Rega P10 - I have a hum

[MichaelHiFi]

A few months back I purchased an inexpensive preamp for which one has the ability to easily swap out not just input tubes but input caps, PS caps, rectifier tubes, even chokes although the choke perhaps not so easily. It sounded good after a day with stock components but after some tube rolling, and cap upgrades, it opened up our system like I've never heard a component do so. It was a Jupiter cap on the preamps power supply that really 'cleaned the window'. I digress.

When I plugged my phono stage interconnects into this preamp I got a pretty good hum going on with both my phono stages, an Allnic H5500 and a MoFi Master. And for weeks, I have not been able to solve that hum no matter how I placed grounds, cheater plugs, cable swaps, physically moving the vinyl gear, different outlets, and finally, completely unplugging my system and simply connecting my Allnic H5500 into my Allnic T2000 30th Anniversary integrated, and wouldn't you know it, it still didn't solve the hum! I was sure it was due to the newly acquired preamp but strangely to me anyway, the hum seems to come from the Rega.

I have not had any problems with the Rega prior to the new preamp as it replaced a Serbian JFET preamp, the Acoustic Invader. So I was sure it had something to do with the new preamp and or grounding problems. So how do I know it's the Rega? I plugged in my elderly (like me) Technics SL1800 into the Allnic and no hum, just music. Sure there's a bit of noise but it's not intrusive.

Thoughts?

 

[dan31]

Ground wire from phono pre to the Rega. Do your best to get bare ground wire to touch the arm base. I could slip it under a gap in the arm base for the P9.

 

[GroovySauce]

Similar to Dan. When I had a Rega table I attached a ground cable to the bottom of the bearing and that solved the hum problem. I used tape to snuggly hold it. Wasn’t pretty but worked.

 

[MichaelHiFi]

Thanks guys, I would have never thought to do that. So I did it.

Here's what I found:

Normal room noise = 32db
Room noise with Rega/Allnic 5500@0 volume = 48.3db
Room noise with furnace in next room running 2ft away from door = 48.2db
Ground wire connected to Rega bearing = 48.1db

Little to no change.

MichaelHiFi sitting on couch with NO music playing volume control at a reasonable listening level, I show 48.3db.
I can barely hear the hum however when our furnace is working. The Rega's hum doing battle with the furnace I'd say the furnace has a slight edge in loudness. With music playing I don't hear the hum but perhaps with more scrutiny such as soft female vocals, or a long silence, I may notice. I need to spend more time listening to see if it's really a problem. Also, when I know there's "hum" behind the music, my feeble brain might lock onto the hum then go into the endless problem solving loop inside my head instead of simply listening to the music playing. I'm a bit OCD I guess.

Maybe, due to my focus of digital for so many decades, that I don't have the experience in high end vinyl until I got the Rega P10 which is leagues better than my VPI, that I lag behind in knowledge and no doubt that's the case. The Rega, to my ears, sounds incredible, especially with the Aphelion 2 cart, besting my very stout digital rig in many ways. I know there's far better out there, of course, but I have been happy listening to vinyl. I simply hadn't noticed this problem since I changed preamps.

 

[DonH50]

Is it possible the hum has always been there but you didn't notice until adding the new preamp forced more focused listening?

Is the P10's power supply well away from the turntable and cartridge, including isolating the cable runs? Was anything moved when you added the new phono preamp, like TT wires (signal or power)?

It's also possible the TT's motor or power supply failed, just enough to hum and not completely die...

 

[MichaelHiFi]

My phonostage and TT has moved much closer to my rack in order to help find a solution for the hum affording me shorter interconnects. That didn't help really. I could move the PS further away however.

Its never been completely silent and perhaps is more noticeable with the new preamp.

The MoFi Master has 8db less noise than the Allnic, so its staying as my reference for now.

One day I dream of having the Allnic H7000V. For now I'll live with a bit of noise. It still sounds fantastic.

Thanks for your help!

