Phono Stage and Amps which are designed with OV earthedĪs an experiment, try just holding the bared ends of a wire between the outer conducting rim of one of the phono plugs ( while plugged into the phono stage or amp) and the earth terminal of the amp – some amps ground signal return to the earth and this technique cures a hum problem. You can experiment with attaching and detaching earths – particularly if you have a pre-power combination – sometimes it is best not to link the two together by an earth wire. It is bad practice to skimp on the arm and invest in an expensive cartridge – you will get far better performance doing things the other way round. However these are budget arms and most very low output cartridges are over £2000 – We would suggest that high end low output cartridges should always be partnered with our normal arm models Silver or above. If you use a very low output cartridge and have an Onyx or Alliance arm, then the arm cable shielding may sometimes be insufficient to prevent hum. Low output cartridges (below 0.5mV)Īs a rule, the lower your cartridge output, the harder it is to prevent hum and noise. The only solution is either to change the cartridge or use a DC motor. Grado cartridges are unshielded and this can cause problems with A/C turntable motors which kick out quite a strong magnetic field. If you are using a moving magnet cartridge make sure that the phono stage setting is correctly set for moving magnet input and vice versa for a moving coil cartridge. This exercise can often solve the problem.

You can often hear hum levels change when you start moving equipment positions and the same is true when you change the orientation and positions of tonearm and phono stage interconnect cables. Mains cable or transformers and amplifiers in the vicinity of low level signal cable can easily cause hum so ensure the arm cables and any phono stage interconnects and phono stage are spaced well away – you will hear hum diminish as they move so you can judge how far is safe enough. If the following list does not identify or solve the problem, please refer to the section much lower down page on “One channel down and no sound coming out of one speaker or hum problems” – section (e). However before trying to fix or return the arm to us, it is worth listing the other causes of hum – this list is not exhaustive. From time to time there is an internal wiring fault that may develop which causes hum – this maybe something you can rectify. We test all our arms and rewiring jobs for hum before they are dispatched, however faults can very occasionally develop in transit, fitting or subsequent use. Spares & Upgrades for Origin Live Products.

Sme tonearm repair