Something Christopher mentioned about the additive fluid for his humidifier made me wonder ... Our 
little cheapo Sunbeam that we use in the bedroom gets to where it won't put out much humidity. At 
first, I thought it was because our well's hard water was clogging the filters, so I started putting 
in water that's been thru a Brida filter. Sure enough, less white gunk in the filter but still gets 
to where it won't humidify much. So what if I put an eyedrop of Photoflo into each full tank of 
water? Would that increase the surface tension of the water so more "sticks" on the fan blades and 
thus solve our problem? Or would the Photoflo just soap up the carbon filter?

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] static electricity noise during playback of open reen tapes


> Hi, Christopher (and all),
>
> Between a mixture of humidifier (Aprilaire, whole house), dehumidifier, and central air 
> conditioning, I'm generally able to keep the humidity in the studio between 35-45% RH at 22 °C.
>
> The exception is that the Aprilaire will reduce the amount of humidification when the outside 
> temperature falls to -10 °C and below. This is to protect the house structure.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
> On 2011-02-05 8:01 AM, Christopher Campbell wrote:
>> I have been making digital transfers for several years using Revox C270 and C274 recorders, and
>> have had significant problems with low-level "clicks" that I eventually traced to static 
>> discharges.
>> The beginning of my solution was to purchase an inexpensive digital thermometer/hygrometer
>> (available from Radio Shack or Amazon.com) and monitor the humidity very closely. After doing a
>> little research and discovering that musicians often purchase the Venta-Airwasher humidifiers to
>> maintain humidity levels to protect valuable instruments, I bought one. My recording space is
>> about 216 square feet, and the model LW24 is rated to cover 360 square feet. That's probably
>> optimistic, but having a bit of over-capacity means that I can run the unit at speed 2 (medium)
>> during the night and charge the studio with a bit of excess moisture, and then run it at speed 1
>> (low) during the day. The unit is not noisy, but the fan does make some noise, and I want my
>> background noise level as low as possible.
>>
>> http://www.venta-airwasher.com/index.html
>>
>>
>
> -- 
> Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada           (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>