Eliminating humming & buzzing

Thank you for all of your excellent suggestions. Luckily,
I found an inexpensive solution.

My receiver doesn't have a phono input, so I had a $75
phono -> line converter, which had a regular 110 plug. I
happened to have a $25 Radio Shack 9v battery powered
converter, which causes no noise whatsoever!

The proper solution, of course, will be to go and spend a
few thousand on amps & preamps and rewiring the whole house
electric system. Until then, I am able to enjoy hum-free
music.

BTW, is a "phono stage" the proper term for this thing? Is
there an Audiogon glossary page?

Thanks again,
Mark

I live across the street from the phone company and three blocks from a major AM radio station. I live in an apartment house with all sorts of crazy wiring in it. When I got into vinyl, I had serious hum and RF noise. I tried everything: RF stoppers: didn't work; power conditioners: didn't work; cheater plugs: didn't work. Then, on a whim, I borrowed a Linn Linto phono stage from a local dealer and all the hum and RFI immediately and completely disappeared.

I don't recall the details, but there is something unique about the way Linn designed the power supply which makes it impervious to EM and RF noise. I went and bought the Linto and have never heard a bit of RF or EM noise since.

It's a bit pricey, but, for me, it was the only thing that allowed me to enjoy vinyl. You can find one on a'gon for about $800 used.

Good luck!

I just went through the same thing. While any of the above answers may fix your proplem there is one more place to look. The cables from your turntable to your phono stage are very sensitive to RFI. I kept changing cables until I found that in my system a heavily sheilded coax cable did the trick. Now there is nothing but blackness between the musical notes.

If your receiver has a two prong power cord and the prongs are both sized the same, it is possible that you have the receiver oriented for the "least correct" AC polarity. If you can, unplug the receiver from the AC, turn the receiver on and let it sit for a minute or two. Then turn the receiver off and plug in the AC with the power cord oriented in the opposite direction. It is possible that this will resolve your humming problem.

There was a thread that i wanted to reference in the Agon archives, but i can't find it after doing a few dozen searches. If i stumble across this, i'll post it here since this is not an uncommon problem. Sean
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Welcome to the unfair reality of analog, Mark. I had this battle with my system about two years ago. First off are you using a phono stage? If so try alternate grounding on it as well. Also try grounding the turntable to a different ground on a differnt circuit. Also I ask, does the pitch or tone of the hum change when you connect the ground. Turntables are natural receptors for EFI as well as RFI. Are ther an reostadts(e.g. dimmers) on the same circuit, Do you have a halogen light nearby, or a radio broadcast tower? Sometimes with RFI just changing the position of the turntable or proximity to the rest of your system can change the amount of hum. Another source could be your system, some CD palyers generate a EFI, try turning off the cd and see if you get a change. Mark all I can do is advise you try these things if all fails try a power conditioner/cleaner e.g. PS Audio, Monster etc.
Good Luck

Install dedicated properly grounded 20 AMP circuits.
In the long run, this will solve more problems at less
cost than anything else.