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
rnm4
Make sure the arm is grounded to the chassis of the deck itself(not the cartridge connectors but the arm itself.) Sometimes that will help.
Thanks Bigtee. The ground wire that terminates in a spade is attached to the ground post of my Nait. I thought that was what it's for. Um, what's the chassis of the deck, and how do I ground to it? Could you please explain?

Thanks.
Under your turntable, there should be a ground connection and/or a place you could connect a small ground wire from your tone arm to this connection. Anything metal will do. There should be some screw or something on your tone arm base to connect to (probably underneath the table.)You don't want to connect to anything that would restrict tone arm movement.
I can't say for sure, but sometimes this will quiet things down. The wire to your preamp is chassis ground for the table itself. You also need to be sure this includes the tone arm. Sometimes the tone arm gets isolated and then it will pick up noise such as you describe.
Make absolutely sure your cartridge connectors are correct also.
Ouch! Sorry for your cartridge. :-(

Here's an old trick for tightening cartridge clips safely. Stick a round wooden toothpick inside the clip. Squeeze *gently* with a hemostat, strong tweezers or a jeweller's needlenose pliers. The toothpick "gives" enough to let you compress the clips without flattening them out, and you're not working on the cartridge so no risk of damaging that.

No better ideas on grounding than what Bigtee offered, except to make sure the Nait itself is grounded and that the ground it's plugged into is good. You need a ground tester for that.
Post removed