Static electricty - Can it damage audio gear

This happens to me every day. I just touch my stand first and dissipate the charge.

ESD is a primary cause for damage to Surface mount chip technology, or in other words most home theater components. ESD can be produced by leather rubbing poly carpets or wool leading to a HUGE voltage discharge. If you feel a spark it could be thousands of volts of electricity. This will fuse small circuits. Typical humidity in a living environment should be around 40% this will reduce the potential greatly.

Something fun to do is to try to see the arc of electricity between you and another person, that has also become charged. Your bodies act essentially like the capacitors on your amps. A typical 1 inch spark is 60,000 volts of electricity.

After talking to a technician at Harman he said that ESD can cause some glitches in the circuitry. Since the unit works fine he thinks that there should be no damage from previous zaps. What I still find strange is that I do not feel a zap or see any spark. So it is a very small charge. He did suggest the humidifier, proper grounding, static guard. If the unit continues to lockup after these changes they would check it out under warranty. He claims that it is the first time they have seen this with a Proceed product. A decent humidfier is a lot cheaper than a new processor
Thank you all for the excellent feedback.

This issue always seems to come up on the forum during the winter months and yes, damage can occur to some sensitive circuits. Be careful as some audio companies can detect static charge damage on warranty claims and consider the damage to be an "act of God".

Just to be safe, do as the other members have suggested, where the easiest remedy is to discharge yourself by touching your metal rack or something metal nearby. Even touching the corner of a wall as the cornerbead is enough metal to disharge the energy.

In addition, and another simple remedy, is to make sure your shoes are off.

You might also consider getting one of these. They use these when building computers and other electronics to insure no static.

http://www.uline.com/Browse_Listing_1755.asp