amp's Earth ground. If it had it's own Earth ground, and were plugged into a computer/amp, you would have a ground loop (not a huge deal), or worse, if one outlet were wired incorrectly, the XT Live becomes a fuse.  This is how I killed mine, XT Live into an amp while plugged into the USB of the computer, while one of the outlets was miswired.

What kind of noise is he experiencing?  Is he using the XT Live's built in noise gate?  I assume from your post and the amp sims he's using that he's experiencing hiss.  Unfortunately, all high gain amps and similarly modeled amp simulators have hiss to some degree or another, it comes with the territory.  It's not a power supply problem, it's a cascaded gain stage problem, which since cascading gain stages is how you get heavy distortion, it's not easy to eliminate without the use of things like noise gates. 

[Jorge_S]

The Line 6 wall adapter is AC, I don't recall if it's 9 or 12v, but I do remember it's good to 2000 ma.  Inside the XT Live, it has a whole host of power supply components to rectify, filter, and regulate (if I remember right, it's been a while since I disassembled mine), 12, 5 and 3.3v rails.  In other words, don't mess with the adapter, it is not your source of noise. 

Also, the wall adapter will not have a ground.  This is intentional since plugging the device into a USB port or amp ties the XT Live to the computer's/amp's Earth ground. If it had it's own Earth ground, and were plugged into a computer/amp, you would have a ground loop (not a huge deal), or worse, if one outlet were wired incorrectly, the XT Live becomes a fuse.  This is how I killed mine, XT Live into an amp while plugged into the USB of the computer, while one of the outlets was miswired.

What kind of noise is he experiencing?  Is he using the XT Live's built in noise gate?  I assume from your post and the amp sims he's using that he's experiencing hiss.  Unfortunately, all high gain amps and similarly modeled amp simulators have hiss to some degree or another, it comes with the territory.  It's not a power supply problem, it's a cascaded gain stage problem, which since cascading gain stages is how you get heavy distortion, it's not easy to eliminate without the use of things like noise gates. 

Ok, there's no fix then... he is using heavy distortion, and he is using gates too... so I guess it's just the way things are. XT is connected to the PC through an m-audio, using regular guitar cables (from XT to m-audio). On stage he connects the XT to a Triple Rectifier, where he pumps the distortion even more

[DavenPaget]

I didn't know the POD was a AC anyway  

Ok, there's no fix then... he is using heavy distortion, and he is using gates too... so I guess it's just the way things are. XT is connected to the PC through an m-audio, using regular guitar cables (from XT to m-audio). On stage he connects the XT to a Triple Rectifier, where he pumps the distortion even more

Anyway , cheap or expensive , a cable mostly generates no noise on it's own .
When you take a normally unheard hiss source , and distort it , you can hear some hiss which fine , all distortion devices generate hiss .