[Guy 13]

TMI

+10

Guy13 is quite a character

Hi Hank.
Yes, you are right, I am quite a character and that's good for Audio Circle and all it's members.
Humor, jokes, funny situations and a guy like me, that's what makes this forum so much fun.
Anyone wants me to stop and be serious?
I hope not...

Guy 13
  and more...
 

[Guy 13]

Hi Guy,
Unshielded wires at the headshell can pick up noise or RF.  Braiding those wires tends to reject noise, but you don't want to stress the connections.  Probably nothing to worry about, but I can't tell how tight it is.

So, you hooked up an antenna ground wire from your phono stage ground to the AC outlet and now you're listening to the radio and a record at the same time?  I suspect the reason it wasn't a problem in the last house is due to chance.  You know what they say, "Location, Location, Location".

Chances are, if you get rid of that wire you'll be fine.  There is no easy way to connect a ground wire to your Rega arm AFAIK.  The ground is in one of the channel grounds and it, in turn should be connect to the ground inside your phono preamp.
neo

Hi neo.
I just finish doing more tests.
The problem must come from the cartridge/arm, because if I disconnect the interconnect cables from the phono the music, the FM music that is, stop.
With a jumper wire with alligator clips at both ends I connect them to the ground lug of the phono and I tried to clip it to different parts of the arm and nothing happen.
I have to conclude that the Bellari phono is O.K. and that the Rega arm is not O.K.
I will leave it like that for now...

Guy 13

[Guy 13]

TMI but implicitly.  I will let it slide.  I mean she may have called him because the TV remote was stuck. 

Guy, we don't need to know anymore about what goes on in your bedroom.   

Hi woodsyi
To whom it may concern:
You all twisted minds,
my wife only wanted me to help her with the remote control.
And don't expect me to share with any of you what's going on in our bedroom,
because I don't want my post to end up in the Galactic Waste Bin
or worst, the Vietnamese communist censorship bureau to throw me in jail
with only three bowls of rice a day...

Guy 13
 

[Guy 13]

I hate to say this but I used to own a Soundcraftsman pre-amp that picked up radio signals through the phono section.  Tried several turntables and, always, in the background was the local Christian broadcasting station.  Faint but audible.  I moved 13 miles, and no difference.  Apparently Soundcraftsman didn't use blocking caps in the circuit.  Finally sold it to a guy at work.  He has three turntables and it still gets radio.  I has to come through the jacks, as there are no vents in the cabinet.  He also has a Bellari that is dead quiet.

Hope it is your ground arrangement causing the problem.

Hi veldarb
As mentioned in other posts, the ground is the problem, but in the arm ? ? ?
By the way, I never really liked that Regar P3 turntable and in addition, the same goes for the Rega Apollo CD player.
Rega is on my black list.
There it is, I said it and what is said, is kept that way for ever or until I die, which ever comes first.

Guy 13
aka: The frustrated guy.

[Ericus Rex]

TMI = Too Much Information

[jtwrace]

Hi jtwrace.
You american guys with all your abbreviations.
What's the meaning of TMI ? ? ? 

Guy 13
I hope it's a compliment.

TMI = Too Much Information

Guy13

[Guy 13]

TMI = Too Much Information

Hi Ericus Rex.
Thanks.
Today I've learned something,
therefore, this evening I will go to bed (With my wife) less ignorant.

Guy 13

[Guy 13]

Guy13

Hi jtwrace
I may sound like a playboy, 
but I sure don't look like one.

Guy 13

[jtwrace]

Hi jtwrace
I may sound like a playboy, 
but I sure don't look like one.

Guy 13

That's not for me to decide.   

[neobop]

Hi neo.
I just finish doing more tests.
The problem must come from the cartridge/arm, because if I disconnect the interconnect cables from the phono the music, the FM music that is, stop.
With a jumper wire with alligator clips at both ends I connect them to the ground lug of the phono and I tried to clip it to different parts of the arm and nothing happen.
I have to conclude that the Bellari phono is O.K. and that the Rega arm is not O.K.
I will leave it like that for now...

