Grounding wires on PAD Venustas phono

Nsgarch: Great detailed reply!! Thank you so much! I will try your suggestions tonight.

Best,
Jeff

John and Jeff, here's what I think (of course you can confirm it by calling PAD ;-):

1. The thin ground wire(s) are actually connected (at the OTHER END from where they emerge) to the ground ring of the RCA connector, along with the (connected) end of the floating shield. In other words, the RCA ground ring, the thin wire and the shield are all connected together at one and; and the only thing connected to the RCA ground ring at the other end (where the thin wires actually emerge) is the minus signal conductor.

2. So you want to connect the end of the cables with the thin wires coming out to the tonearm box ane the (both) thin wires to the tonearm box ground lug. PRESUMABLY ;-) the ground lug on the tonearm box connects to (a) the tonearm wand and (b) the turntable-and-motor chassis. In other words, connecting the thin wires to the tonearm box ground lug is in lieu of the fifth DIN plug John mentioned. And if you got your AudioMeca TT/TA as a set, then I'd bet money both (a) and (b) are connected to the tonearm box ground lug and you shouldn't have anything else to do.

3. HOWEVER, if you connect things as I indicated in 2, and you still get hum, it means that only the tonearm wand (2a) is connected to the tonearm box ground lug, but not the turntable/motor chassis (2b). If this is the case, you can either (a) run a separate wire from the TT motor/chassis to the back of the tonearm box ground lug or (b) you can run that wire instead to the ground lug of the phono preamp. Either way will avoid ground loops, but hopefully you'll be fine as indicated in 2.

Maybe I am wrong here, but I think both ends should be connected. In our DIN's one of the 5 pins is the sheild ground (so connected to the tonearm) then at the other in is the phono stage...

John, if there's only a ground wire at one end of each cable (and presumably they are connected to the shields of their respective cables) which lug do you think he should connect them to, the preamp or the tonearm box.

nsgarch is right on the venustas. Killer phono cable-I used to own one but stepped up in the purist line (actually now there are 3 more expensive 2oth anniversary, Dominus, Proteus Provectus).

Each ground wire needs to be attached. So one to the tonearm/turntable and one at the phono stage. I suspect the cable is directional...I always had either xlr ends or din to something so I didn't have a choice.

Congrats ! If the cable is new, please break it in for 150 hours or so on your cd player. If used, it still may need 24 hours of playing time to settle in and sound it's best...

NSgarch: Yes, there is a thin wire at just one end of each cable. I'm not home, and I don't recall if there are directional arrows. My VPI tonearm box has a grounding screw, as does my phono preamp. I'm just not sure if one grounding wire should go to each, as it would seem to result in different directionality of the tonearm cables.

Thanks,

Jeff

Congratulations, you just bought the 2nd best (and 2nd most expensive) TA cable on the planet! The PAD Dominus is supposedly better (haven't tried one) but jeez, how the hell do you manage a 2 foot Anaconda!

Is there is a thin wire at each end of each cable or only at one end of each cable (I have the RCA to DIN version so I don't know how yours is configured.) Are there directional arrows on the cables?