Hector Martin

Ground loop. Put some ferric chokes on the USB cable or invest in a ground loop isolator.

My understanding is that a ground loop induces hum at the line frequency, not roughly the 1kHz "beeping" that is present in the WAV that I posted. Still, I just double-checked my setup. My router was on a different mains socket. Switched it to the same power bar. Same issue.

there's this fun thing about USB being poorly designed and switching to and from an unbalanced state one every 1ms (hence 1kHz ground loop), and I came across this thread while searching for the one where I learned this, heh it's only a problem for D+/D-, so USB3 is unaffected

can't find it but this is close enoughhttps://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1301373089658200064 …

That's pretty funny actually. I'm familiar with Hector but somehow managed to completely miss this tweet of his. Thanks for the heads-up!

If the Yeti is connected via USB and nothing else, then this is an internal fault or poor design. This stuff is nigh unavoidable when there is a loop, but for stand-alone USB peripherals it should not happen with good electrical design and filtering.

If you have any other connections from the Yeti to other devices which are not completely stand-alone, then that is likely the problem (e.g. passive headphones plugged directly into a headphones out = OK, but a mains powered amp in between = bad).

But yes, that is very much USB, so if the Yeti is picking that up alone, there is nothing you can do to fix it other than take it apart and improve the electronics.