Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No More Drake > Musician's Lounge > What's that noise?
 
  • Locked thread
Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

 I see that the preamp has a dedicated ground screw - out of curiosity, does the turntable also have one? If so, try connecting them together and see if your noise goes away. Years ago when I used to DJ at a club, the SL1200 turntables they had would start causing almost that exact same noise if one of the ground leads somehow came disconnected. They were connected to a ground screw on the mixer, but it served the same purpose.

(edit) Even if the turntable doesn't have a dedicated ground point, you can use pretty much any screw in the chassis of the unit, as long as it's actually in contact with the metal case.

Acid Reflux fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Nov 7, 2015

* # ¿ Nov 7, 2015 00:30
  • Quote
Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 01:10
  • Quote
Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

epalm posted:

Yep, the preamp has a ground screw, and the turntable's RCA cable run includes RCA-L, RCA-R, and a ground wire (which is hooked into the preamp ground screw).
Ah, OK. That's a connection setup I haven't seen in a while, but it's one way to do what I was trying to describe and is equally effective.

quote:

The turntable doesn't have a ground screw. (Aside: just curious, would it make sense for the turntable to have both a ground wire, and a ground screw? Would hooking a device's ground wire back into the device's own chassis accomplish anything?)
It probably wouldn't have both, and you're absolutely right that it wouldn't make sense to just connect it to itself. The assumption would be that either the turntable or another component provides the actual path to ground, and the other connections would be made as (or if) necessary.

quote:

Just clarify, when you say "try connecting them together", do you mean run some more wire from preamp ground screw to turntable chassis?
That's how it would be done if you had a dedicated ground screw on both units, but as I said above, your particular RCA cable is also a perfectly good way to accomplish the same thing. No need to run anything extra.

And with that, I'm already out of ideas, unless maybe disconnecting the ground wire from the preamp changes something? There shouldn't be any ground loop happening, as you said, but maybe there's something funkadelic in your particular setup. Sorry I'm not any more help, it's been a looooooong time since I've really had my hands on any audio stuff. :(

* # ¿ Nov 7, 2015 01:50
  • Quote
Acid Reflux
Oct 18, 2004

 I have that weird feeling that I'm missing something obvious, but I can't quite suss it out. I'm going to attribute that to the 20+ year gap in my audio equipment troubleshooting knowledge.

It *sounds* like an improperly grounded table, but I couldn't say for sure if it's actually a loop or some other oddity. Hopefully someone both smarter and more up to date can chime in and make a fool of me soon. :)

If there's any real danger of electrical shock, just get a friend (or someone you actually don't like that much) to do the work while you stand by with a long stick at the ready. You need to pry 'em off the equipment pretty fast, or the smell will linger for hours.

* # ¿ Nov 7, 2015 05:33
  • Quote
  • Locked thread
The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No More Drake > Musician's Lounge > What's that noise?