Phono line on receiver is always live.


I was re-arranging some cables on my receiver. While I was on the tv mode on the receiver, I noticed the phono lines still made a buzzing noise when i accidentally touched them. I tried this with the tape cable and no noise. Is the phono line always live regardless of the chosen input on the receiver? Is this a matter of not grounding the phono line?
jacquesbarteaux
It's not any different, except for the gain being a good 20dB greater. Also the RIAA EQ adds another 20dB to lower frequencies. Because of this, the same tiny low level noise you would never notice from a line level input is audible through the phono input. If you switch it over to phono you will probably notice its crazy disturbingly scary loud. Most likely caused by your handling it creating a signal or ground fault. Its not a huge high level noise, but after being amplified by 40dB it sure is!
There shouldn’t be any buzzing noise if phono line is properly grounded. You should another phono cable with better shielding. 
If you simply touched the outside of the shell on the cable, it should not make any noise.   If it does, then you need a new cable because it is either defective or an incredibly poor design.