Annoying white noise

[BECJ]

I recently bought the Bellari CTP2000 tube flat preamp and started to transcribe some of my old records when I noticed that there is a background white noise that is alleviated if I put my hand on the preamp or strangely enough if I wrap my hands around the the RCA cables from the preamp to the computer! The problem is not the ground wire from the preamp to the phonograph because if I disconnect that I get a loud "buzzing" noise. I have tried different RCA cables, grounding the preamp to the computer but nothing other than the "laying on of hands" makes any difference. I can eliminate the noise by sampling and then applying the continous noise filter (twice! - the first application leaves some weird digital artifacting) but it seems like that shouldn't be a necessary step. Since I can't keep my hands around the cables for 20 minutes at a time and I don't put much credence in faith healing does anyone have any ideas?

[Craig Maier]

Hi,

Do two things:

1. Instead of grounding your turntable ground strap to the phono preamplifier, try grounding it directly to your computers chassis.

2. Run a new wire between the preamps ground lug (terminal) over to the computer chassis as well. Connect both the turntable and the preamp ground wires to the same location of the computer chassis.

Let us know if that does the trick; I think that it will.

Craig

[BECJ]

Thanks, I'll try that. By the way, I mispoke, the cable I was referring to is the one from the phono to the preamp - but whatever, it was late at night.