[fishfood]

I'm finally tired of the hum in my year old Simplex. I've been living with it because it was low but for some reason it's gotten a bit louder this week. I know it's the Simplex because I've isolated it with trial and error. I'm using a EMT TSD15 and Kimber TAC-Cu ICs.The ICs aren't shielded so that's the first place I'm looking. Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

[roscoeiii]

Shielded interconnects would be the first thing that I'd try. Never had a turntable that could use unshielded cables.

You could also run a ground cable from phono to other components in the chain.

[watercourse]

Have you made any changes to setup lately, such as moving equipment around? Odd that the hum level has changed recently unless something in the system has changed?

Large transformers too close to either the cartridge or phono stage have caused noise issues for me. The stock power supply was the culprit in my case. Using unshielded cables can also induce hum. Even shielded cables too close to large transformers, power supplies, motors, etc. can be the source of problems.

Lastly, I had some incremental improvement with using a ground wire between the table and the phono stage, and from the phono stage to my amp's signal ground - but not all amps have one.

[roscoeiii]

Lastly, I had some incremental improvement with using a ground wire between the table and the phono stage, and from the phono stage to my amp's signal ground - but not all amps have one.

If your preamp/amp doesn't have a signal ground, just loosen a screw on the chassis and tighten it back down with the ground wire wrapped around it. That has helped me in the past. Has also yielded improvement for me in some cases as well.

[G E]

If you are using the original wall wart power supply, the trouble may lie there.

There is a second ground wire that comes in the kit. Use it to jump from the main ground lug to the DC in jack; the manual has a statement to the effect that they don't explicitly recommend doing this.  But I tried it.   There is a medium size nut that needs removing.  That helped lower the noise floor somewhat for me.

I also found that an external power supply for one of my PC monitors also contributed less noise (hum).  But it was still there. And it drove me nuts.  Be sure the specs meet or exceed the original unit and is a linear not switching supply.  BTW, it is ok to exceed the amperage capacity but NOT the voltage!!!

I finally built my own high quality linear power supply. Check out these two links:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=126851.0

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=123232.0

If soldering and working with mains voltages aren't to your taste, there is a very nice external PS offered the WT distributors.  Good luck

[mick wolfe]

Yep. The wall wort supplied with my Amadeus had definite hum issues. Replaced with a Rat Shack Enercell unit. This was kindly offered by a fellow AC member who had a similar problem with his Amadeus wall wort. He'd bought a couple for back-up units and I'm still using that "offered" Enercell today. Aside from the wall wort issue there's no doubt shielded IC's should be used in the phono app. I agree totally with Roscoe in that I've never been able to use an unshielded IC in the phono app either.