help me remove noise from my vinyl setup

thanks for your insight. trying another low-output cartridge is not really an option i have, unless i buy one. i have some high-output Grado's and there is less noise.

so you think it is the cartridge and not the phono pre-amp? both are grados ;) i'm pretty sure the pre-amp is definitely picking up some interference. if you listen carefully in my sample above you can hear some crackling noise, which i did not hear when i put the pre-amp into someone else's setup...

it could be a combination of both :\

Well there are some electrical shield devices and sticky sheets made, one comes from Percy audio I think, its fairly expensive, its a metal sheet that can be formed to fit around transformers, and the chassis panels etc...

This could knock out the rf noise, also cables and placement, I would move the phono amp away from everything possible temporary and see, also the ground plug or electrical ground in your socket could be creating noise. Its hard to pin down, because there are so many factors that you could be getting noise. Also if the outlet your hooked up to in the house is out of phase(hot swapped with the Neutral etc...) could cause issue, this could be reversed using a ground cheater and flipping your plug on the phono amp over to just check, then fix the outlet itself if this is a cause of noise.

If you have a Ground pin on your preamp, or phono amp try to lift it and see, also try connecting your tone arm wire with and without the ground wire and see. I have also taken an extra piece of wire and attached it to the phono amp ground and then touched other screws on the amp, preamp, cd player whatever to see if a better common ground could be found to eliminate more background noise, I have heard changes.

I use mu-metal sheeting to protect my MC step up amp from hum/noise induced from external EM fields emitted from amplifiers or other nearby transformers.

I roll the mu metal sheeting into a oval tube large enough to insert my step up device into and it works like a charm. Hum/noise otherwise audible is gone.

The mu metal sheet needed cost around $35 in my case.

thanks, all. i just cannot get the noise down to a satisfiable level. i looked into SUT but i have heard from some experts that they require cartridges with low impedance, and the 47K of the grado is way too high. so it would mean buying a new low-output cartridge. i browsed needledoctor and didn't see anything i liked within my price range, which is kind of low for a low-output cartridge considering i am going to spend at least a few hundred on a SUT. i need a high compliance cartridge also, to match my tonearm, and didn't see many of those.

for now, i am going to try a high-output sonata. it may not have the same detail as the low-output, but i will hear when i get it.

How did the high output Sonata work for you? I have a Grado PH-1 and a Reference Platinum 1 running on an older Thorens TD 150 MKII turntable, and even with the high output Platinum I notice the preamp hums (a lot) if placed too close to my integrated amplifier. The further away, the better.

Also, certain turntables are not ideal for use with unshielded Grado cartridges because the motors are too close to the path of the headshell. I have not experienced this problem with Grado cartridges on my current TT, but if it was going to happen at all, it would likely be accentuated with low output Grados.

For me, for now, the combination of the Reference Platinum 1 and PH-1 sound pretty good together.