Ho Hummm........

[Nemo]

I can see that the benefits of quality cables is a devisive subject, but I’m new round here. A review in a certain hi fi magazine raved about a set of interconnects by the chord company namely chord clearway. Not cheap they say, (how true!) but worth it. So I borrowed two pairs and a phono stage (project usb V ) from a friend, and set it up with my modest system. The difference was noticeable straight away. A massive hum from the speakers that only went away at very low volume levels. The TT was earthed to the phono stage, the phono to the amp, and the chord cables plugged into the tuner rca plugs. When the volume was turned up about a quarter way the very audible hum was humming away. Disconnecting earth leads makes it worse. A finger laid lightly on the arm, or the chord cable also made it worse. Changing the interconnects back to the original project cable which includes an earth lead, and everything is fine, although if I really pump up the volume to levels my eardrums couldn’t withstand, there is a much lower level hum that I had not noticed before. I also tried the phono stage which I connected to the amp and TT using a QED interconnect, and no low level hum, but to my cloth ears, sounded no better or worse, with or without being used. I’ll live without, the phono stage in the Yamaha is clearly good enough for me. Neither turntable or amp mains leads contain an earth lead, so what are they earthing to?

 

[MajorFubar]

Welcome to the madhouse.

EDIT: See my reply three posts down because I misread your original post.

 

[jjbomber]

One side of the face

You can probably guess which side I sit on.

You sit on the face??? *blush**blush**blush*

 

[MajorFubar]

lol autocorrect. Fixed.

 

[MajorFubar]

Think when I speed-read your opening post I didn't catch on to the fact you replaced the original cable from your turntable which had a separate ground lead with one which did not. In my mind I read that you replaced the cable on a turntable which had a built-in a preamp (these don't have separate ground leads). Unfortunately you cannot do that unless you also use a separate ground lead with your new cable.

 

[Nemo]

Which is what I did....

 

[MajorFubar]

So you did. Ah the perils of speed reading WHF posts at work when I'm not supposed to be on the internet.

The short answer then is I'm not sure unless the cable you were using to ground the turntable wasn't doing as good as job as the ground lead on the factory-supplied cable. You can probably see I'm straw-clutching a bit.