TRL Dude or Joule 150 MKII for Major Pre Upgrade

Granny,

I don't think my explanation is clear to you. My point is that the signal ground has to be grounded at one location for the entire system. Otherwise, the whole thing is floating. It seemed to me that your electrostatic speakers provided a grounding point. You lost the grounding point by switching to a set of passive speakers.

If you still use the same CD player as the one you used when we talked last time (a Marantz, I think), it does not provide a grounding point. If you look at the IEC socket of a Marantz CD player, there is no ground pin there.

To test my method, you will need to find a CD player that uses the AC ground pin, and plug in AC power cord to the wall and use the interconnect too. This is so that the CD player can provide a grounding point for you. I don't think you followed my explanation.

Also, you will need to short pin 1 and 3 for the XLR connectors when you try my suggestion. I think it will work for you...

Yes- if pin 3 is not tied to pin 1, while the RCA is in use, the amplifier will buzz whether the preamp is on or not, and whether its plugged into the wall or not.

Also, FWIW it is not uncommon for a preamp to buzz if it is not powered up. The reason is that the output impedance is usually much higher and can act like an antenna.

If the Aesthetix is really balanced, you should not have any troubles making this work.

My CD player is grounded to the chassis by the power cord middle pin. I did hook it up directly to the amp and still get a buzz out of both speakers. I will try the amp in another system tonight to see what happens.
Maybe a power conditioner?