Grounding problem?

Same post on VA. Boy am I sruggling to get my front end working right. I have an newly acquired, second hand Nottingham Interspace arm, just mounted ona on a Nottinghma interspace table. I have tried two cartridges -- a Nott Tracer 4, and a DV 10x5. Both carts express significant, not very subtle snap, crackle, and pop, on vinyl replay, as well as signifiant electric discahrge whenever I touch the arm, lift, or metal arm mount during or after spinning a disc. The rice crispy noise seems to me to be a whole other level from what I've heard from this same deck and amp combo (Nait3) with other arms (rb 250 modded, rb 300), and the discharge is unprecedented. What's the most likely cause? What to do? (I actually killed the tracer 4 dead, trying to give the ground wires a better connection on the pins of the cartridge. I squeezed too hard and snapped a connector pin right off; what a sick feeling. So far as I could tell in very limited playback exposure, that was one fantastic MM cartridge. Advice here also appreciated).

Thanks!

Rnm4