Originally Posted by
MartinT
While fiddling with Marco's deck and Ortofon SUT (step-up transformer) on Saturday, I happened to touch one of the silver transformer housings and got hum. We realised that the SUT was not being earthed from the interconnect screens but was independently earthed via its earth wire. Connecting that to my phono amp's earth terminal made a substantial improvement to dynamics and lowering of the noise floor.
So tonight, while reconnecting my system, I earthed my Choir Audio SUT in the same way. I've just discovered an improvement in focus and a further lowering of noise floor!
The lesson is: even if you have no hum, your earthing arrangements may not be optimal. I star earth my turntable, arm and now SUT separately to the phono amp's earth terminal, which then goes back to mains earth. You might all want to check your earthing arrangements :)