Just picked up a Stellar Phono and love it. One issue. On hooking up my Ortofon Cadenza monophonic cartridge to the system I get a ground loop hum. If I unplug the left output on my VPI Prime turntable it goes away and vice versa. No other combination, no moving, no cables, no outlet change, nothing else will change the ground loop hum with the exception of unplugging one cable. Anyone ever had this issue with a mono cart? If so what was the cure. I do have a Soundsmith Zephyr Star stereo and it works flawlessly. Any help would be appreciated.
PS Audio folks have been great but I haven’t been able to find a cure.
Welcome Michael! Dang, this is a tough one. Hopefully someone has some ideas. I’ve never run into an issue quite like this, so hopefully someone else here has some ideas.
From the Ortofon website: How to counteract ground loop when using dual-mono type phono stages:
Use only one side of the phono stage input, and put a Y-cable on a single one of the phono stage’s outputs, so that the mono signal can be split into 2 channels. That way, there’s only 1 path to ground.
If the phono stage has a ground lift setting, then use it.
Use a phono stage which is not dual mono topology.
You might also try floating one of the ground leads from the cartridge in the head shell, or connecting them both to the same ground post on the head shell.