Guy 13

Hi Guy,
Did you get rid of that red ground wire going from your Bellari to the wall outlet?   If not, try disconnecting it and see what happens.  It's worth a shot anyway.

It could be that the arm is the problem and the red wire is making it worse.  I'd rather not elaborate on your options until you try this.
neo

[Guy 13]

Hi Guy,
Did you get rid of that red ground wire going from your Bellari to the wall outlet?   If not, try disconnecting it and see what happens.  It's worth a shot anyway.

It could be that the arm is the problem and the red wire is making it worse.  I'd rather not elaborate on your options until you try this.
neo

Hi neo.
Yes, that's the first thing I did,
that red ground wire is a thing of the past.
That did no change anything.
Please have a look above at what I wrote to other members.
If you have any suggestions now it's the time, ]
before I kill the Rega arm or kill myself,
which ever is the easiest.

Guy 13

[neobop]

Killing the arm might be a tempting release of frustration, but life goes on and the Rega still has value.   The obvious solution is to rewire or replace the arm/table.

Do you have a friend nearby with a functioning record player you could borrow to test your system?  Chances are, the arm wiring is the problem but it would be nice to know beforehand if that is a satisfactory solution. 

There's a cottage industry for modifying Rega arms.  Rewiring kits are sold on the net.  If that's not an option, then you could sell the table and replace it.

Sorry there's no easy solution.  Don't you have a tech that can do the job?  If so, that might be the least expensive fix.  It would be good if you could test the system first.
neo

 

[Guy 13]

Killing the arm might be a tempting release of frustration, but life goes on and the Rega still has value.   The obvious solution is to rewire or replace the arm/table.

Do you have a friend nearby with a functioning record player you could borrow to test your system?  Chances are, the arm wiring is the problem but it would be nice to know beforehand if that is a satisfactory solution. 

There's a cottage industry for modifying Rega arms.  Rewiring kits are sold on the net.  If that's not an option, then you could sell the table and replace it.

Sorry there's no easy solution.  Don't you have a tech that can do the job?  If so, that might be the least expensive fix.  It would be good if you could test the system first.
neo

Hi (Again) neo.
Yes, smashing into zillion of pieces my Rega arm would be a great release of frustration, but like you wrote the Rega turntable is worth something,
right now, not much to my eyes, but maybe a little to others.
Two good suggestions:
Rewired the arm or replace the arm/turntable.
I have no (Audiophile) friends here in Vietnam, as a matter of fact,
I have no friend here, period.
I have a brand new (Bought 11 years ago, hardly used, still in it's original box)
)175 USD Sony automatic turntable, but is has a built in phono stage,
therefore feeding the Bellari phono stage with the Sony would overload
the Bellari phono stage, I think.
Getting a re-wiring kit from another country is risky, can easily get swapt by someone working at the post office or if I use FedEx it will cost me an arm
and a leg.
If I would sell the turntable here in Vietnam, I would get very little for it,
maybe just a few hundred $.
That's a too big lost for me, I've already lost lots of $ $ $ with this system.
Enough is enough.
I could always find a technician with small fingers to do the re-wiring,
but I have to choose it very carefully,
so that he does not make it worst than it is now.
Being here for the past 18 years, I know what I am talking about. We get electronic flashes repaired often by Vietnamese and until you find the right guy,
it's always risky.
I will see what road I will take, but for now,
I will calm down and try to release some steam from this frustrating experience.
There is a consolation,
I can still listen to my CDs with no overlapping FM station.

Guy 13

 

[Wayner]

Get a volt/ohm meter and do a continuity check on all the wires, from cartridge to RCAs. If you find one of the shield wires is bad, you can "share" the shield wire that is good for both channels by making a bridge between the two wires at the cartridge. In other words, sum up both (-) terminals on the cartridge.

Almost all preamps sum these 2 leads anyway.

[Guy 13]

Get a volt/ohm meter and do a continuity check on all the wires, from cartridge to RCAs. If you find one of the shield wires is bad, you can "share" the shield wire that is good for both channels by making a bridge between the two wires at the cartridge. In other words, sum up both (-) terminals on the cartridge.

