Exposed tonearm cable source of hum??

Is step-up transformer switchable in Rowland?
You might have enough gain without it.
Well, if not still you can check hum not using a step-up trans.
Also you can borrow or buy cheap another phonostage to realy check if hum percists.
You may also try to disconnect the ground connector that might create a ground loop in your components starting from your analogue.

Hello Raquel:

This may be a repete of something you have already tried, but here goes.

My analog front end was picking-up a hum that drove me crazy for a couple of days. Like yours, everything "downstream" of the tonearm and cart. was dead quiet.

Mine was cured by moving my digital components away from the analog. That is, my turntable is on the top of the rack, the interconnect runs sideways to another rack where the phonopre and step-up transformer are located, then back to the rack to the preamp. Directly below the TT (on the rack)is my CD transport, with the DAC below that, the preamp below that, and finally, the power filters on the bottom. The amp is located below the phonopre and the step-up transformer on the second rack. It makes some of the IC's visible (running between the racks) but I no longer have a hum.

Good luck, Dave.

I'm using VDH black beauty with Graham 1.5T on a VPI table.
I was using Counterpoint SA-2 step-up with Marantz 7c and now switched to Counterpoint SA-5000.
I had hum issue before but due to bad grounding from the phono cable (loose connection) It could be that your ground for the phono is loose somewhere.

I had a bad hum from a VPI PLC power line conditioner until I relocated it away from the turntable and preamps. The SDS is OK.

It should seem that five or six inches of unshielded cable wouldn't pick up that much AC interference unless there were a really big source of interference nearby. Could there be a high voltage line in the wall behind the turntable? Doesn't sound like it if you've had this problem in two different apartments. What about the turntable motor (God forbid)? Is there still hum when it is unplugged? Presumably you've observed the hum when the motor hasn't been running.

Perhaps one of your plugs is improperly wired, e.g., the plug on the end of the exposed cable that goes into the junction box and/or the junction box itself. Is there some way to plug your arm cable into your interconnect, bypassing the junction box? (This may require some kind of adaptor.) Laborious though it may be, consider connecting your cartridge directly to the phono preamp with another set of leads (maybe cheapos from Radio Shack) that don't go through the tonearm at all. Of course, you couldn't play a record, but you can still see if there is hum while the arm sits on its rest. This test would isolate the cabling between the cartridge and the junction box, as well as your interconnect.

If all this results in a reaffirmation that the exposed wire needs to be shielded, try getting some shielding material (webbing) from Radio Shack to wrap the cable, and think about how to ground it. Perhaps the manufacturer could recommend a way to do this without interfering with the mobility of the tonearm. Good luck.

Hello,

I think if you would specify which arm you are using, you are more likely to get specific ideas from other owners of the same. As it stands, all anybody here can do is shoot in the dark the hum problems that they have had and what they did to fix it. But most likely your problem is very specific to what you are using. The more details you can give to the group, the more likely your problem will be resolved.

I have a Clearaudio Ref TT with the TQI arm and this too has an unshielded 4" loop of wire over the top and then another 6" or so of wire to the terminals. A shielded tonearm cable then goes to the phono stage. And I have moved line stages (ARC and BAT) and phono stages (BAT and Aesthetix), CD players and DACs (Tube and SS) next to, underneath, etc., this TT and no hum at all. And power cords are going all over the place! So I doubt that it is this small loop of unshielded wire causing you all the pain. It sounds more like a not very solid tonearm lead connection, potential internal short or poor grounding.

I also have a Versa 2 TT which too has a 5-6" loop of unshielded wire above the arm and I have heard of no reports of hum from people out there either. If moving the TT across the room for a simple test does not alleviate this problem, I would suspect that the problem is internal to the arm's wiring and termination .... and not the small length of unshielded wires.

John