Indeed… it’s about the live and neutral and people are taught in the UK the colours of live and neutral so as to wire a plug. We use Brown for Live and Blue for neutral… and earth green yellow stripes. These colours were chosen for safety as they are still identifiable if you have colour blindness. Getting live and neutral mixed up on some equipment could cause serious issues.
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In Sweden and I guess rest of europe L is called “Phase/Fas” 
. Fully understand if UK is a different story.
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Indeed. In Dutch it is ‘fase’ or ‘fasedraad’.
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Yes and same in german and french. But it might be that the local language refer to it as “Phase/fase/fas” but in english you talk about it as Live/Hot. We mean the same thing though
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I know, and I’ve tried several. They immediately killed the hum, but also had a huge impact on the sound. (unfortunately not for the better))
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sure - I was just explaining the term as in the English language - in other languages clearly the words will likely be different as indeed you have demonstrated. Normally one lets translation mistakes / issues slide on the forum because you can usually get the gist of what is wanting to be said - however in this area as this could potentially cause a lethal situation if mis applied I thought best to advise the correct English language usage terms as we have many English speakers on this forum.
On the Solar PV and EV threads you may see phase mentioned - as if you are generating a high amount of electricity - or consuming high power for say a high speed EV charger then you will likely need a two phase utility supply and dual phase inverter. You might also see power factor / phase issues with very large inductive loads like from very large transformers in amplifiers etc (and here phase refers to the phase difference between voltage and current)
Three phase electricity is pretty much universal and has effectively been like that since it was invented by Nikola Tesla and others for utility supplies and used in supplies from the 1890s… its certainly not just a British or English thing
An electrician will/test a socket before signing off. For self installations prior to be externally certified a mains tester can be used. Correct wiring orientation for Live and Neutral is termed Mains Polarity.
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It might still be worth persevering, I suspect it depends on the DC blocker design. Some equipment have them built in. If there is DC on the mains it will tend to saturate large efficient transformers like large toroidal transformers that Naim and others use in amplifiers. This saturation causes the buzzing you hear (as opposed to a hum). Saturating transformers tend to cause a lot of noise on the mains and feeding the rectifiers and smoothing capacitors. (It can look horrible on the. ‘Scope). Naim design their PSUs well so this is effectively filtered downstream … but the noise on the mains won’t disappear.
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You might be right Simon and perhaps there still is a good DC blocker somewere, but tbh I kinda gave up hope on DC blockers. I’ve tried 4 (first one was a Dutch brand, don’t recall the name atm, second a Supra, third the Audiolab DC blocker and finally the little iFy dc blocker that plugs directly into the back of the amp) They all had the same effect on the sound, softening the treble and dynamics, making for a very dull, lifeless sound.
As long as I stick to an amp with a toroidal transformer with a rating of 240VA capacity max, than all is fine.
It sounds like the buzzing isn’t bad or only occasional so hopefully all good. Curious about softening treble.. perhaps you were getting a cleaner mains that didn’t suit your tastes.
I think, in a way, the subtext of this whole thread is about how much you like your Rega Io! All I can say is that I want to try one myself one day. In the meantime, I hope you can enjoy both your Io and the N50.
That’s what I thought of at first too, but it was as if a large towel was hung over the speaker cabinet, blocking the tweeter. Unplugging the DC-blocker was as if a veil was lifted.
With my Nait 50 though, luckily there’s no buzzing at all.
I only experienced it so far with a Nait 5si, (and a Sonneteer Alabaster) several years ago.
I sure do Christopher. I enjoy both, and although obviously the Nait 50 is the better amp. (mainly due to a more open/transparent midrange), within my fairly modest system I wouldn’t call it a night/day difference. I’m sure though the Nait will easily beat the IO on most (if not all) grounds, if I’d upgrade both the source and speakers. I think, the BS Node Icon + Rega IO + Dali Sonik 1’s together just make a more balanced, sensible system.
Also tbh, the fact that the IO comes with a remote works in favor or the Rega.
The colours are the same in Holland.
However, have the colours changed in the UK? Years ago I did some electrical work for a friend in an old caravan that was of English origin he told me. I found red wires which I thought were Live, but I found out I was wrong, not pleasently btw. Can it be that red wires one were the neutral wire?
Red and black for Live and Neutral on a single phase finished some time back… and was formally deprecated in 2006.
Red wires had been Live, from before 1955 upto 2006. However that is for AC mains. DC wiring uses red for positive which I would have thought a caravan would use.
On multiphase wiring now, black is Live 2 and grey Live 3