Almost all preamps sum these 2 leads anyway.

Hi Wayner.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I think I saw on Bellari instruction manual that the L + R channels cannot be jumped together to make it mono, but I think there were talking about the signal/positive wires, not the negative or ground wires.
I will have to double check on that.
I will get back to you on that, because again,
my wife is calling me from the bed room.
She must have again problem with the remote control.
What's so complicated with a remote control.
You don't need to be a computer programmer to figure how it woks.
What would she do if I was not here.
Hummm, yes the neighbor is a computer programmer.
I better stick around and stop complaining.

Guy 13

[orientalexpress]

Those blue pills is alot cheaper then here

[bearman2]

Guy 13, even in Vietnam you always must look on the bright side. You might have lost a turntable but you have gained a FM receiver.

[yeldarb]

The rca connectors on your Bellari, from the turntable appear to be very large.  If the Rega has a rca jack block that allows swapping cables, then try a different cable.  Or has the Rega previously been rewired?

I had a hum with the Technics I'm using now.  It was a bad cartridge.  If you get desperate, you can try rewiring the arm yourself.  I think the wires in the typical computer mouse cable might be small enough.  Lots of dead mouses to dissect.  As twisted as the connections to your cartridge appear, you could have a break in the wiring.  Hence the test meter.  I have also had temporary losses of ground with my headshells, as they are detachable.  I know yours is not, that is why I would suspect the wiring. 

I assume Soundsmith checked the cartridge body before re-tipping.  If all else fails, get your local computer guy to bypass the preamp in the Sony and wire up two RCA jacks.

[Quiet Earth]

Hang in there Guy, sometimes these things take a long time to track down. Don't give up. Keep trying stuff even though you believe the problem is within the arm. You never know.

You mentioned that your interconnect is "Signal Cables" coming out of the Bellari phono stage and going into the Decware amp. If that particular Signal Cables interconnect has an arrow on one end, make sure that both arrows point in the same direction. Listen for the FM station, then flip the two cables the opposite direction to see if the radio station goes away. Sometimes the arrow needs to go in the opposite direction of the signal flow, or from the Decware to the Bellari in your case. It's worth a try anyway.  (Process of elimination = Don't give up.)

Also, have you tried flipping the Bellari wall wart upside down (inverting the AC polarity)? Just a thought.

How about wrapping a few loops of the AC power cable of the phono stage and attaching a big ferrite? Just to see if you can make it go away?

Your turntable runs on 230V but everything else runs on 120V. I would be suspicious about that situation (since you have an RF problem) and try to get everything to run from the same AC source if possible. Sometimes two different AC sources, such as two different dedicated lines or two different power conditioners can cause weird problems. Sometimes the grounds are not the same, and sometimes the AC phase is not the same. You can actually get shocked when running two dedicated lines on two different phases. (More process of elimination = keep on trying.)

Last but not least, sometimes a phono stage is just not designed correctly and it picks up a strong RF no matter what you do. I had the same radio station problem when auditioning a "Whest" phono stage a few years ago. The designer said, "Yeah, that is a problem with my phono stage in a few different locations." I decided not to buy it for that reason.

Keep trying, don't give up......

[Guy 13]

Get a volt/ohm meter and do a continuity check on all the wires, from cartridge to RCAs. If you find one of the shield wires is bad, you can "share" the shield wire that is good for both channels by making a bridge between the two wires at the cartridge. In other words, sum up both (-) terminals on the cartridge.

Almost all preamps sum these 2 leads anyway.

Hi Wayner.
I've used my ohm/meter and I have checked the continuity
of all the interconnect wires.
No open wire and no shorts.
I have also checked to see if the two ground wires (Negatives) of the
interconnect were connected/grounded to the arm, but they are not.
I even connected a jumper wire from the ground lug of the Bellari
and touched with it several metal parts of the arm and nothing,
I still hear that wonderful Vietnamese FM music.
I have noticed that if I touch with my finger any part of the arm, the signal is stronger, the wonderful Vietnamese music is louder, like if my finger was an antenna.
Any more ideas before I @#$%^&*(*&^%$

Guy 13