Equipment Recommendations - The Home For New System and Upgrade Advice

How often should you tighten the bolts on your speaker drivers? (Which begs the question, how long have I had the elacs?)
 
Lee Newman said:
okay, point taken.... so again, how often would you check that?
Click to expand...

Not very. If it crosses your mind or if something leads you to suspect it’s happened. I don’t think it’s a regular issue or something that happens particularly quickly.
 
Just wanted to share a little something that may or may not help some now and or in the future, it's concerning buzz and or hum. So I just got the Sonata3 a few days ago and I also replaced some cables, just shorter runs, not different brand, Blue Jean for the record. After the cable swap I noticed a hum, not crazy, but if you turned up the volume you could hear it, my rig is usually dead silent at any volume. My first thought, it must be the cables, this has happened to me before with Pangea cables in my rig, so it was the first thing I checked.

I spun the TT around so I could get to the connections, checked the ground while I was there, disconnected the cables, plugged them in and before moving everything back around, fired everything up and gave a listen. No more hum, sweet, maybe something was loose, the ground?

Put everything back and called it a night. Today, when I fired it up and got ready to put some mileage on the Sonata, the damn hum was back, WTF! So I turned everything around again, but this time I replaced the cables with another pair I had laying around, just to start eliminating things. New/different cables, fired it up, no hum..............put everything back like it was and the hum came back.

So I spent some time researching, and I know about the Grado Hum issue, but it's never been an issue as best I remember, I found the same ole comments and complaints, "It's because Grado's aren't shielded", "change your cart or change your TT", that one made me laugh, but I get it. Then I came across 1 single post, nobody confirmed it, nobody commented back on it, but it simply said "I had the same problem, but when I moved my amp about 6" away from the turntable the problem disappeared". I'm like, nah, can't be that simple, after all these years about the Grado hum, that's it? So first I found some pics of the M5's inside, sure enough, the large power supply sits on the left hand side of the case, my TT is to the left of the amp, so the cart and power supply are pretty close. Let's give it a shot.

I pulled the two apart as far as I could on my rack and fired it up, sure enough, no f**king hum. Just for the hell of it, I started to slide my amp closer to the TT, and I'll be damned, you could hear the hum come back and get louder as it got closer to the cart/TT.

So, another lesson learned, if you have a "Grado hum", maybe move your amp away from it and it will solve your problem, just something to store in your database just in case. I highlighted some parts of this in red so you can see the pattern due to the distance between cart and power supply, it made perfect sense ;)

PS: I love this cart :)
20230928_153554.jpg
 
Last edited:
AnthonyI said:
Just wanted to share a little something that may or may not help some now and or in the future, it's concerning buzz and or hum. So I just got the Sonata3 a few days ago and I also replaced some cables, just shorter runs, not different brand, Blue Jean for the record. After the cable swap I noticed a hum, not crazy, but if you turned up the volume you could hear it, my rig is usually dead silent at any volume. My first thought, it's must be the cables, this has happened to me before with Pangea cables in my rig, so it was the first thing I checked.

I spun the TT around so I could get to the connections, checked the ground while I was there, disconnected the cables, plugged them in and before moving everything back around, fired everything up and gave a listen. No more hum, sweet, maybe something was loose, the ground?

Put everything back and called it a night, today, when I fired it up and got ready to put some mileage on the Sonata, the damn hum was back, WTF! So I turned everything around again, but this time I replaced the cables with another pair I had laying around, just to start eliminating things. New/different cables, fired it up, no hum..............put everything back like it was and the hum came back.

So I spent some time researching, and I know about the Grado Hum issue, but it's never been an issue as best I remember, I found the same ole comments and complaints, "It's because Grado's aren't shielded", "change your cart or change your TT", that one made me laugh, but I get it. Then I came across 1 single post, nobody confirmed it, nobody commented back on it, but it simply said "I had the same problem, but when I moved my amp about 6" away from the turntable the problem disappeared". I'm like, nah, can't be that simple, after all these years about the Grado hum, that's it? So first I found some pics of the M5's inside, sure enough, the large power supply sits on the left hand side of the case, my TT is to the left of the amp, so the cart and power supply are pretty close. Let's give it a shot.

