Cartridge Alignment

P.S. to my last post. Goofyfoot ... is your turntable grounded? Any possibility of a ground loop?? bf

First, let me add that the Grado mono I'm now using is an upgrade from the Grado ME+ mono that was on there before. My thought is that a wood cartridge body should produce less hum than a plastic cartridge body so blaming the current Grado doesn't really seem all that plausible.
And, I know Lew from our earlier chats on this forum and without a doubt, he knows a lot more about Hi Fi in general, so I never doubted him nor have I doubted anyone else on this post.
As far as the ground Bifwynne, I believe the ground wire got yanked from its connection. I did however run a copper wire from the Thorens top plate screw to the extra black speaker terminal on my ASR Emitter II Exclusive amp but the hum is exponentially louder than it has ever been. I am by the way using an ASR Mini Basis Exclusive phono amp so the two should produce a balance when coupled together?
Now a quick history about the tonearm wiring; when I first bought the TD 145, I had it serviced and I let the technician rewire the tonearm from the back. In the process, he rewired the ground as well. After the rewire, he aligned the Grado ME + and everything sounded just as one could expect.
I don't however know how secure those cable connections really are and being without a dominate side, well I goofed and I stepped on the cable while moving it, duh. I assumed however that if I grounded it from the top plate, that this would produce enough ground to eliminate any possible hum but what I didn't take into account is that it isn't grounded to the phono amp. In addition, I potentially could have yanked the tonearm cable/s though the cartridge was equally balanced while playing a record.
So yes, I'm clumsy and inept where it pertains to electronics. But I'm able to understand simple explanations and I greatly appreciate everyone's generosity where it pertains to their posting on this forum.
Thanks Again All!

09-24-15: Goofyfoot
" ... the Grado mono I'm now using is an upgrade from the Grado ME+ mono that was on there before. My thought is that a wood cartridge body should produce less hum than a plastic cartridge body so blaming the current Grado doesn't really seem all that plausible ... I did however run a copper wire from the Thorens top plate screw to the extra black speaker terminal on my ASR Emitter II Exclusive amp but the hum is exponentially louder than it has ever been.

I'm not sure why you think a wood-body cartridge should be less prone to hum that a similar plastic-body cartridge. In any event, Grados are known to be susceptible to hum on some turntables.

As for grounding your turntable, you don't want to wire it to your amplifier's neutral speaker connection! You want to use a reliable, short, low impedance path to ground, such as the ground screw of an electric outlet, or a cold water pipe.

Cleeds, I was told differently by the manufacturer of the amp and phono stage so that's why I grounded it that way. Nevertheless, having the cable and ground fixed seems like the better solution.