Mark Twain wrote:
The speaker hum/static sound came back today
and this time I tried the diagnostics. I unplugged
the speakers and tried each one in the diagnostics
port for low and high frequencies and both played
although they sounded the same to me. So according
to the test the speakers are working normally.

Afterwards the humming stopped.

Robert

http://stuartconnections.com/product...uide/setup.htm

You could try just connecting the green connector
and leave the black disconnected. Then listen for hum.

The multichannel setup likely requires different
balancing than the stereo (green plug only) setup.
This would be something you'd attempt to adjust
from a "full featured" sound control panel on
the computer end. You have to adjust the output mode,
play some music, and rebalance the bass and treble
or adjust the multiband software equalizer.

I've had a couple sound cards, where they had absolutely
no bass and treble control at all. And then I have two
computers now, with the "software multiband equalizer"
(sound correction done with DSP software). And I've used
that on occasion to correct the really bad
amplifier characteristics. You adjust until the
sound is natural.

I'd suggest trying TOSLink, except neither end has that.
(That's optical SPDIF.) TOSLink emits a red LED color
from the emitter and uses "dental fiber", a relatively
large diameter plastic fiber cable with high loss. The
TOSLink emitter costs the manufacturer around $1. A number
of motherboards have it. It's the "digital" connector
in the manual. Some laptops, the green lineout connector
is dual purpose, and if you look into the barrel
of the green connector, you'll be greeted by red
LED light output. The connector will accept some
sort of TOSLink adapter to pick up the light.

Another way to break a DC path between components,
is with Radio Shack "wireless" extenders. Which is
way too expensive to be worth it. Radio Shack also
used to sell a "hum breaker", with a carefully
balanced transformer inside, and that's for cases
where there is a ground loop. Since the HK695 has no
Safety Ground, there should not be a ground loop
present. The HK695 is isolated and floating with
respect to the power source. Only the PC establishes
ground potential. A hum breaker should not be needed.
Even a good quality hum breaker only has a 10KHz
bandwidth, so it's not exactly "high fidelity".
But compared to a situation that hums, it's
quite acceptable.

Paul