Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

^^^
AWOL ?
Slaw, you were, imo, very wise to remove your hockey comment in your previous post. Otherwise I may have been forced to unleash Wile E Coyote on you ; 8^0

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This is just for Slaw only.

Game 1 result.
Vegas Golden Knights 6 - Washington Capitals 4
Vegas are 500 -1 odds ........ in Vegas.
$50 bet brings $25k

@frogman  and others with HW-19.  While "checking things out" the other day I noticed at very high volume levels I have a hum in both channels with my HW-19/ET II/VDH Black Beauty rig. The hum is volume sensitive.  It is not present with the Garrard/Ortofon/Delos rig.  I went through the grounding rituals and believe that the culprit is EMI and not a ground loop.   I'm running only 1 foot of solid silver interconnect which has a cotton cover and no shielding.  I tried substituting a 1 meter run of shielded Straightwire cable I wasn't using.  This made the hum worse and when I reposition the longer interconnect the hum changes in intensity.  Primarily because of this last symptom I believe the hum to be EMI.  The sound is a very low level hum but not a buzz typical to ground loop.  It doesn't interfere with listening because at any reasonable volume level it is not audible more than a couple of feet from the speakers. As I know all audiophiles can understand, it is just an itch I cannot scratch.

Reading my ET II manual I see that the ET is supposed to have a ground wire with lug attached to the negative side of one RCA plug in the clear plastic phono box. It is soldered to the negative side of one of the RCA plugs.  Mine does not have this ground wire.  I have tried, however,  without success, running a ground wire from the RCA plug to my preamp..

Based on my preliminary conclusion that the hum is EMI, I have ordered a set of Grover Huffman Empress interconnects but they have yet to arrive.  They are triple shielded and low capacitance.  I've tried without success to locate the source of EMI by unplugging everything except my amp and preamp.  Actually, the amp is too far away from the TT to be the culprit.

Wondering if you or others have any suggestions.
Thanks,
Harry

@ct0517,

Hockey comment??? Don’t know what you are referring to? @vpi, You may want to ask yourself, why was the previous post removed? If you ever find that answer, you'll know why I wrote the words you eventually saw.... then posted...@slaw ???????

Some members have enough power to have posts removed even though there are no (rules' violations).


@vpi,

I have quite a bit of experience with Grover’s earlier stuff. Still use some of his power cords. My experience would be only of help to you as to their sonics.


@ct0517,

I can keep on retracing my posts to correct them after you've had the folks at A'gon to remove what may have been seen by you as something other than what you present yourself as....Or you can just let the flow of the flow of the conversation lay where it should? It's up to you my friend?

Harry - my two cents.

with volume muted, let tonearm/cart down on a STILL record not moving.
unmute - start raising the volume. When the hum is noticeable.
  
Go to your loom and start moving the wires around one at a time, especially in back of the phono stage.
Does the hum get worse or better ?

If it changes, look for the best spot then use blue tac spots to help secure them in place. I use unshielded wire and my setup is quiet with this test, but I did have to spend some time initially moving the wires into the best position behind the preamp.

While you are there, also test for acoustic feedback; this time after you unmute and raise the volume, Start a dance in front/side/back of the turntable with no music - STILL record.  What happens ?
If nothing. Good.

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A forum thread reminder.
It has been my experience on AudioGon, that derogatory comments are usually deleted by the moderator. No exceptions for anyone.
Maybe some of mine have been deleted in the past. I don't know as I never go back to check posts; unless i want to use one as a reference link, in a future post.

@slaw . Yes, I'd be interested in your impressions of the Huffman cables.  I've ordered his current Empress.  Not that I was dissatisfied with the sq of the current cables I'm using in the phono stage.  They are quite revealing without being bright or etched.  I'm just trying to get rid of the hum.  Admittedly, I'm a little OC about the hum as it is not audible at anything close to a reasonable volume.