Official AR Turntable Owners Thread

I guess I like my own work ;) and I'm glad @Redd House is enjoying the base along with his modded XB. I also have a highly quilted maple base for my own XB waiting in the wings.
Maple is my favorite closed grain hardwood. So many choices... plain, flame, quilted, birdseye... Perfect for electric guitars too...
 
Havent taken any pics yet but I finished getting the tonearm wand on my XB replaced with a Technics wand and rewired. Per Marcs suggestion I ganged all of the grounds and man is this thing dead quiet. Sounds incredible and I still have some tweaking to do to get the tonearm properly setup.

Cant wait to get my project XA finished up. Also just picked up another XA that I scored from Goodwill.
 
What does it mean to gang all the grounds together? I get slight hum, but kinda goes away when I touch the tone arm. I also saw this wire (which I assume is ground ) was disconnected after unpacking. I tied it down to the screw inside the pivot area.

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That ground wire does indeed go to the screw under the pivot. Ganging the grounds together means to tie all the grounds together. The arm, T-bar, left and right signal grounds, top plate and any others you find. If all the grounds are tied together the left and right RCA grounds will ground the turntable to the phono preamp.
 
I soldered the two ground wires from the interconnect cables to one connection on the original connection block. The I soldered the ground wires from the table to one connector. Then I bridged two of the connections on the block together to bring all the grounds together. I will get some pics tonight.
 
I soldered the two ground wires from the interconnect cables to one connection on the original connection block. The I soldered the ground wires from the table to one connector. Then I bridged two of the connections on the block together to bring all the grounds together. I will get some pics tonight.

Thanks guys for the response. Pics will be greatly appreciated.
 
Here you go. I grouped the RCA cable grounds on one pin, the table grounds on the other. Then the tonearm grounds are on the other side, and I bridged those two pins with a piece of wire soldered between them.

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Here you go. I grouped the RCA cable grounds on one pin, the table grounds on the other. Then the tonearm grounds are on the other side, and I bridged those two pins with a piece of wire soldered between them.

Thanks Chris - i will look under the hood on mine and see what it's like.

It's almost sounds like i don't hear it while a record is playing, but definitely want to get rid of this hum.
 
I guess I like my own work ;) and I'm glad @Redd House is enjoying the base along with his modded XB. I also have a highly quilted maple base for my own XB waiting in the wings.
BTW, damn finest plank choosing and corner work I've ever seen! You guys make a great team!!! :bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:
 
@chris_f

Heres a look under my hood. I see the rca cables grounded to the pins, the tone arm ground is on a pin by itself. one ground on T and another on top plate. I unscrewed the T ground and plate wire to better position them where they weren’t tangled up with the other wires (like in the pic). I think maybe it slightened the hum but still audibly there.

What should I try from here?

BTW that connector board is dangling in the air. It’s not tied down to anything.

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I fixed it!!!!! I found a old post from Marc on another thread...

One thing I forgot to ask, and it could cause an issue. How do you have the cart wired? AR headshell pattern is Red right hot, Black right ground. White left hot, Green left ground. on "SME" pattern Green is right ground. If your cart has color coded pins, ignore that and attach the right ground (black wire) to the green pin on the cart. The green wire to the blue pin on the cart.

I flipped the Green/Blue connectors on the cart and boom! no more hum. :banana:
 
I fixed it!!!!! I found a old post from Marc on another thread...

One thing I forgot to ask, and it could cause an issue. How do you have the cart wired? AR headshell pattern is Red right hot, Black right ground. White left hot, Green left ground. on "SME" pattern Green is right ground. If your cart has color coded pins, ignore that and attach the right ground (black wire) to the green pin on the cart. The green wire to the blue pin on the cart.

I flipped the Green/Blue connectors on the cart and boom! no more hum. :banana:
good, now while you're in there, you need to re secure your power switch wires to the base, as they're stuck inside your front suspension spring. That wire tree should have been screwed to the base also.
ganging both green and blue wires with a jumper to the black arm ground wire would have solved the issue too. That looks like a base from AVFan, that has my lower rigid spring perches, who put this table together?
 
good, now while you're in there, you need to re secure your power switch wires to the base, as they're stuck inside your front suspension spring. That wire tree should have been screwed to the base also.
ganging both green and blue wires with a jumper to the black arm ground wire would have solved the issue too. That looks like a base from AVFan, that has my lower rigid spring perches, who put this table together?

that wiring pattern only applies to those running stock headshell and arm correct? if youre headshell and arm mod for sme has been done the standard wiring applies?
 
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