Customer Reviews

VSIS-EU Cable TV Ground Loop Isolator

5 star:		(90)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This story, like many others on this board, have striking similarities to each other.


1. I buy an expensive new media center toy...

2. I experience buzzing from my speakers with the new device installed...

3. Call the cable company after tracing the buzzing sound to a poorly grounded CATV line (house is properly grounded too)...

4. Cable guy comes out and finds no problem even though he can hear the buzz as I plug in and unplug the coax...

5. Cable guy says TV has to be up pretty loud to hear buzzing, blames problem on TV...

6. I go into GTFO of my house mode... (important step)

7. Buy Viewsonics VSIS-EU CATV Ground Loop Isolator...

8. Plug in isolator...problem solved...no more buzz....

9. Post wonderful review for this product, immediately...

I have had horizontal lines going up my screen for years. Bands of color that are worse on some channels than others, and different dpending on what plug my cable box was plugged in. I have a pretty good "Pure AV" power cleaner and protector, but that didn't help at all. I thought it might be a ground loop feedback problem, but wasn't sure what would solve the problem. This did the trick! I just plugged it in, and no lines! Nice to see pure black images without the interference. Finally. Again, I wish I would have gotten one of these years ago. FYI, I'm using this with HD channels and no problem. I was a little concerned the cheaper ones might cause a problem with the bandwith and HD. This one works perfectly and no problems.

Had a hum on my cable box that really annoyed me, after getting no help from my cable company, I picked this up. The hum is completely gone and I have no distortion in my picture.

I have Comcast as my cable provider, and their signal generates a ground loop when hooked up to my home theater system. Of course Comcast will not fix the problem for free (no customer service), and thus I needed to find a way to fix the AC hum and the vertical video bars that were being caused by marriage of Comcast and my home theater.

Enter the CURE. The Viewsonic Ground Loop Isolator was the miracle device that stopped the AC hum, and the vertical roll on my 55 inch Plasma.

Here is a hint when hooking up the device. First forget extra adapters. Just get a small section of RU6 with a F connector on each end. This will keep stress off the connection at the cable box. Then make sure the "system" side of the isolator is connected to the cable coming from the wall, and the "subscriber" side of the isolator connected to your short piece of RU6 that is then connected to your cable box. DO NOT USE THIS DEVICE WITH SATELLITE SYSTEMS.

I gave this device 5 stars because it works exactly as advertised!

I was honestly worried because all the reviews were seemingly TOO positive and everyone ranked this little contraption five stars, without exception. My suspicion was unwarranted. It took me literally less than a minute to pull this item out of the envelope and install it. Suddenly the frustrating rolling purple lines and irritating hum that has been plaguing my brand new Dynex LCD for half a year completely disappeared. For months I dreaded talking to another comcast "technician" or spending hundreds of dollars at best buy on some sort of questionable home theater fix. This was by far the cheapest, easiest solution I could find anywhere, and now I have a perfect HD picture, just in time to kick-off the football season.

When "Cable"; "DSL" telephone modems and some outdoor antennas are connected to your PC or audio system a ground loop can develop. This happens when your AC power system's earth ground and your "Cable" "DSL" or "Antenna" have an earth ground at a physical point removed from where your AC power provider grounded your breaker box. If you notice a "hum" or "buzz" in your audio (computer, home theater, etc.) a ground loop may be the problem. The Viewsonics VSIS-EU does a good job in isolating 75 ohm systems such as cable modems from your audio equipment. Therefore, with the VSIS-EU the ground loop no longer causes the "buzz" or "hum" in your audio system. One can experiment by disconnecting the round coaxial "F connector" from the cable modem, television or FM receiver. If the hum disappears likely you have a ground loop causing the "buzz" or "hum" - Viewsonics VSIS-EU is your cure!

We've had scrolling lines in our cable signal for a while. We connect our cable over Component to our Sony HD TV as the two HDMI inputs were taken by the DVD and a computer. We knew we could solve the problem by either getting an HDMI switcher ($65 to $120) because the problem was only on analog connections. And we knew we could also get a professional 'Humbucker' ($400) for the Component lines, as we had solved the buzz in the audio system with a similar, and cheeper piece of gear. I had no idea this problem could be solved on the input side of the cable box. This device did the trick and for the right price!
As a side note, I did try and call Comcast to ask about putting a ground loop isolator in line before the cable box. That was useless. Nor had they any idea what video hum looked like.

Hum is gone. No degradation of High Definition picture. This did the job for me.

A Comcast technician was able to fix some video banding with a new outdoor ground on their CATV lines. However, while it did make all of the banding go away, there was still some 60Hz ground loop buzz. I gave up on browbeating the tech into tracking it down.

After a bunch of research, the Jensen VRD-1FF seems to be the top-of-the-line solution for CATV isolating transformers. On the low-end, there are various RadioShack transformer models without CATV coaxial connectors that you could rig or two antenna 75-to-300 ohm baluns which could be used back to back (if they have isolated shielding--most cheap ones don't). That puts the Viewsonics model in the middle.

This model worked great for me to remove any trace of 60Hz hum without messing up on-demand or any channels on my digital Comcast.

You may want to be careful not to damage the isolator by making sure the center pin/wire on your coaxial F-connector doesn't extend too far out of the cable.

Product effectively eliminates the audio buzz from my system... but also eliminated much of the tv signal as well. After installing, the TV picture was choppy, pixelated, basically unwatchable. Had to return.