Please help with phono hum

This is a silly question but, you did hook up the ground wire didn't you?

Hmm, where to start, first, shoulda kept the Sota.
1st the obvious, I assume this only happens in phono, and not in other inputs????

If so: Look first to the cables, and ROUTING, if they are within a foot at any point of AC cables you have problem.

2) Keep you phono cables short, consider moving to a non-AC pre-preamp, like a Chamelot Lancelot which has a battery, but more important, can be place at the outputs of the table and limited to about 12" of cable. The signal is then amplified and is much less prone to HMMMMMMM

3) Have you looked at your pre-amp??? The Chamelot or another phono head amp will allow you to bypass the phono stage in your pre-amp altogether. A battery powered pre will also eliminate the potenetial for ground loops which is what you have.

4) Digital glare even on great CD decks is well, to me just not acceptable. The only place for CD's is in the car.

5) Use a cheater plug if needed for experiementation and swap the polarity of you pre-amp, then back, then the power amp, then back. Caution, allow the cap in the power amp to cycle down prior to swapping polarities, I'd let it go at least 10 minutes. Those amps with inadequate protection and LARGE caps can take oppostion to the quick discharge via reversed polarity. Can you say POP!!!

6) A poor contection somewhere in the pre-amp can cause these problems as well.

Remove the phono from the equation. With just the cables going into the pre-amp, not connected to the TT do you still have humm??? If so move the cables around and see if it helps.

That ought to get you started, post the results and we'll go from there.

good luck,

BTW in the future when your disposing of your analogue equipment let me know. I love a deal.

loon

I can assure you that something is wrong with the grounding in the phono wiring or elswhere. You just need to find it.

There is no hum problem in normal analog systems.

I would also check your "new dedicated lines" for phase polarity and proper grounding, because if they are not all correct, you could be getting ground loops between the phono stage and the preamp, and that would happen no matter what phono gear you were using.

Linkoping,
Contact Brooks @ www.brooksberdanltd.com. He is a king of the analog. He will help you to solve the problems. He is in Monrovia. It is about 1 hrs from Orange County.

You can contact Ken @ www.audiomax-ltd.com. He is very kind and living in Orange County.

the simplest solution might be just to play with the grounding wire from your table. i have a vpi scout that has 2 grounds, one that connects to the lugnut under the table, and one that is supposed to connect to the junction box that the arm is connected to. originally, nothing would stop the hum until i literally taped the second ground to a screw on the junction box. that worked perfectly for several months until the table got moved recently. then i had the hum again. until i untaped the second ground. now it's not connected to anything. no hum. the message is that you may need to fiddle about with several things before it goes away. but don't just keep trading in tables without fixing the problem.

Good luck!

I have been having the exact problem myself, although the hum was only heard at around 23-24 on my preamp (very high volume).

I put a cheater plug on my phono preamp and the hum went away. Nothing else I had tried worked.

I had my phono preamp and preamp connected to a Powervar and thought that would prevent hums. It didn’t.

Hi,
Thanks for all the input. I finally get less hum from the TT by disconnect the ground from the tone arm to the phono preamp. Once the ground wire got disconnected, the loud hum is gone as well.
My phono pre does not have the ground in the plug so no need for a cheating plug, I guess. However, there is still hum when I lift the arm up, other than that, it's fine for now.
About the sound, I honestly don't think it sounds better than CD. In fact, it's not even near CD quality. There's no soundstage, flat sound and not good at all. I align the cardrige, clean the records, but still doesn't sound great (like many posts here on AA). Am I doing something wrong here?
Anyway, I finally understand that this TT need PROFESSIONAL set up. That's what everyone suggests me to do so I'm willing to give it another try. Now, the question is:
Is there anyone that lives near by that is willing to come to my place and help me with the TT? I would greatly appreciate and offer to pay for the time with the setup as well. I'm in Orange County, California. If someone is interesting in help, or setup with charge, please contact me. I answer email fast and can also be reached at my cell: 714-623-5099.
Thank you

Sorry, 3000 miles is bit far : )

Vinyl is not always better than CD.

Recording:
Recording itself has a lot to do with it. If the recording is originally from Analog and then re-mastered into digital then Vinyl can be better ( but not always.) Vinyl press can vary from one batch to another. i.e. My friend borrowed a copy or the Nora Jones LP and he swears that it is better than his CD play back. Once he bought himself a copy, we did A/B comparison immediately. Guess what, the CD sound better this time.

TT setup:
This is quite complicate process. The result can vary a lot with different table, tonearm, cartridge, tonearm cable, motor, motor speed, and output cables. The easiest setup I've done so far was buying the EMT 930ST broadcast TT setup. It was truly plug and play. The only issue I had was the 50 hz motor. I traded it for something else that's more flexible and allowed me to swap to different cartridge, tonearm, cables and even phono preamps. It took a lot of effort to finally outperform the EMT 930ST setup.

Phono preamps:
This also play a big role. It varies a lot from one to another. There are many good ones out there to try but it will cost you.

Phono pre-preamp: ( step device for MC cartridge )
Cartridge compatibility was an issue for my favorite MC head. I was limited to only Active type. There are big difference betweent SS and tube pre-preamps. There are only a hand full of these tube pre-preamps, most of them are ok. I prefer it over the SS ones out there ( except I never get to try the super expensive one like Expressive Audio SU-1 or the PH-D.)

Phono cables:
I tried half of dozen top of line and decided to stick with the best of the bunch and stopped doing more comparison. The sound surprising varies a lot in cable technology.