VPI Classic hum

Macster, in light of your problems, I think letting your dealer install a new cartridge is a good idea. But before taking it out of his premises, I would ask him to plug it into a system to check it out for hum. Also, I would bring your VPI alignment jig and a digital weight meter to check for yourself that the carty is set up correctly. It should take all of 5 minutes to check alignment and weight. If there's a problem, I would insist the dealer resolve it on the spot. I offer these suggestions because the da*n tables weighs a ton. Why schlepp it around if you can avoid it??

The dealer who BTW is a great guy, immediately started working on the table as soon as I brought it in, he and I did all of the listening through headphones and after trying various things and talking to the guys at VPI, Bruce narrowed it down to the interconnects. Bamm 98% resolved, I won't say 100% until I've lived with it for awhile. He replaced my interconnects with a pair of AQ King Cobra's and now things are very good. Again, I'm going to live this for a bit and try various records before I buy off on this. The hum "appears" to be gone and it is definitely not as pronounced as it was. To be clear, I'm not hearing it. I'm cranking the volume up to 12'clock and nothing.

The downside: I've spent almost $500.00 on cartridges that could have been spent somewhere else. As a matter of fact I'm breaking in the 10X5 right now along with the new ICs.

Thanks to everyone for their help re" Bifwynne and Sbrownw" and also especially Bruce at Stereo Unlimited here in San Diego for patiently working through with me. Next upgrade will be the Zephyr or the AQ Columbias.

If you ran your tonearm/cartridge in balanced mode, you would be able to turn up your volume control to the max and not hear hum. (if indeed you have a grounding grounding issue) As I read trough the above posts, I still think that Bearpaws would eliminate lost of the feedback you are getting (putting the cartridge (just above the record without noise) and touching the record (noise). There seems to be some subsonics coming through the supporting structure, the turntable, the arm that from which you are hearing the harmonics. Also, VPI sells a small weight that can be attached to the head of the arm to change the mass...but I wouldn't readily go there before trying the Bearpaws.

Stringreen

I have a CJ PV5 which doesn't have a balance mode. The last time that I turned my volume up to check for hum and noise, I blew out one of the drivers in my Vandersteens. It cost me $950.00 for that experience. As a result I would be hesitant to recommend that anyone do that. The hum only happened when the stylus touched the record and the motor was running. Now nothing is happening, :-).

I've had my Classic I with the Valhalla wiring, and a Lyra Delos for over two years now, and after three or four different interconnects across my system, three different speaker cables, two different phono preamps, a line preamp and power amp upgrade, I have not experienced any hum so many posters here complain of. I run tube line preamp and monoblocks so I do have what I'd describe as "hiss" when I turn the volume up to about a 90 dB level, but it has no effect on the sound; record imperfections are way more obvious than any hiss during quiet passages. So I'm puzzled by this mysterious hum problem and why the turntable would need any fixing or looking at. It's most likely poorly shielded cartridges than might be picking up some interference. I'm not sure how VPI or a VPI dealer can possibly fix the problem.

Btw, Macster, I also bought my Classic and the rest of my system from Stereo Unlimited in San Diego. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email me at actusreus13@hotmail.com.