Need helps with hums, radio station in phono


My room seems to have all kinds of problem with some phono units. In the past, I had quite a bit of problem with getting radio station noise in some phono units but not others. The biggest problem seems to be in my Io Eclipse. I used to be able to fix it by connecting ground lead from tonearm to ground on SUT first (signal went straight to Io). Then last month or so radio station noise came back again and there is nothing much that help short of removing tubes from 3rd stage and reduced gain to 50 dB then use a SUT in the pathway. Sonically, I had not complain with using Dynavector 1:13 SUT although overall the gain is a tad on the high side. With Reed tonearm, I am still quite happy with the result.

Recently I installed Graham arm on my turntable and it gave a new hum problem. As soon as cartridge touch LP, I get quite a bit of a hum but no hum when the needle is lifted. I did not have this problem with Reed. I tried moving Io around as much as my shelf/cable/AC cords allowed. Playing with ferrite thing around cable, lift ground from AC, float ground on SUT, trying placing ERS paper around SUT, cables, Io, connecting ground cable from chassis to chassis of isolated transformer, nothing works. Everything I have is plugged into a power conditioner and Isoclean Isolated transformer. Sometimes the hum went away for a few days then it came back again. My Lamm phono has no such problem. I still really like Io Eclipse sound very much and definitely wants to keep it but I am at my wit's end.
I was told that Versa Dynamic used to make something that supposed to help with this problem but have not been able to locate any on Ebay or a'gon.
suteetat

Showing 3 responses by jmcgrogan2

Is it safe to assume that you have everything grounded properly? One ground lead from the turntable bearing hub and one from the tonearm follow the signal path. So both ground leads should be tied to the SUT, which in turn should be tied to the Io. Are turntable/SUT and Io all plugged into the same circuit? If not, they should be.
You don't have a ground wire tied to your turntable? I have a Basis and VPI tables and both of them have a ground wire attached to the steel hub that seats the platter bearing under the turntable, as well as a ground for the tonearm.
08-07-12: Suteetat
Tbromgard, I tried it only with phono cable as I use Stealth Dream AC cord on my phono unit, not sure where I would find ferrite ring that big!.

I hope that you are using a "Preamp" version of the Dream power cord. The Dream was designed so that it provided "star grounding" for a system. Therefore, the "Preamp" version has a clearer path to ground than the "Digital" or "Amp" versions.