 

[DonH50]

Without a record playing, so just hearing the hum, you could try moving the signal cables from TT to preamp around to see if the sound changes. That would tell you if it is being coupled into the cables or coming from elsewhere. Ideally the phono cables would be distant from any other cables, including other power cables, and the power supply or other components.

 

[dan31]

Reach out to Rega through your dealer if possible or directly to Rega. You should not have this problem. Rega use to have a specific ground design for the tonearm. My P9 was silent used single ended. I used a koestu MC cartridge. If I floated the ground for a balanced input it would hum without a ground between the phonopreamp and the arm.

Don’t live with it much longer without contacting the dealer or Rega.

 

[MichaelHiFi]

Another test. I moved the Rega's power supply as far away as I could. No change.
Listening to the Rega through the Allnic H5500 at realistic volume then raising the arm hum at 44db
Listening to the Technics at same volume through the Allnic, lifting arm, hum at 32db.

Agree with Dan, contact Rega. I'm so tired of chasing this noise. Still, sound is amazing and we don't really notice the hum during the music.

Thanks folks.

 

[Holmz]

I had a hum in a house we moved into.
Turns out it was the way that the lights were wired in the ceiling, and it was a large coil that made a magnetic field.

As the cartridge is mostly a generator, then anything that is spewing out magnetic fields can a thing that excites the coils.
So just start moving stuff around that have transformers in them.

 

[hongkongfoufou]

A few months back I purchased an inexpensive preamp for which one has the ability to easily swap out not just input tubes but input caps, PS caps, rectifier tubes, even chokes although the choke perhaps not so easily. It sounded good after a day with stock components but after some tube rolling, and cap upgrades, it opened up our system like I've never heard a component do so. It was a Jupiter cap on the preamps power supply that really 'cleaned the window'. I digress.

When I plugged my phono stage interconnects into this preamp I got a pretty good hum going on with both my phono stages, an Allnic H5500 and a MoFi Master. And for weeks, I have not been able to solve that hum no matter how I placed grounds, cheater plugs, cable swaps, physically moving the vinyl gear, different outlets, and finally, completely unplugging my system and simply connecting my Allnic H5500 into my Allnic T2000 30th Anniversary integrated, and wouldn't you know it, it still didn't solve the hum! I was sure it was due to the newly acquired preamp but strangely to me anyway, the hum seems to come from the Rega.

I have not had any problems with the Rega prior to the new preamp as it replaced a Serbian JFET preamp, the Acoustic Invader. So I was sure it had something to do with the new preamp and or grounding problems. So how do I know it's the Rega? I plugged in my elderly (like me) Technics SL1800 into the Allnic and no hum, just music. Sure there's a bit of noise but it's not intrusive.

Thoughts?

You have this hum only with your turntables or you have hum with CD player or another source ?

 

[MichaelHiFi]

I only have a hum with my Rega P10 turntable and especially when it's connected to the Allnic H5500. Every other source is silent.

 

[hongkongfoufou]

I only have a hum with my Rega P10 turntable and especially when it's connected to the Allnic H5500. Every other source is silent.

Have you try to connect the ground together ?
I have connected the ground of the phono-preamplifier and the VPI turntable to the same ground .
I have hum with VPI.
I have bought Nordost Qkore6.
Since I have it, I have no hum.
The best is to try before buy one.
You can try another cartridge too.

The best is to try to connect all the product to the same ground.

For my tuner, I have hum, it disseappears when I have changed my powercord by a blinded powercord.
You can try this : it is not expensive. OLFLEX 110CY

I hope you can find a solution.

Good luck!

 

[MattK]

Rega grounds the entire tonearm to the blue negative lead. It can be problem when it's not used with a Rega phono stage. Rega also doesn't ground their power supply, if you look side the IEC power socket on the back of the power supply you'll see there is no pin for the ground. The source of hum can be elusive since there is not a common grounding point. The hum happening with the VPI player seems to link the issue to your phono stage. I'd start turning off all the lights in the house and seeing if that hum is impacted. LEDs and fluorescents can inject hum into your mains.

