[Bill Epstein]

I gave up on grounding away the hum with the Cinemags and no-ground-wire Cherry tonearm.

Just finished mounting the almost new high output Grado Reference Sonata and listened to side one of Bonnie Raitt, "Takin My Time". The famous mid-range is there albeit more recessed than the equally engaging mids of the DL-103r; bass has a little more grunt and the imaging is less diffuse.

I like having a lot less wire between the cart and the Cornet. W/O the transformers, with my high-efficiency, direct-coupled rig, there's not a smidge, drop, or dollop of sound: not hum, not tube rush (they're still designing circuits with tube rush?) not nuttin' goin' on in the mouths of those horns or the cones of the woofs

 I can live with this, maybe even love it until I can acquire another metal arm, maybe a Jelco altho' I really want an SME V, so I can once again use the Cinemag/Denon team.

[amandarae]

I gave up on grounding away the hum with the Cinemags and no-ground-wire Cherry tonearm.

 

You are using a TD 124?  If so, there is a grounding point for the TT chassis that you can try grounding (because the power cable of the TD124 is only two-prong) when using tonearms with no ground connection on the arm itself.

It is located underneath, the middle brace of the armboard skeletal frame.  You can connect that to ground and see if it helps.



Cinemags



If you wire your Cinemags like what is shown in the diagram, it will not hum, guaranteed!  The Cinemag is identicall to the Altec 4722.  You can see how close is the Cinemag to the Cornet 2 below and I do not have hum problems even with 100 dB sensitivity speakers.  You can also see the vicinity of the linestage preamp/ amps, CD player, and other SUT's from the Cornet2/Cinemag combo.






As they say, "If you still have hum, you are not done!"

[Bill Epstein]

As they say, "If you still have hum, you are not done!"

  Definitely agree.

I don't have an TD-124, it's an HW-19 and I tried every chassis point I could get to for an aux ground when I went to the wooden arm.

My Cinemags are wired just as you show and with the SME III, now gone, I had no hum at all.

[amandarae]

Ahhh, I see. I stand corrected. 

What about shielded interconnect from the tonearm connection to the phono preamp for the Cherry wood arm where the ground shield is at preamp side only?  SME phono cables, if I am not mistaken, are shielded (three samples that I have).

Can't think of anything else.

regards