Acceptable Level Ground/Earth Noise

I have also taken another wire and connected it to a copper bus bar to which the analogue equipment is grounded through individual wires such as the earth wire attached to the RCA wire plug the earth plug at the bottom of the table as well as the earth on the phono stage. All the 3 pin sockets are also grounded in the sockets as they would be normally....

I did forget to mention it gets louder when I touch the tone arm so could be something else.

What I would suggest trying, if you already haven’t, is disconnecting everything in the system from the copper bus bar, and connecting the earth terminal on the bottom of the turntable directly to the earth terminal on the phono stage. With that connection between the turntable ground and the phono stage ground being as short and direct as possible, and in particular not routed anywhere near your power amplifiers.

Also, if the power supply of what I presume is the Avid Pulsus phono stage (I’m guessing that your auto-correct software changed "Pulsus" to "Phallus") is located right next to the phono stage unit itself try moving them a foot or two apart. And make sure that all power cords are separated from the cable carrying the phono signals by at least several inches, and preferably more. If a power cord and the phono cable must cross at some point, have them cross at right angles.

If those things don’t resolve the problem, as an experiment try putting a cheater plug (a three-prong to two-prong adapter) on the AC power plug of the phono stage's power supply, to temporarily defeat its safety ground connection. Let us know the results if you do that.

Jim (Jea48), thanks for posting the Henry Ott writeup. I’ve seen that before and I always get a chuckle out of it, especially no. 8. For others who may not be aware, Mr. Ott is one of the world’s leading authorities on grounding and various other aspects of electronic design that often tend to be mysterious even to trained EEs.

Regards,
-- Al

Connect that ground to where the house ground and lightning ground are connected thereby creating a star ground. This way the voltages across the ground rods will be the same in the event of a lightning strike. As a bonus, the (somewhat) equal voltages will deter stray currents into the neutral and lower that hum even more.

Srafi, you should follow local laws. If they are not enforced, you still should bond any ground to your service ground. Otherwise you defeat the purpose.

As for humming, start a new topic, but depends on your equipment, and if you have DC on the line.

DC can be caused by dimmer switches.

Here, the usual source of hum and ground loops is external TV like Cable or an antenna, and PC's. In both cases the best solution is a ground loop isolator.

Best,

Erik