Help with my analog rig.


Recently, being bit with analogitis, I purchased the best sounding analog I ever had the pleasure of owning; VPI Classic 3, Lyra Kleos cartridge, and a Fosgate phono preamp. Everything sounds wonderful, EXCEPT....a constant low level hum (that increases with volume), and a problem with RF that seems to come and go.
Everything is plugged into a Running Springs Audio power conditioner. I've tried everything. This thing is haunting me. All of my cables are dressed and spaced apart properly.
I've been checking posts about analog noise, and there seems to be a lot of people experiencing the same problem as I am. Especially, if they are
using a tube phono preamp. The only thing I can think of is trying a Grant
Audio Ground Zero. According to what I have read, it will address the
hum problem, but I still may be left with the RF problem.
I absolutely love the sonic quality of the Fosgate, but if this tube preamp is the source of my noise problems, perhaps I should think about solid state. However, I love what these tubes are doing in my system!
Sorry if I keep rambling. Anyone out there have any suggestions or recommendations about what I can do?
In advance, thanks.
louisl
You have probably though of this already but you may have a gain mismatch between you cart and you phonopre. If you have other tubes, I would try them to rule out that yours may be bad. Also, I doubt this is your problem, but I had some noise issues and was able to take care of it with cables. When I used a very well shielded cable like Audioquest, it took care of the noise. Please understand, I hate recommending cables and urge you to try cables first and not buy them unless you are sure they fix the problem.
Lewm.... I have the VPI turntable grounded to the Fosgate phono preamp. All the equipment power cords are grounded, but you have a good idea for me to unground these, one at a time. I'll try that. I also agree with about buying another piece of equipment without knowing what's going on first. Thank you, I'll report back after I try ungrounding the pc's.
Cli09...my equipment is all single ended. I'll try your suggestions to try and find which piece/s are the problem. Additionally, thanks for your opinion about the ground zero.
Ciao... What do you mean "using the ground wire correctly? Are you referring to running the ground wire from the tt, to the phono preamp? If that's what you mean, then yes, that is how I ran it.
Manutius....The tone arm cable (in the VPI tonearm) is nordost . I'm using Purist Venustas IC's from the tonearm to the Fosgate. However, I an using unshielded IC's (Speltz phono cable) from the phono preamble to the preamble. I have already changed that pair of IC's to a shielded pair, but that made no difference.