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Hum in one speaker?

Hi, ive been having this hum thats been comming out of my right magnapan speaker. Well first thing is that my whole system is on the right side of the room and the speaker is right next to the equipment but its been like this for years and I never had a hum before. This seems to happen when using the turntable but only with certain albums that have been recorded at a low levels causing me to turn up the pre amp past 12o clock. Recently I put my speakers on mye stands with magic sliders and I dont know if that may have caused an issue or mabey its a bad vaccume tube? I tried moving the speaker around the room didnt seem to do much but the hum seems at its worst at the best listening spot (go figure). Mabey its my cartridge? I dont know but right now my turntable is about 30 inches away from the speaker. The hum is not horrible but when the music gets quiet it can be annoying. I did swap the speakers and with the tweeters on the outside the hum seems to be worse not better.
barruch86

Showing 5 responses by barruch86

barruch86 OP
28 posts
 
Hi thanks guys for your input! So far I eliminated about 98% of the hum! What I did first is I put the speakers back to tweeters on the inside. Then I Moved the amp and the turntable as far away from the preamp as I could. Then I played the same record that was causing the issue and it was much better!. I think I narrowed it down to the preamp because when the record is over I can still hear a slight hum so I tapped my finger on my arc sp8 preamp and I can hear a thumping hum noise when I tap then it goes away. Then when I take the needle off the record its back to dead silence. So mabey its a bad tube or just the transformers of the amps need some space or the turntable needs some space, but the fact that I got a positive result so far is encouraging.
barruch86 OP
28 posts
 
Well I think I found the culprit it was the turnable/interconnects. What happened was I found a piece of granite that I used to use as a cuttingboad from my kitchen lol. I thought this would be a good idea to stick under the preamp and try to isolate it from the other components. Well when I put it under the preamp nothing changed. So I decided to put the turntable on it and when I played a record all of the sudded only sound was comming out of the left speaker. I looked at the interconnects and they were in there and so was the ground wire so I moved the wire around and all of the sudden the sound came back on! And the hum was completely gone! This is weird because the interconnects are brand new and they werent loose. The ground wire was a little loose but still in there tight so I think its strange but its definitely related to the turntable.
barruch86 OP
28 posts
 
Mental ahah yea sometimes I make no sense either lol. Yea its or it was a small hum that came out of the right speaker only when the volume was turned up to a specific level. That level being very loud past 12 o clock. The hum would get stronger the higher up past 12 o clock. I very rarley go up that high but some records are recorded pretty low or I just like the music so much i have the urge to crank it up lol. Anyway it is possible that the interconnect wasnt completely in there and it got pushed in place when I was moving things around. Tom32, wow thats very informative and great idea, ive never cleaned the connectors, im shure my old sp8 is pretty dirty. Again thanks, you guys are the best!
barruch86 OP
28 posts
 
Oh wow i never thought that it could possibly be a cap issue, i dont think it is, but it might be . My power amp is an audio research vs110 that is about 10 years old now and pre amp well is probably 28 years old lol. I bought them both used, but the sp8 does have nichicon elecrolytics and im not shure if they are original or not. I think they used spragues back then but I could be wrong. The question I have is if its an electrolytic cap getting weak, then wouldn't both of the speakers hum instead of one? The hum did dissapear for now, but if it comes back then yea your right it might be a cap!
barruch86 OP
28 posts
 
Its def the right interconnect cable on the turntable because again today the right side was out again with just a hum. I touched the right interconnect cable connected to the turntable and the sound came back on with no hum! I havent cleaned the system yet so ill clean the schmutz on the turntables connectors first and tighten the ground screw as that could have been a bit tighter. I hope this was the issue and not a cap because that sounds like id have to send them to a repair shop and I dont know how much that would cost lol.
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