Shielded phono cables

Try the Nordost. I have had good experience with them doing well shielding noise.

I experimented with tonearm cables. I had the exact cable with shielding and without, and it was clear that the shielded one had a closed in sound as you describe. I am using the LPS on a VPI with absolutely no hum/noise, even with the volume control advanced

When you prefer copper inside: XLO Phono Signature, Silver inside: Audioquest LEOpard

Sounds like you have a bad connection in your silver breeze...

As for new phono cables, give your set up, I'd add the Purist Audio Designs Venustas to your list...

I've done VdH, nordost and various others. My friend made me some using Neotech NEI 3001. Vampire large shadows at one end and wbt at to other so they would fit my preamp. I'm done.

First you have to find the cause of hum. The source that degrades your cable. Then try to shield it with copper sheet and star grounding to your preamp. I agree with Stingreen.

With a balanced connection between cartridge and phono input, I have never had hum and I never noticed any sonic degradation from using shielded cables (which I routinely do use). These could both be virtues of the balanced connection to a balanced phono. However, I recently purchased an SE phono-only stage to use with MM/MI cartridges. Despite the fact that the SE cables between the tonearm and the phono stage are shielded, I have had to ground the tonearm to the phono stage externally, to eliminate a nasty hum. Real "hum" (60 to 120Hz tone or buzz) is typically due to a ground loop somewhere or to the proximity of an AC line or PS umbilical cord to an unshielded pair of ICs. I have had both issues with SE connections. Audioquest, you may want to look into these kinds of issues. Have you grounded the phono stage to the tonearm, for example?

I also suspect a wiring fault with the Silver breeze. I've owned this cable for almost 10yrs and used it with various equipment over that period - it's has always been dead quiet.

Have you checked the cables connections with a multi-meter? If its gone faulty it will obviously be one of the connectors.

Thank you all for the feedback and suggestions. I did an experiment today to shield the cables. I used some pipe foam insulation that I had purchased to separate and shield some power cables in another configuration. Guess what? It worked perfectly. I mean the hum was so bad before that I thought the Silver Breeze was defective. I wrapped one foam insulation wrap over one of the Aesthetix IO power cables and wrapped the phono cable as close to the tonearm and Aesthetix IO RCA jacks as possible. It does not look pretty, but it works, no hum at all.

I cannot believe that the IO is emmitting so much energy from the IO umbilical cord. I also cannot believe I did not have this problem before, not one issue whatsover. The only thing that changed is that I went from 220 volt/50 hz mains in Germany to 120 volt/60 herz mains in the US and landed on a fully carpeted floor. Weird.

I am back to spinning records again, yeah. In the meantime, my Krell SACD seams to be acting up and keeps giving me a blocked error, sigh.

Thanks you all for the suggestions.
V/r
Audioquest4life