New Denon TT / Shure Cart / No Sound

[Groovz]

Hi to all,

I'm hoping for a little bit of help for a friend who is trying to get back into vinyl.

He purchased a really nice Denon table and put a Shure M97 x cartridge in it. He said that he gets no sound out of it, so I brought it home to try out.

When I hooked the turntable up to my Toshiba receiver, I got a low hum and barely audible sound. I took the cartridge headshell and threw it on my Pioneer PL-51 and got the same results.

I checked the four wires going to the cartridge and all the colors line up correctly.

So what gives? Is this a dead short in the clamshell head? It sounds like an ungrounded hum.. like with the turntable isn't grounded to the amp or receiver. In this case, there is no ground wire from the turntable.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers, Groovz

 

[rayma]

Is this a dead short in the clamshell head?

Measure across the unconnected cartridge terminals on each channel with an ohmmeter.
The reading should be about 1500 Ohms for each pair, if undamaged.

 

[ralphfcooke]

Check that the headshell wires are fitted correctly by comparing the layout with a working headshell.

 

[picowallspeaker]

It sounds like an ungrounded hum.. like with the turntable isn't grounded to the amp or receiver. In this case, there is no ground wire from the turntable.

You can use a momentary cable that "touches" both: just make contact with the arm base ( if it's metal..!) and amplifier's chassis.