buzz

[soundbuff]

Hi,
Getting a slight buzz (not hum) from one channel from my thorens td 160. The tonearm is sme 3009. Have switched inputs and it moves to the other speaker, so it is not the phono stage. The tonearm has two wires (red and white) that fit respective at the bottom of the tonearm, and this goes to to the phono. There is one earthing wire that connects to the underbody of the turntable (there is a screw for it), but there are TWO wires that lead from it. In-fact there are three, two are wired together and one is separate. I connect one of these (with the two wires)to the earth on the phono and leave the other wire hanging), and have tried it the other way too. Buzz remains.

Since the buzz is slight it does not intrude to the listening, but when I pick up the tonearm and move it from the slot to the platter there is a slight rumbling/rustling sound from the speakers. I don't seem to have noticed this this previously. Should I remove the SME interconnect and try another pair with a single wire for earth. Could it be simply that the cartridge pin is loose?

 

[soundbuff]

Just one more bit:
It is not the spindle, the inner platter runs dead silent and 'forever'. The motor is pretty silent too. Little bit of noise from the belt but really very little.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Buzz usually gets coupled through ground wire from the power supply rail of the phono preamp imo. If your phono preamp gets powered from a 12 v DC external supply, try changing this to a better smps type power supply to reduce AC ripple.