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Heck of a hum with TT when cranked.......


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Ok I got my $15.00 turntable (see below):

Picture 1

Ricture 2

Picture 3

I have spent most of the night tweaking in the adjustments. I actually get sound and it sounds good. I have this problem though. Every time I try and crank it I get this hummmmmmmmmmm from the speakers. This is not a hum caused by a ground loop or the TT ground strap. It only happens when I start cranking the volume. The turntable is resting on a shelf in a cabinet (see web site for pics of cabinet).

Any thoughts?

Thanks

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...wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world...

My Home Theater Page

This message has been edited by eq_shadimar on 06-24-2002 at 10:41 PM

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it really helps to embed the pics Smile.gif

kenwood1.jpg

kenwood3.jpg

kenwood4.jpg

do you have to be playing something to get this hum?

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-justin

SoundWise Support

A technical help site created by me and my fellow Klipschers

I am an amateur, if it is professional;

ProMedia help you want email Amy or call her @ 1-888-554-5665 or for an RA# 800-554-7724 ext 5

Klipsch Home Audio help you want, email support@klipsch.com or call @ 1-800-KLIPSCH

RA# Fax Number=317-860-9140 / Parts Department Fax Number=317-860-9150s>

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by the way, excellent choice on needle, love the Grado heads for turntables. i have a majorly vintage record player, like one of the firsts, you crank it and the needle is solid metal like a ice pick and you put it into the arm, just this spike. sounds like hell but heck, it is like a bagillion years old! Smile.gif

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-justin

SoundWise Support

A technical help site created by me and my fellow Klipschers

I am an amateur, if it is professional;

ProMedia help you want email Amy or call her @ 1-888-554-5665 or for an RA# 800-554-7724 ext 5

Klipsch Home Audio help you want, email support@klipsch.com or call @ 1-800-KLIPSCH

RA# Fax Number=317-860-9140 / Parts Department Fax Number=317-860-9150s>

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quote:

Originally posted by HDBRbuilder:

resonance feedback through the cartridge or TT base most likely


and as you turn up the amp, it is amplifying this noise. if this is the case, listen to the speakers at a low volume, close to the speaker, hear it?

------------------

-justin

SoundWise Support

A technical help site created by me and my fellow Klipschers

I am an amateur, if it is professional;

ProMedia help you want email Amy or call her @ 1-888-554-5665 or for an RA# 800-554-7724 ext 5

Klipsch Home Audio help you want, email support@klipsch.com or call @ 1-800-KLIPSCH

RA# Fax Number=317-860-9140 / Parts Department Fax Number=317-860-9150s>

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Grado's are famous for picking up everything from the Album and everything you don't want also. I have one collecting dust because it picked up motor noise like you wouldn't believe. I think there junk myself at least the low priced ones are.

Craig

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quote:

Originally posted by HDBRbuilder:

resonance feedback through the cartridge or TT base most likely


Ok I agree with this as it makes sense. There is no hum at low to moderate listening levels. I can play the system like a violin using the volume level. It is kindda cool actually Smile.gif

So if this is the case what is the fix? The Grado came with the TT so I am not attached to it. Since it was only an eBay $15 TT I can stand to spend some more money. I am trying to save up for one of the better entry level TT's mentioned in my other thread. I figure if I can get this one to sound good then a better one should rock.

Thanks!

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...wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world...

My Home Theater Page

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I've also heard a lot about Grados and hum. Mine did not either with the P-4300 or the PL-610, both direct drive, so I am hoping for the best with the Rotel. However, the reports are from reliable sources.

New stylus should be here any day, so I've got my fingers and toes crossed. My Grado Signature is the first cartridge my PAW immediately approved, so that is important.

Anybody have a source for guidance on SME 3009 tweaks and adjustments? Sounds great, but I've a ways to go before it is "perfect."

Dave

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David A. Mallett

Average system component age: 30 years.

Performance: Timeless

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If the turntable sits in a cabinet it will often pick up resonances...just think of how it sounds when yoyu yell down a well...the reverb from the back wall of the listening area returns to the front area...gathering in the front of that cabinet section the turntable sits in and ricocheting all around it...understand? It just HAS to pick up SOME of that resonance!!...no way around it!!

Turntables function best when in the open air...and with good isolating feet or base to eliminate resonances to the base. The more sensitive the cartridge, and the lighter the tonearm, and the less isolating the base is....then the more chance of resonances adversely affecting it sitting in an open front cabinet...especially at higher volumes!! Tunrtables need a good solid base that is NOT prone to resonances...especially if their own base is not very good at isolation of resonances!!

Get it out of that cabinet...and onto something solid and heavy...normally works wonders!! Smile.gif

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As I've said before, I am a proponent of dead-weight for turntables. Someone said some sound better on lighter surfaces, but this doesn't make sense to me. When I did my audition for AFRTS many years ago at the old 30's vintage KWKH studios in Shreveport, LA, the turntables were on 3' square solid concrete pillars. At the moment, mine is on a shelf, but that shelf shares space for 500 or so LP's, and another 100 lbs. or so of out-of-service amplifiers. Tapping on the surface yields nothing at the speakers.

I hope to build a box soon that can hold 150 lbs. or so of gravel for my turntables. Such supports standing independent of any other structure but the slab totally isolate the table from anything short of an earthquake.

When you can walk up to it with a record playing, kick it and hear nothing more than your own "OUCH," its about right.

Dave

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David A. Mallett

Average system component age: 30 years.

