Alright, the faraday blanket lends support to the "external radiation"/Wi-Fi theory.
As a (possibly amusing/enlightening) side story, I had tried substituting other equipment as part of my logical deduction, detective methodology and found that a solid-state version didn't suffer the same noise (both pre and phono) and so, the units were obviously the problem (I thought/but really, just better shielded). My technician was not able to duplicate my problem but charged me anyway. When I finally figured out what the problem was, I shared that with my technician, hoping and even suggesting that maybe he shouldn't have charged me. His wise response: "Turner, it's always what you don't know that costs you."
Think "out of the box/system" if all else fails.