u/Emotional-Court-2169

I use a PreSonus Faderport 16 which is a control surface for Digital Audio Workstations. I use it with a M2 Pro Mac Mini. It has 16 faders that are probably read with potentiometers. I ran I to an issue where my machine loses the ability to read the faders when I adjust them. However, when I touch the Chassis of the device with my other hand as I make an adjustment, suddenly the faders work fine as if my body is now acting as ground.

Over time, I discovered that it was my new second monitor causing a grounding issue.

I tried unplugging my first monitor and only using the second monitor. I tried going through HDMI and a thunderbolt 3 adapter, going through different electric circuits, all through the same circuit, with a power conditioner, and I reliably experience the issue when the second monitor is plugged in with any other configuration. My original monitor does not cause this issue in the slightest.

It makes no sense, but I can reliably recreate the problem anytime I connect the new monitor. I know this is extremely niche and specific but maybe someone else has experienced really bizarre grounding faults that have found equally bizarre solutions.

I’m thinking about getting a live mixing console, and one thing I’d love to do is use the board as extra inputs to the carbon. Most I’m looking at don’t do ADAT but a lot can route 8 channels out through AVB. Has anyone tried this? Otherwise I think I’d need to go DB-25 out of an older board into a converter with ADAT.