Performance: Timeless

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Dave, do some online research on the "light and rigid" stand philosphy which was championed by Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn fame. There are basically two camps of stands, high mass vs light and rigid (notice the word RIGID as this is important). And the light and rigid stand definitely works better with a handful of sprung tables such as the Linn LP-12 and the AR table. The high mass stands tend to make the Linn LP-12 sound more muddy and dead. The Sound Organization stand was a famous stand of this nature (they are very hard to find and command a high price on the used market). Light and rigid stands allow the suspension to do its work. The dissapate the vibration out of the range of where it does the most harm. On the other hand, other tables, as you mention, do much better on a high mass stand. I have found that VPI does well on such stands, as well as the old SOTA. Ditto with a host of other makes.

So the high mass approach does not always yield the best results.

If this is a rumble problem, there are many solutions. At the very least, try to position your table as far from the speakers as possible. And in general, shelves are the WORST place for a table as they are not rigid and far more lousy.

More information needs to be given here.

kh

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When I worked at Klipsch, I lived for a year or so in a little OLD frame house that had been moved to its location, and was up on concrete blocks which were on poured concrete footings. It had two layers of diagonally laid subflooring out of tongue and groove 1x6 yellow pine, and a hardwood floor onto that. When I first moved in, I couldnt even walk around in it normally when playing the turntable, because I could hear my steps causing rumble from the floor to the turntable...and reverberation from the floor through the table I had my system sitting on!!

I got tired of that crap, securely screwed horizontal cleats parallel to each other at different distances up one wall. Then I attached piano hinge to them. Then I attached squares of 3/4" baltic birch to the hinges...and drilled holes near the front corners of those squares of plywood.

Then I took 6" long x 3/8" diameter lag hook bolts and screwed them through the ceiling into the trusses above. I hung two lengths of chain from them, ran the chain through the holes in the square pieces of plywood, and secured the plywood by running 3" pieces of "allthread" bolt material through a chain link under those holes...to support each shelf at its front. The hard part was ensuring that where I mounted the cleats lined up close to being level with the upper portion of one of those chain links!!..I would slightly twist the chain before securing it at each shelf to raise or lower it until it was level...the chains never went to the floor...just through the lowest shelf in the column!!Hell, I had a 40+ lb. 4-channel reel to reel, two equalizers, a cassette deck, a dbx unit, a turntable, and on bottom a 40+ lb reciever....all suspended that way from the ceiling and the wall...one above the other!!

Result? No friggen turntable problems ever again!!!

It also looked cool as hell...and whenever any of the Klipsch engineers came to visit for the first time...they would always make comments on it...saying that was a GREAT way to solve the problem!! Smile.gif

WAF factor? My girlfriend loved it too!! Smile.gif

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Engineer Jim...he actually brought up the way I had my stereo system rigged up in that house almost a quarter century ago...and said "that was the coolest set-up for solving that problem I ever had seen!!" Smile.gif

Hell you could fill the living room with people, and have them all jumping up and down...and no damned effect on the turntable whatsoever!!

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This message has been edited by HDBRbuilder on 06-25-2002 at 09:32 PM

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MH: I don't doubt what you are saying. I am simply a bit dense about understanding it. Why something with low mass would help a suspension "do its thing" better just don't penetrate me noodle. HDBR's hanging solution (I actually did that once for a TT myself under similar circumstances)...would that qualify as rigid but low mass?

Anyway, I'd appreciate both of you guys (and, of course, anyone else) commenting on my response to the last couple of messages in the "Summer Audio Afternoon" thread.

Dave

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David A. Mallett

Average system component age: 30 years.

Performance: Timeless

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Yes, the use of a rigid stand on the wall, something like the Target wall mount TT stand, or the stand that Rega makes for their tables, does indeed fall under the low mass, high rigidity camp. It also decouples the table from the problems of wooden sprung floors, which, as HDBR claims, can be a big problem.

As a matter of fact, the most rigid, high mass stand on a bad wooden floor can be a disaster. In my home I grew up in, my dad and I went downstairs and shored up the floor in the listening room with concrete blocks and jacks. IT made a huge difference as well.

kh

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quote:

Originally posted by Allan Songer:

Is it hum or is it rumble?

If you have tone controls, try backing off on the bass and see if the noise goes away.

If it does, we can talk about RUMBLE--I might have a few ideas for you.


Rumble it is.

I set the volume level where onset of the noise begins. Then I increased the volume slightly. From this point when I decreased the bass the noise disappeared and when I increased the bass the noise increased.

So if this is rumble I got it and I got it bad. Now what is it, what causes it and how the heck do you get rid of it. If the answer is a new TT that is ok. Like I said this one is a cheapie one just to get started.

The TT is a belt drive unit and has a float adjustment of some sort that I have not messed with. The unit sits on four hard rubber feet. The main case is heavy duty 1/4" or so plastic. The platter, tone arm, motor, etc are suspended off a metal frame. This frame is attached to the plastic tub via springs of some sort.

I am begining to see the advantages of digital again ACK cwm13.gif

Thanks for helping out guys. I really want to give this vinyl thing a chance.

Laters,

------------------

...wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world...

My Home Theater Page

This message has been edited by eq_shadimar on 06-25-2002 at 10:54 PM

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Some turntables have a mechanism to lock the float for transport. Make certain the transport is floating freely, if it is designed to do so. If all that checks out, try placing it directly on the floor (this assumes a slab or stable floor) away from any other components.

If it persists, you may have bad bearings or some similar terminal defect.

Dave

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David A. Mallett

Average system component age: 30 years.

Performance: Timeless

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Okies ya all are smart Smile.gif I took the TT out of the cabinet and placed it on the brick in front of the fireplace. No hum just music when cranked. Thanks guys!!

Now if only the parts for the Fisher 500B would show up. BTW I picked up the Japanese pressings of Led Zep I and II (virgin never been played) today. They sound very very nice.

Laters,

------------------

...wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world...

My Home Theater Page

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