I pulled the two apart as far as I could on my rack and fired it up, sure enough, no f**king hum. Just for the hell of it, I started to slide my amp closer to the TT, and I'll be damned, you could hear the hum come back and get louder as it got closer to the cart/TT.

So, another lesson learned, if you have a "Grado hum", maybe move your amp away from it and it will solve your problem, just something to store in your database just in case. I highlighted some parts of this in red so you can see the pattern due to the distance between cart and power supply, it made perfect sense ;)

PS: I love this cart :)
View attachment 183496
Click to expand...
Curious about phono stage? Like would it cause the same problem? I do plan on getting an offboard phonostage at some point and probably tube, so it will go on the top of my stand and I will wall isolate the table. Probably just build in the six inches when I do that but... any idea if it matters or is it tied to amplifiers possibly because of the power stage stuff (I have no idea what I am talking about now... haha)

Also, curious, was everything in the same place before you changed the cables? Like did the extra cable fix it or did you move stuff with the new cable?

Almost seems like something we should add to the spreadsheet.
 
Lee Newman said:
Curious about phono stage? Like would it cause the same problem? I do plan on getting an offboard phonostage at some point and probably tube, so it will go on the top of my stand and I will wall isolate the table. Probably just build in the six inches when I do that but... any idea if it matters or is it tied to amplifiers possibly because of the power stage stuff (I have no idea what I am talking about now... haha)

Also, curious, was everything in the same place before you changed the cables? Like did the extra cable fix it or did you move stuff with the new cable?

Almost seems like something we should add to the spreadsheet.
Click to expand...
I think the device is irrelevant, I think it's the size of the power supply relative to how close it is to the cartridge. If whatever has a small PS, it might not put out anything the cart is going to notice, but the M5 has a chunky boy inside.

Yes, everything was in the same place before I swapped cabled. I think the problem was I mounted the cart and swapped the cables at the same time. That said, I don't recall hearing it with the Opus, is the Sonata more sensitive, I don't know, hard to say, I'm not going to worry about backtracking at this point.

As it stands, I think I'm just going to swap the TT and Amps spots, moving the TT to the right of the amp, putting the cart and PS at opposite ends of the rack and go from there, should be good, worse case, I drop the amp to a lower shelf.

Which spreadsheet are you referring to?
 
AnthonyI said:
I think the device is irrelevant, I think it's the size of the power supply relative to how close it is to the cartridge. If whatever has a small PS, it might not put out anything the cart is going to notice, but the M5 has a chunky boy inside.

Yes, everything was in the same place before I swapped cabled. I think the problem was I mounted the cart and swapped the cables at the same time. That said, I don't recall hearing it with the Opus, is the Sonata more sensitive, I don't know, hard to say, I'm not going to worry about backtracking at this point.

As it stands, I think I'm just going to swap the TT and Amps spots, moving the TT to the right of the amp, putting the cart and PS at opposite ends of the rack and go from there, should be good, worse case, I drop the amp to a lower shelf.

Which spreadsheet are you referring to?
Click to expand...
There is a spreadsheet somewhere about tables that appear to create the hum
 
AnthonyI said:
Is it this one? I wonder how often it's updated and or maintained, I'll add my findings but I don't think there's enough space to go into these particular details, but it also looks like it hasn't been maintained in years from what I can find.
Click to expand...
Yup. Outdated is better than nothing!
 
Lee Newman said:
Curious about phono stage? Like would it cause the same problem? I do plan on getting an offboard phonostage at some point and probably tube, so it will go on the top of my stand and I will wall isolate the table. Probably just build in the six inches when I do that but... any idea if it matters or is it tied to amplifiers possibly because of the power stage stuff (I have no idea what I am talking about now... haha)

Also, curious, was everything in the same place before you changed the cables? Like did the extra cable fix it or did you move stuff with the new cable?

Almost seems like something we should add to the spreadsheet.
Click to expand...

It depends but generally a phono stage isn’t going to have anything like as a big a transformer as an integrated/power amp does. It’ll also depend on the architecture of the build of the piece of gear and which side it is on relative to where the cartridge will be.
 
