Pro-ject Genie Mk1 Making Nasty Static Noises

[Rothchild]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the concern (and the offer of help) I've basically been so distracted with day to day stuff the past week that I've not had a chance to play with it. I'm going to give it a go now and see what happens.

Cheers,
Marc

[Rothchild]

Yeah, I took a bit of wire and connected it to the earth point and touched it to the bearing in the top of the arm (the vertical one) and whatdyaknow no earthy crackling when I move the arm around. So now I need to work out how to connect it permenantly.

[YNWaN]

Are you sure it is 'static' and not noisy tonearm wiring ?

That was also my first thought.

Most armtubes have an earth connected to them - are you sure your arm doesn't have one and it has become detached?

[DSJR]

I'm sure it has a fifth black "arm earth" wire as I remember the Debut tonearm having. may be worth calling Henley Designs, as they sell wiring looms for these arms with nice tags at one end for the cartridge, and pre-tinned ends at t'other for the terminal block underneath.

[Rothchild]

Thanks Dave,

I'll try with Henley, do you know where the black earth wire would connect to the arm? As previously described I only appear to have the 4 wires from the cartridge and the additional green one, which seemingly should be the arm earth but is only connected to the bottom plate of the arm post which appears not to be electonically connected to the upper part of the arm assembly...

[hifi_dave]

Sometimes the green (earth) wire runs from the earth tag together with the two phono plugs, right up to the end of the arm tube, to earth the whole arm. Another way it's done is that the bottom part of the arm is earthed and the bearings carry it to the arm tube. Third way is that one of the phono leads earth screens and then on to an internal earth wire is connected internally to the arm tube or headshell.

If you have a meter or continuity buzzer, you should get continuity from the bottom of the arm right up to the headshell.

[Rothchild]

I think mine is meant to be like explanation 2, insofar as the green lead that attaches to the underside of the pillar should do the whole lot, it just seems that it doesn't!

Hopefully I'll have a better chance to look in a bit more detail this weekend and see if I can get it connecting better with top part of the arm.

[DSJR]

I'm so sorry I can't remember, but is there a little tag attached to the rear of the headshell, semi-hidden underneath? If there is, this is where the arm-tube earth would be.

How many wires come out of the arm pillar to connect to the tag strip? If it's only four, you'll have to resort to some subterfuge in earthing the tube to the main eathing point. Either yourself or Johnnie at Audio Origami.. Trouble is, the deck ain't worth paying for the labour as you'll never get it back.

[Rothchild]

Trouble is, the deck ain't worth paying for the labour as you'll never get it back.

The investment or the deck?

[DSJR]

My bad typing as uaual. It'll cost loads in labour to re-wire the arm and the whole deck was cheap to start with - is what I was trying to say..