Page 114 - Hi-Fi_News_-_December_2020 video

Send in your views to:
Sound Off, Hi-Fi News, AVTech Media Ltd,
Suite 25, Eden House, Enterprise Way, Edenbridge, Kent TN8 6HF
YOUR VIEWS or email your views to: letters@hifi news.com –
please use ‘Sound Off’ in your subject fi eld

Gaining ground

HELP SOUGHT WITH ERADICATING TONEARM HUM
Correspondents express their own opinions, not those of Hi-Fi News. We reserve the right to edit letters for publication.
Correspondents using e-mail are asked to give their full postal address (which won’t be published). Letters seeking advice I have a Roksan Xerxes 20 Plus turntable and
will be answered in print on our Sound Off pages, but due to time constraints we regret we’re unable to answer questions on when I use a Rega RB2000 arm I hear a terrible

buying items of hi-fi or any other hi-fi queries by telephone, post or via e-mail.

hum. I did use a Roksan Tabriz Zi tonearm, but I
couldn’t get on with the counterbalance, fi nding it
NEW AMPS FOR OLD? ‘wobbly’. It had a grounding lead, though, which
I connected to my Acoustic Masterpiece AM-201

EXPLORING OPTIONS FOR VINYL-BASED SET-UP amplifier. The Rega has no such lead. So from
‘where to where’ should I ground the Rega?
My EAR Yoshino 834P phono stage ignore the balance control issue? Dr Raz Shankar, via email
has gone away to be serviced after After all, I am very much a fan of
14 years’ use and this has led me Tim de Paravicini and his products. Steve Harris replies: Rega arms are grounded via the
to think about perhaps changing My musical tastes have not moved lefthand signal connector, and don’t have or need a
my amplification as a whole. My much since the ’70s, so think separate ground wire. If the cartridge is connected

set-up is 100% vinyl based and Steely Dan and early Van Morrison correctly, there shouldn’t be any hum. If there is, it may
I use a 35-year-old Linn Sondek and you won’t go far wrong. Keep mean the turntable needs grounding but if this creates
LP12 turntable with an Ittok arm up the good work everyone! a ground loop this will make the hum worse. The
of the same generation. This is lan Pickering, via email Xerxes 20 Plus is mainly made of wood but there is an
currently equipped with an ART9 earthing strip underneath which connects the main
cartridge from Audio-Technica. Ken Kessler replies: As most readers bearing to the arm mounting point. But as the newer
The deck is an old friend and is will know, I’m an avid Audio Research Rega arms use a three-point fixing instead of the old

going nowhere, as is the pick-up, user and have depended on the large thread and nut, this may not be making contact.
but the tonearm is showing its age company’s ‘REF’ series preamps for Says Simon Webster of Rega: ‘On the rare occasion
(failing bias) and is likely to be years. So, if I were in Mr Pickering’s we come across this scenario it is usually caused by
replaced soon with an Audiomods position, I would opt for the line-level an amplifier with an unusual design or a phono stage

Series 6 arm – if this sounds as REF 5 [HFN Jan ’10] or 5SE, which that has its earth on the righthand channel or a fl oating
good as it looks. This combination has depreciated to less than half earth. We can provide a custom arm lead with a
feeds a pair of Quad II-eighty its original retail price, with used separate earth which can solve such issues.’
monoblocks via the 834P with examples now increasingly plentiful
Harbeth 30.1 speakers at the front. thanks to the recent launch of the REF
My challenge is that I would 6SE [full review next month]. WhitWorld
like a preamp with a balance I would also stick with the serviced
control, and a vintage or classic EAR 834P, which remains a gem of a OUR HI-FI WORLD THROUGH THE EYES OF WHITWORTH
model at that. Candidates include phono stage. He should consider, too,
a Hovland HP100 in-line model, any of the Audio Research LS series
perhaps fed by a solid-state Pathos models, EAR’s magnificent 912, the

InTheGroove MkII phono stage Luxman CL-series preamps, and the
[HFN Nov ’12]. How would a mix of reissued McIntosh C22.
valves and solid-state sound? Whether or not the preamps he
Also in the frame could be considers also have built-in phono
the Quad QC24 preamp and 24P stages is secondary, as the 834P is a
phono stage [HFN Jul ’10]. Or do keeper, and it gives him the option of
I just save up my money and buy changing phono stages or running two
a EAR Yoshino 868PL preamp and turntables. And I’d stick with valves!

ABOVE: The Audio Research Reference 5 all-valve line level preamplifi er

114 | www.hifi news.co.uk | DECEMBER 2020