AnthonyI said:
Just wanted to share a little something that may or may not help some now and or in the future, it's concerning buzz and or hum. So I just got the Sonata3 a few days ago and I also replaced some cables, just shorter runs, not different brand, Blue Jean for the record. After the cable swap I noticed a hum, not crazy, but if you turned up the volume you could hear it, my rig is usually dead silent at any volume. My first thought, it must be the cables, this has happened to me before with Pangea cables in my rig, so it was the first thing I checked.

I spun the TT around so I could get to the connections, checked the ground while I was there, disconnected the cables, plugged them in and before moving everything back around, fired everything up and gave a listen. No more hum, sweet, maybe something was loose, the ground?

Put everything back and called it a night. Today, when I fired it up and got ready to put some mileage on the Sonata, the damn hum was back, WTF! So I turned everything around again, but this time I replaced the cables with another pair I had laying around, just to start eliminating things. New/different cables, fired it up, no hum..............put everything back like it was and the hum came back.

So I spent some time researching, and I know about the Grado Hum issue, but it's never been an issue as best I remember, I found the same ole comments and complaints, "It's because Grado's aren't shielded", "change your cart or change your TT", that one made me laugh, but I get it. Then I came across 1 single post, nobody confirmed it, nobody commented back on it, but it simply said "I had the same problem, but when I moved my amp about 6" away from the turntable the problem disappeared". I'm like, nah, can't be that simple, after all these years about the Grado hum, that's it? So first I found some pics of the M5's inside, sure enough, the large power supply sits on the left hand side of the case, my TT is to the left of the amp, so the cart and power supply are pretty close. Let's give it a shot.

I pulled the two apart as far as I could on my rack and fired it up, sure enough, no f**king hum. Just for the hell of it, I started to slide my amp closer to the TT, and I'll be damned, you could hear the hum come back and get louder as it got closer to the cart/TT.

So, another lesson learned, if you have a "Grado hum", maybe move your amp away from it and it will solve your problem, just something to store in your database just in case. I highlighted some parts of this in red so you can see the pattern due to the distance between cart and power supply, it made perfect sense ;)

PS: I love this cart :)
View attachment 183496
Click to expand...
Two different types of hum:

First is positional- what you’ve experienced due to electromagnetic radiation from power transformer. This is also why you don’t want to stack the Vincent PHO-8. The best way to set that piece up was to separate the 2 pieces with the power supply to the right.

The Grado hum is different- it will increase as the cartridge body comes closer to the motor. It may be silent at the lead in groove and worse as the stylus goes across the dead wax. Usually worst on models with the motor under the platter- Regas are especially bad. Set a Rega at 45 and it’s unbearable.
 
HiFi Guy said:
Two different types of hum:

First is positional- what you’ve experienced due to electromagnetic radiation from power transformers. This is also why you don’t want ti stack the Vincent PHO-8. The best way to set that piece up was to separate the 2 pieces with the power supply to the right.

The Grado hum is different- it will increase as the cartridge body comes closer to the motor. It may be silent at the lead in groove and worse as the stylus goes across the dead wax. Usually worst on models with the motor under the platter- Regas are especially bad. Set a Rega at 45 and it’s unbearable.
Click to expand...

I wonder if anyone ever bought that humbucker that they sell to let you use Grados on Regas and if it actually did what it claimed.
 
HiFi Guy said:
Two different types of hum:

First is positional- what you’ve experienced due to electromagnetic radiation from power transformer. This is also why you don’t want to stack the Vincent PHO-8. The best way to set that piece up was to separate the 2 pieces with the power supply to the right.

The Grado hum is different- it will increase as the cartridge body comes closer to the motor. It may be silent at the lead in groove and worse as the stylus goes across the dead wax. Usually worst on models with the motor under the platter- Regas are especially bad. Set a Rega at 45 and it’s unbearable.
Click to expand...
More information for the masses to have ;)
 
AnthonyI said:
You can, I thought about it, but the "busted up" part may be what bites you in the ass. Meaning if it's just the usual wear and tear it's no problem, but if someone abused it beyond that in some way that might not be noticeable you might not get the rebuild price. I'm sure we're not the first two to think about that "scheme" ;)
Click to expand...
I have purchased both of my Hanas “busted up” and had them retipped by VAS at a fraction of the new price. I can’t compare the sound of the retips to the “original” sound, but both have sounded excellent.
 
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