Grado/Rega Hum

The hum is loudest after the playing grooves.  When it is as feint as you say it is, no it's not compromising sound. When you're listening to the music, I bet you can't even hear the hum.

Fix the problem at the source. It is most likely due to a grounding or shielding issue. The RP3 being belt-driven is unlikely to be radiating enough EMI to bother the Grado, even though Grado is notorious for poor EMI rejection. First, determine when the hum goes away. If it is present only with the motor on, check the routing of motor power wiring to ensure it’s not parallel to the interconnect or tonearm wire at any point. If the hum is present with the interconnect detached from the tonearm, look at the phono preamp connection to the preamplifier. If the phono preamp power cord is not polarized, try reversing the plug polarity in the receptacle. If the hum is present with the phono preamp connected, but not powered on, try running a ground lead from your preamplifier to the phono preamp. Bottom line: you need to use process of elimination to narrow down the source of hum until you eliminate the cause. 

Sleepwalker,

 I have an external power source to the turntable (PSU).  The Rega has a non-detachable power cord.  Also, my preamp has a built-in phono component (Conrad-Johnson PV-11.)

Now that I’ve got a subwoofer component in my system, I hear the hum even at low volume, but only when I get close to the speakers. Otherwise, I don’t know it’s there; that's what you said.

"Otherwise you don't even know it's there".


You do not have a "hum hum" problem, but one that goes with that combination of components; that you only hear when you get close to the speakers; that you did not hear before you got the "subwoofer".

You can either change components, enjoy the music, or spend the rest of your life trying to fix a problem that you didn't even know you had until you got the subwoofer.

Orpheus10,

I tend to agree!

Sometimes it's best to just leave s--t alone.

If hum is louder towards the end of record, this will help:

https://www.haglabs.com/collections/accessories/products/humbucker

Now you tell me! LOL
 I’ve gone and bought a whole new cartridge costing four figures.
No hum!

I'v got the Grado Master, and I'm in heaven with my highly modified Rega.


Happy Listening.

Grado/Rega hum is well known & documented. I tried a Grado 25 years ago (before the Internet as we know it) and ended up selling the cartridge.

Changing cartridges is the only sure fire way to eliminate the hum.

Almost any other cartridge works with Rega TT’s, but the grado unfortunately is not one of them.

Other cart’s I have successfully tried include Rega, Nagoka, Goldring, Denon, Ortofon and Audio Technica.

The Humbucker listed above may work, but I did try shielding by covering the inside of the motor compartment on my Rega with foil and grounding it and whilst it made a little difference I could still hear the hum once the cartridge reached the run-out grooves at the end of a side 

Not much help - sorry

Changing cartridges is the only sure fire way to eliminate the hum.

This statement is false.

All that is needed is to ground the Rega motor to the tonearm ground and the problem is solved. The tricky bit is the motor is sealed and not easy to solder to, but if you file it a bit and have a good iron, it can be done.

@atmasphere - thanks for providing another possibility

I had tried for many years to solve this issue and the only solution I could find was the arm grounding solution, which in my case was unsuccessful.

So in the end I just resorted to the more common practice of replacing the Grado cartridge - and the hum was gone - hence my posting

So I took a quick look on the web to satisfy my curiosity and found this simple way to verify whether the motor is the source of the hum ...

A simple way to test motor grounding issue on Rega TT’s, without taking the TT apart
1. remove the platter and drive band
2. move the arm to a position that causes the hum and start the motor
3. touch a "grounded wire" to the spindle of the revolving motor
4. if the hum reduces or disappears then make a more permanent grounding solution to the motor housing

Alas - I can no longer verify this process.

Regards - Steve

Yes, I've had several people bring their turntables to us for this problem. The tricky bit was how to attach the wire to the motor; I did it by filing off some of the plating on the motor which exposed enough material that I could solder to. I simply connected the wire to the ground of the arm and presto! no more hum.


To me its common sense to ground not only the motor but also the platter bearing. The first time I did this was a good 15 years ago and this problem still isn't fixed!