So Weird- No Stylus Contact Woofer Pumping with Hana ML and Elac PPA-2

"If the signal was sneaking in on the ground, then the SE is tying the phono stage to the TT. And the pin-1 being disconnected, is not tying the XLR to ground.
But this also would suggest that the XLR at the TT side may not be wired as push/pull and maybe has the out of phase side tied to ground?"

You lost me there, but I am not suggesting or even thinking that the signal is coming in on the ground connection. Quite the contrary, the balanced connection is floated (not attached to audio ground), and the phenomenon only occurred in balanced mode.

I ended up with a snow day so I assembled two XLR to RCA adapters. I also wired a conductor attached to pin 1 in each XLR that exits at the connector base. Think XLR with an external ground wire. I made a junction for the two ground wires ending in a single wire.

So let’s dive in:

Woofer Pumping in balanced mode is present and unaffected by the presence of a pin 1 tonearm ground connection. I tried first with the XLR ground extension attached at the preamp tonearm ground lug along with the conventional tonearm ground wire and second with the XLR ground and tonearm ground attached to each other but not attached to the preamp tonearm ground lug. Neither arrangement made the slightest difference.

It would appear the pin1 theory is exploded, which is sad because the solution would have been as simple as a reconfigured cable set.

Next up, Static Electricity. I forget who (sorry) but it was suggested that wiping a record with a dryer sheet might affect the pumping. I observed the pumping with only the mat  to get a visual baseline, then applied the dryer sheet while the platter was spinning. The amplitude of the woofer excursions diminished visibly while I was wiping the mat, I’d say by 80 to 90 percent.

It would appear that the correct answer is, levels of static electricity not enough to arc but enough to influence the Hana ML while operating in balanced mode.

This may be the first in AudioGon history - a thread with a resolution! Good stuff!

That’s actually pretty funny 

@mitchellcp - thank you very much for reporting back on this. I admit to rubbing a record on my head until my hair stood on end trying to reproduce this when static was suggested, but to no avail - though I only have single ended connections. The static must still be there when in single ended mode, so I wonder why it does not create the issue? I know that you get more gain with the XLR, but those woofer excursions in the video were quite large. I would expect if that was it, you would just have smaller woofer excursions with single ended connections.