My listening room has new carpet in it, and frequently when I touch my headphone equipment I give it a good shock of static electricity. Do other folks have this problem, and if so, what do you do about it? Buy a metal bar and touch it before touching the equipment? Rubber mat? Chop off legs and replace with peg legs?

Humidifier might help.

This may be stupid, but is a humidifier bad for the electronic equipment?

I had that one coming.

In Salt Lake City I think even on marshland setting you would probably be OK.

This place is ridiculously dry.

BTW, if anyone else is in UT, we are having a meetup at my house tomorrow. Only about 5 people are coming.

I'm going to go with the peg leg idea, especially some custom exotic wood ones.

What, you dont always wear a grounding bracelet?

If Al's electronics are not getting zapped in the foggy part of SF where he lives, I think you're 100% safe with a humidifier in SLC as long as it's not exhausting water droplets directly into your rig.

You prompted me to do a little reading up on this myself - we had a couple of very dry weeks recently, and may have some more - and besides humidifying, apparently some antistatic treatments are effective on new carpets. Including, by some reports, rubbing a laundry fabric softener/antistatic sheet on the carpet.

I'm going to go with the peg leg idea, especially some custom exotic wood ones.

bubinga ?

Antistatic sheets are a good idea.

Check out this humidifier:

Amazon.com: Stadler Form F-005 Fred Humidifier, Black: Health & Personal Care

Now that's form over function.

That humidifier just begs for a downward-firing subwoofer.

If anyone is interested, here are pics from our SLC meet:

Salt Lake City Meet Pictures - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

Not that anyone is interested, but when I posted that humidifier on my Facebook page and asked friends to guess what it was, I got:

smokeless ashtray * football slurpee * pepper mill * portable smoker * modular housing for the space age * fondue with a straw * sonic wok * space-age hibachi * incense burner * tripod * armored Mars lander with telescope * portable sauna to turn any room into a sweat lodge * neighbor as seen from space, cigarette firmly in mouth * ashtray from the late '50's * an orange, now gone bad, with a straw puncturing the skin, preserved on a fancy tripod stand, commemorating a more sunny moment * green heating: garbage incinerator / portable heater with toxin-fighting exhaust filter * the new MacGadget * foot-warmer, or maybe just a steam-heater * little tea pot, short and stout

One more for you: PUPPY!!!1!