Scout ground question


I recently picked up a new Scout and a Musical Surroundings Nova Phonomena phono preamp here on Agon. I have mild hum coming from the speakers and some occasional static like popping (without a record playing). I am using Signal Cable Silver Resolution phono cable that includes a ground wire. The Nova is battery powered and my preamp is battery powered (Dodd). Cartridge is the Dynavector 20X low output. I had to set the gain on the Nova at 60db to get volume to normal listening levels with the output at the 11 O'clock position on my preamp.

The Scout comes with a ground wire pre-connected from the tonearm (standard arm). Therefore, I have not yet connected a ground between the Scout and Nova. So the question is, should I also run a ground from the Scout to the Nova and, if so, should I disconnect the tonearm ground? Also, could the high gain setting on the Nova contribute to the problem?

Thanks for the help. Yet to come - varioius VTA and VTF questions ;)
cruz123
You might want to try out another phono cable. i had the signal cable phono cable going from a Scout to an Ear 834p and I was getting RFI noise. I switched to the VPI/Discovery phono cable and that solved the problem. I have a feeling that the Signal Cable phono cable is not sufficiently shielded.
Thanks. I connected the ground from the Scout to the Nova and it made some improvement. I still have some hum but its only noticeable directly in front of the speaker and there's still some "hiss". I can't hear the hum or hiss from the listening position, so I can live with it.
I had to remove the ground wire from the junction box to the phono preamp to get rid of hum in my system. Scoutmaster with 20x low and Sutherland ph3d battery powered phono preamp.
Maybe I am misunderstanding you but if the only ground you have is from the tonearm to the screw on the "junction box" that sits on the back top of the turntable, that's not enough. I have a ground wire that connects that screw on the junction box to the ground on the phono preamp, in addition the wire from the tonearm. Actually, this is integrated into the interconnect itself...it's the VPI interconnect. Before I added this, I had tons of hum and extraneous noise.
have a similar config-imho, connect the ground from the signal cable to the phonopre, leave the scout tonearm ground connected, consider a high output version of the dv 20x