Thank you so much for this! I'll work through the list and see what changes.
Trying to reduce noise while listening to tube phono
Let me start by staying that I'm in love with how my system sounds right now. Hagerman Trumpet and Decca London Super Gold (paratrace stylus) is a ridiculously good combo. The only "but" is that if I raise the level to 3 o'clock on the preamp (Herron) I start to get tube hiss... or some hiss from somewhere. It used to be worse but then I got all new very low noise tubes and it improved a ton but I want to see if I reduce it some more. I'm wondering if the issue is the amount of gain on my preamp? Should I try another preamp with more gain and see if that solves the problem? On other inputs there's no hiss even at full volume so there's nothing technically wrong with preamp.
Showing 6 responses by dhcod
Experiment with phono lead routing. Sometimes they like being together, sometimes apart, and sometimes even a small change makes a difference. I use Scotch tape once I get them where I want. This has already worked. I use a wall shelf for my TT and I'm guessing that the lead was picking up noise from the power line inside the wall. When I moved the lead away from it, the noise reduced by 50%. Not completely gone but now way below the threshold of the music. Thanks again! |
That is what I thought too except as millercarbon pointed out, there's more too it. Until I got the phono leads into a better position, I didn't realize how much noise I was dealing with beyond tube rush. It sure sounded like tube rush but it wasn't. |
What is the reason to have unshielded tonearm leads? I bought the M2-12R from the dealer who suggested rewiring it in this manner for better sound. It really makes a difference.... SME's wire has never been their strong suit. I'm super happy with the arm so I would definitely look everywhere else for solutions rather than rewire. |
Regarding the SME wire..... I was going to replace the tonearm cable only which just from anecdotal evidence from owning a couple of their arms in the past and also from people I've known that have upgraded from the stock cable, aren't great. The dealer suggested he had really good results with a rewire from RCA to the headshell so I did it. |