Dimmer noise


When I use a dimmer to dim a light, it makes a light buzzing noise. Why does it make a noise?
samuellaudio

Showing 2 responses by freemand

I have a ton of dimmers in my house and am also obsesed with clean power.

I am a lighting guru and have several recessed lights and such throughout the house and was not going to change my lifestyle of nicely dimmed lights opposed to overly uncomfortable bright lights for an audio system-I found a way for them to exsist together.

One night I did an experiment to see if I could hear the effects of the dimmers on my system. In my home theater there are 11 seperate light throughout the room that are on a two way electronic dimmers. From my sitting spot I can turn on and off all the lights while still sitting in my seat. While the music was on I turned on and off the dimmers. Wow, what a difference. When all the lights where turned on with the dimmer it was like it took life out of the system...chocked it. It was very noticable.

Now, the dimmers don't effect the sound at all. I have bought so many parralel type conditioners that the dimmers dont effect things anymore. I think theres over forty different types ranging from noise harvestors, b86's to enacom ac cleaners and quantum . I have 2 richard grays and audioprism foundation 2 which are also paralel cleaners by themselfs which serve just to plug all these in. I have a BPT sig 3.5 for my source. I understand many don't and won't spend that kind of money, but my lighting in my house is too important for an audio system to dictate an important part of house design.

Another thing you can do thats free that will help with dimmers. In the circuit breaker box there are two hots that come into the house. My system is on one of the hot legs, and all the circuits with dimmers are on the other hot leg. With the ps noise harvester blinking in my systems circuit, I tried a dimmer that was turned on and put it on my systems hot and the other hot opposite the system. The noise harvesters showed that the dimmers on the other hot gave less blinking to it.
With the 11 lights in my home theater, I switched to super low watt bulbs. I did have buzz with higher watt bulbs. The bulbs I bought range anywhere to just 7 1/2, 15, and 25 watt.

Very low watts but its way better on a bulb, cause your not holding back sooo much wattage.

It is true, that the lower the watt bulb the less buzz to no buzz there is.