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Rega Planar 10/Aria MC Phono Stage HUM

Hey all. I recently took delivery of a Rega Planar 10 and Aria Phono Stage. Hooked it up yesterday. Result: pretty significant MC hum. I’ve done some interwebbing on the matter and have seen the P8/Aria post at this forum, and see that the Aria seems to hum quite a bit. Most of the suggestions about fixing the issue are directed towards checking for grounding issues, etc. The rest of my system is fairly straightforward (Hegel H160 integrated; Hegel CDP4A; top shelf Supra wire) so after hooking it all up, I unhooked everything except the Aria to the amp and the speakers. Same hum, same volume. I did typical ground checks and that doesn’t seem to be the issue. I took the Aria and put it one more shelf away from the amp (as far away as the cable allows) and lo and behold the hum volume was cut in half. While at the new position, the hum would be "tolerable" at any particular music volume, it’s annoying when there’s no music signal going to the speakers. Standard light background white noise is somewhat expected, extraneous signal hum doesn’t work for me. So, if, indeed, this is a simple proximity issue (I don’t feel like buying more wire and putting the Aria across the room), is there an elegant shielding solution for the Aria? Is this an issue of Aria design (possibly an engineering "compromise" as Roy Gandy might suggest)? What are other phono stages at a similar price point ($1500ish) which perform musically as well as the Aria? I see I see the Parasound JC3 Jr might be an option. Looking forward to suggestions. Thanks!
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elliottbnewcombjr
5,251 posts
 
I've never had hum in anything, SS or Tubes, that I could not find and eliminate, over 50 years of various equipment, bargain, garage sales, used, new, ...

lack of hum does not involve more money.

you had no hum, you have it now, you have tried enough, out damnnnn spot.
lewm
12,600 posts
 
Lady Macbeth never heard of Shout.  It would have done wonders for her guilt complex.
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sumadoggie OP
62 posts
 
Yah, I'm going to try the cheater plug and call it a day.  The return box is on deck and ready to shout it out.  

I've seen that the Parasound JC3+ (a bit more) and Jr (similar price to Aria) are well thought of phono stages.  Any other SS phonos I should look at in the 1500-2k price range (with all the performance of stages costing 10x as much, of course).  
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sumadoggie OP
62 posts
 
Interesting update: to further the notion that the Aria's hum is an issue of stray capacitance from my Hegel integrated and not a grounding issue, I took a longer set of RCAs (not high quality), and put the Aria on the floor blow my rack, maybe an extra five inches away, but also with another shelf in between it and the Hegel.  The hum got quieter again to the point where it was barely audible with my ear next to the speaker with the Hegel turned up proper loud.  

So, is a good-enough solution just longer interconnects and put the Aria on the floor?  
bill_k
887 posts
 
It's got nothing to do with "stray capacitance". Hum can result from the magnetic field of the Hegel's transformer being coupled to the Aria by induction when positioned too closely together. Increasing the physical space between them or changing their relative positioning will usually resolve the issue as you've found. If you have to use longer interconnects to achieve the required positioning it would be preferable to lengthen the Aria's output cables rather than the tonearm cables feeding the Aria's inputs.
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