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Arcam phono board - problems

I recently had my local dealer install an Arcam phono board in my Arcam AV8. I bought it to replace my Rotel RQ-970BX. I wanted to reduce the box count and wire clutter.

As I was removing the Rotel unit from the cabinet, I started adjusting the rat’s nest of cables and wires. As an experiment, I set the input on the AV8 to phono, turned the volume way up on, and listened as I moved cables. Sure enough, there was a bit of low level hum that seemed to vary. After hours of research, countless power cord and interconnect changes, replacing the turntable AC transformer power supply, etc, I finally tracked down the source of the hum.

It's the Arcam board itself, or at least the circuit the board is connected to. There is hum only when the RCA cords are connected directly from turntable to these jacks. When I connect my turntable through another input jack using my Rotel RQ-970BX pre, the system is dead silent, as are all other input sources.

The hum is only present at high volume. It is just barely audible at normal listening volume when I am a few feet away. Still, I’d like to eliminate it, you know?

Is the Arcam phono board a POS, or is it installed wrong?
designdude

Showing 3 responses by stilljd

stilljd
163 posts
 
I can't answer your question directly, I don't use the AV8. I have an Alpha 10 integrated with phono board and it is dead quiet at any volume and not prone to picking up noise.

When it was installed at a dealer I watched them miss the pins. The guy that runs the dealership was a nice guy with a lot of pride and zero patience so I didn't have the heart to point it out. When it didn't work at home I took it apart and put the board in correctly.

The morale of the story - it is easy to miss pins and your problem sounds like a grounding issue which is making your system vunerable to noise. Check your dealers installation work and then check to make sure your cartridge ground is attached correctly to the Arcam processor.

Could also just be a bad board. Happens.

Hope this helps! Any noise is annoying.
Jim S.
stilljd
163 posts
 
DD,

Good hunting, and I hope it is just a pin or grounding problem.

Jim S.
stilljd
163 posts
 
DD,

Nice to see you post the follow up. Sorry to see the hum is still there. Does sound like the Rotel has some power line filtering that squashes the the hum that the Arcam doesn't have.

And yes, sometimes you do get what you pay for. The boards were only $100 when I got my Alpha 10. But, I don't know if I could have lived with it if it produced a hum. Heck, I had a new transformer put in an Arcam CD player because I could hear the mechanical hum when I got close to it.

Jim S.
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