Help me Identify Electrical Noise/Distortion in my System


I've been dealing with an issue since upgrading to a LOMC and Sutherland Little Loco MKii for my analog front end. I recently installed a Ortofon Cadenza Bronze which should pair nicely with my 25g tonearm. On certain records, I'm hearing some type of distortion or electrical noise predominantly in the right channel, but it sometimes presents in both channels. The best way to describe the high frequency sound is tuner fuzz with some added distortion. Its a crackly sound that I'm not familiar with. For reference, my entire chain is:

Ortofon Cadenza Bronze > MoFi Ultradeck > DH Labs Dimension Phono Cable > Sutherland Little Loco MKii > DH Labs Matrix Interconnects > Simaudio i-5 > DH Labs Q10 Speaker Cables > Kef LS50. 

This only occurs with my analog front end - I have no problems with my Lumin streamer. I think I may have two separate concurrent issues that I'm hoping to flush out:

I've done my best to install the Cadenza Bronze with a Dr. Feickert protractor and the Lofgren alignment typology. I'm confident that I nailed the overhang. The azimuth seems plumb based on visual observation. Anti-skate is set as well as I can given the rather inaccurate implementation on the Ultradeck. I have the SRA dialed in confidently as well. The one alignment I'm not 100% confident on is the lateral alignment (twist) of the cartridge. Unfortunately the alignment grid on my protractor is really challenging to visually align the cartridge with. The Bronze sounds amazing, but I have had two mistracking instances where the cartridge jumps out of the groove during extremely loud passages. Is it possible that either an Azimuth alignment issue or a lateral alignment issue could have caused the mistracking or the distortion I'm hearing?

My second issue. For some time now, my right channel phono cable has been testy. In some cable positions, the right channel actually audibly cuts out until I adjust the cable by pulling it upwards. Right now I have a rubber vibration pad forcing the cable up ever so slightly at the back of my phono pre. I have yet to swap cables from right to left channel to see if the behavior shifts with the cable swap or if its a dedicated issue from the right channel of my turntable. Once the cable is in the right position, I have no issues apart from the distortion I described above. I know that I have a wicked ground hum if I don't ground my turntable to my phono pre. Is it possible some ground noise is hitchhiking along one of my phono cables?

Completely - or likely completely unrelated to the distortion is an odd phenomenon I'm experiencing with my integrated amplifier. The Simaudio i-5 (circa ~2000) is a second hand piece I purchased from a family friend. The amp has been a workhorse for years and I leave it on 24/7. Recently I noticed the displayed right channel volume number shutting off for inconsistent periods of time. A change to the volume level via my remote or simply waiting enough time will cause the value to be displayed correctly. Correlated to my right channel issues? No clue but a strange coincidence.

I think I'm likely dealing with a cartridge alignment issue, especially since I experienced a mistrack. I'm just curious if an alignment issue with a Shibata diamond can present like this and what the likely adjustment would need to be (twist the cartridge towards the spindle or away from it) or if I'm dealing with something else.

System photo below:

 

ajnackman

Between the lead connector inside the heat shrink and either the center RCA pin or the sleeve depending on the signal cable.

A place to look for a possible problem regarding the dropout you get when you wiggle the R channel input is inside the chassis where there should be a wire soldered to the RCA jack or actually two wires, one to the hot and one to the ground pin on the jack itself.  It’s worth a look inside, even though in my experience it’s never that simple.  Also wiggle the wire externally to mimic the situation where you get a dropout, while observing what goes on inside at the jack.

But the resistances you measured are typical and include the resistance per foot of the wire plus the lowest resistance that your meter is capable of registering.  Most meters will not show zero ohms even when you touch the two probes directly together.  My very high quality meter measures 0.2 ohms in that case. You could also try placing one probe of your meter on the internal wire that goes to the jack hot side, before the solder joint, and the other probe up at the cartridge pin while also wiggling the wire in the way that produces the dropout.  That way you are measuring across the possible trouble spot. But don't expect a miracle.

I've done a good amount of testing on my system and some additional research and wanted to provide an update here for the community. I am still looking for advice and am by no means an expert here. I'm still learning. I recently installed a new pair of speakers that I have been waiting on for a long time - a pair of Ascend Acoustics ELX towers which are a three way design. This has isolated the woofer pumping to the low frequency drivers. The overall excursion is significantly reduced compared to my old LS50s to an acceptable amount. As a parallel issue, I have been doing some research on ground loop and EMI/RFI which I believe to be another problem in my system. 

Steps that I've taken:

  1. Measured continuity in my tonearm wiring from the cartridge leads to the RCA connections on the phono preamp side of the cables and confirmed good continuity.
  2. Visually confirmed the lifting mechanism of my tonearm isn't interfering with playback
  3. I confirmed that my tonearm wiring isn't binding or preventing my tonearm from creating a full physical sweep across my records. There is slack in the exposed wiring between the tonearm base and the plinth. I have been thinking that the issue is then electrical in nature and not mechanical although I cannot completely rule out some sort of degradation to my tonearm wiring or connections.
  4. The repair of my DH labs phono cable helped reduce the high frequency "hiss" during playback but did not eliminate it at all.
  5. I have a spare TVC passive preamp from Prometheus audio that I installed into the audio chain between my Sutherland and Simaudio. This resulted in no elimination of the "hiss". My understanding is that a TVC can break a ground loop between devices due to the air gap in the TVC. I have since removed this device.
  6. Installed a separate grounding cable between my Sutherland Little Loco and my Simaudio. I discovered that my Simaudio has a small chassis ground screw on the back. Now my Sutherland is the center of my chassis grounding scheme. This has greatly improved but not completely solved the issue. So adding this grounding cable reduced the Voltage potential between my equipment which must have been exacerbating the cause of the high frequency hiss during phono playback.

So the question remains what the main cause is. After some research I think its possible that the combination of my Cadenza Bronze, tonearm wiring, and Sutherland is acting like an antenna for EMI/RF. Moving the phono cables around doesn't appear to change the nature of the sound so it appears to be originating upstream. To be clear, the undesired "hiss" is now fairly minor in nature and I can certainly live with it, however the question remains how to eliminate it completely. I honestly really love the sound of my system now but there is part of me that wants to optimize what I have.

I really don't want to move my turntable but the only other thing I can think of is trying to add some shielding to my tonearm wiring. I also wonder if I could somehow run a pair of shielded ground cables directly from the ground connections on my cartridge to the ground post of my TT external to the tonearm as a test to try and bypass the internal ground wiring and determine if the turntable wiring is indeed the culprit. I may be way off base here.

Any additional thoughts here are appreciated!

The other thought I had is that "hiss" could be entirely related to a ground loop. I found an old post by Almarg which could be what I am experiencing:

"In addition to producing hum, ground loops can also result in high frequency noise and buzz, by coupling harmonic distortion components and/or noise that is typically present on the ac lines into signal return paths. However, if you don't hear that when no music is playing, or if any low level buzz or noise that you do hear is the same whether or not the equipment is temporarily floated with a cheater plug, I doubt that it would have any effect on sound quality. I suppose it is slightly conceivable that inaudible ultrasonic noise that is introduced by a ground loop could somehow intermodulate with the music and have audible effects, but it's easy enough to rule out that possibility -- just compare the sonics with and without the ac safety ground temporarily lifted via a cheater plug."

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/more-grounding-questions?highlight=system%2Bgrounding

I have my entire system plugged into a Furman Elite 15pfi. I don't exactly want to plug the entire thing into a cheater plug as a test...