Hi Cameron, I don't know anything about electrical regulations in America (which is where I assume you are based), but here in the U.K. we have very strict rules, especially with rented property. Here, part of the leasing agreement between landlord and tenant includes a mandatory electrical safety certificate, which is renewable after a given period of time. Given the culture in America for suing anyone who as much as looks sideways at you with the wrong expression on his or her face, I'd be very inclined to request an electrical safety check. It is clear that the owner of the property should be replacing these bad outlets, if only because they could be a fire risk. Sorry, but where mains electricity is concerned, nobody can afford to take chances. It can be a killer, even at 110 Volts AC, and can additionally carry a charge of manslaughter on the grounds of negligence. And I make no apologies if I sound alarmist! Get it checked out by a qualified electrician! George. _____ From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cameron Sent: 19 September 2009 00:13 To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ddots-l] getting shocked by equipment in home studio, any suggestions? Hi all. I have a problem, hopefully someone can give me some suggestions or shed some light on why this is happening. The apartment complex I'm living in now was built in the early sixties I believe. The outlets are not very good, worn out, you can't plug anything into the top of any of them because it just falls out. You can only plug things into the bottom plug. Anyways, when I was using my FW1884, I didn't notice any issues with anything except for noise because I am on a dirty circuit/loop being shared by all sorts of appliances and god knows what else. My current setup is now my ADK rack mount machine, Motu896 MKIII firewire interface, and BCF2000 control surface, which is all plugged into a power conditioner. I started doing some tracking with my new gear for a new job this week and whenever I used a mic that required phantom power, as soon as the mic was plugged into the interface, I would get shocked if I touched anything metal that was plugged into the conditioner, including the mic itself computer, control surface, interface, etc, . It's not enough to cause damage, but it is unplesent and is enough of a jolt to make you quickly stop touching whatever control you're touching. This happens even when the phantom power is switched off for every channel on the interface. I found out this afternoon that it also happens with dynamic mics too. As soon as all mics are unplugged, everything is fine. My power conditioner doesn't appear to have a ground lift switch. Is this the issue? Is there anything I can do to remedy this? I've got 5 months of writing and recording ahead and I really don't want to be freaking shocked every time I touch my gear! I'm going to make this issue known to the apartment manager on Monday but I really doubt they will understand what I'm talking about, or give a damn for that matter. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Cameron. __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4439 (20090918) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com