 

[hongkongfoufou]

Rega grounds the entire tonearm to the blue negative lead. It can be problem when it's not used with a Rega phono stage. Rega also doesn't ground their power supply, if you look side the IEC power socket on the back of the power supply you'll see there is no pin for the ground. The source of hum can be elusive since there is not a common grounding point. The hum happening with the VPI player seems to link the issue to your phono stage. I'd start turning off all the lights in the house and seeing if that hum is impacted. LEDs and fluorescents can inject hum into your mains.

I have rotel, Esoteric E-03 And Accuphase C47...hum is present, a little but I can listen it.
With the Qkore6, the hum disappeared.

 

[MichaelHiFi]

Thanks folks.

I've performed all that you have mentioned including grounding the bearing under the motor on the Rega. Cables, both RCA and XLR have little to no affect. Grounds have little to no effect, except for when I use the APC power conditioner, touching a ground on its grounding post increases the hum.

The Technics SL1800 which has a 2 prong power (lamp) cord does not have noise except when using the Allnic, then there's some noise but not bad really. Worst is the Allnic/Rega combo.

I've tried cheater plugs, that is lifted grounds, to no effect. I've tried various outlets and I've tried linking all the outlets and power conditioners to a common ground with no effect. Lights on or off, no change. I've played with gain settings on the preamp and of course, different settings, lower gain, lower hum and lower music. The MoFi Master phono is far less susceptible to the hum and it doesn't matter to the MoFi, balanced or single ended.

The hum is directly correlated to gain and volume. Some noise is always present and, I guess, to be expected on a vinyl rig. That does not effect me or my listening to music.

The Technics SL1800 with the Dynavector XXV MKII cart sounds great. But the Rega P10 and Aphelion 2 cart sounds far more nuanced in all aspects, as to be expected.

I moved the phono gear away from the rest of the system. I use a balanced cable, DH-Labs Revelation @16ft in length.

Pic is the current location of the vinyl gear - on the left rack.

 

[hongkongfoufou]

DH-Labs Revelation are RCA?
If yes, you can try XLR cable if yours products can do that. If not, XLR with adaptor XLR/RCA...
I have do this with my old home theater amplifier because hum is always present but no with XLR cable: lengh was 4 meters.
Another thing, check yours tubes.

 

[mtemur]

I’m not sure if you’ve checked this, but the issue might be with the tonearm wiring. Some tonearms internally connect the negative signal leads to ground.

To check the tonearm, remove the cartridge and use a multimeter to confirm whether the tonearm body and armtube are connected to the ground lead. Then, check if the ground is also connected to either of the negative signal leads (blue and green wires).

If the ground is connected to the armtube and arm body but not to the signal grounds, you can rule out the tonearm wiring as the source of the problem.

You should do this check twice, at tonearm cable’s RCA connectors and at DIN connector

 

[DasguteOhr]

Rega tonearms (black wire grounded to left chanel ground) cut it there.drill a hole in the plastic plug solder thin wire to black wire.
Attention isolate solder joint with thin shrink tubing or hot glue. Assemble tonearm the grounding wire and connect it to the phono amp... end of the hum

REGA 250 300 Tonearm modification humm-free remove signal ground

 

[mtemur]

Rega tonearms (black wire grounded to left chanel ground) cut it there.drill a hole in the plastic plug solder thin wire to black wire.
Attention isolate solder joint with thin shrink tubing or hot glue. Assemble tonearm the grounding wire and connect it to the phono amp... end of the humView attachment 150280View attachment 150281

REGA 250 300 Tonearm modification humm-free remove signal ground

The solution is not exactly correct, don't drill a hole to the DIN connector and don't isolate ground connection.

- Just unsolder black wire and the ground pin from the left negative pin and blue wire.
- Solder the black wire to the ground pin. The ground pin on DIN connector is the one in between channels, between green and blue. It needs to be connected to the arm body, that's why there is a metal plate soldered to it. Normally it aligns with the screw hole seen in the picture above and screw ensures electrical connection between ground pin and tonearm body.