Turntable/Vinyl Enthusiasts, In Need of Your Wisdom

[Klipsched with Yamahas]

Another good link:

http://www.turntablebasics.com/advice.html

[scott0527]

I noticed the same symptoms with my Thorens TD160, that some of you have experienced, lack of a ground wire and a noticable hum.

I tried installing a ground wire from the metal chassis to ground, but that did nothing, so it was removed. Next I purchased directional audio cables and the hum vanished. I did not use expensive cables, just $10 from a discount electronics store.

Standard TT cables are a signal wire shielded with the neutral/ground. Directional cables have a signal wire and a neutral wire, shielded by a ground, and this ground is internally tied to the neutral at the source only; open ended/floating at the destination, hence they are directional.

Hope that this helps you, as it allowed me to enjoy my Thorens turntable.

Richard

I figured I'd post this picture of the Thorens tonearm wiring since many people who first come accross these tables are confused by the lack of a ground wire which is common for so many other turntables. You can see in the second post/picture the chassis is grounded to the Shield of the right channel tonearm which is grounded to your preamp at the phono input. So no need to run further ground cables. However as these instructions will tell you, some combinations might need to be modified.

[scott0527]

Close up of the wiring

[Mike Lindsey]

I have a SME 3009 tonearm with the included cable, and had the same horrendous hum problem with my TD-124. The problem was I was connecting the separate ground wire from the tonearm cable to the TT chasis, and that was causing a ground loop. As soon as I disconnected that it was dead quiet.

Mike