I have been trying and failing to get rid of a 120Hz buzzing in my turntable setup for a while now.
Before I get to the issue, here is everything in my setup:
* Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo
* Sony STRDH190
* Sony CDP-211
* Q Acoustics 3020i
* Schiit Mani 2
The CD player and turntable both go through the Sony receiver. The turntable uses the built in phono preamp on the Sony receiver as well.
I set up all of the above equipment early last summer. Everything worked great for a while, then out of nowhere I began getting an intermittent 120Hz buzz in my speakers when using my turntable only. Bluetooth and my CD player going through the receiver didn't have this buzz and continue to have no buzzing, it's only the turntable. The buzz happens as soon as I switch to the phono input, regardless of whether a record is actually playing or the turntable is spinning. The turntable is grounded to a pin on the receiver. While the buzzing is happening, touching the ground pin does reduce the buzzing, but not completely eliminate it.
It didn't happen all the time though and didn't last long so it didn't really bother me. A few weeks go by and it starts getting much more frequent though, and I notice it stops occurring around the same time every night.
I began trying different outlets and bought this ground loop eliminator on the off chance it was a ground loop issue (even though that would make no sense, since the buzz would happen all the time then and not just intermittently, but I wanted to be safe). Still, the buzz continues.
Luckily, my last roommate had a turntable setup too, and one time when I was using his I noticed he had the same 120Hz buzzing, which I did not normally remember being there. I began checking both my and his setup at the same time throughout the day, and found that 100% of the time, whenever my speakers were producing a 120Hz buzz when using my turntable, so were his for his turntable; whenever the buzz was gone on my setup, it was gone on his as well. His setup was in a completely different room of the apartment.
So at this point I figure the wiring in our walls is screwy since the building is super old. A new tenant and store also recently moved in to the two floors below us around the time this issue started happening, so I suspect that one of them is powering something that they turn on/off at the same time every day/night which is causing noise in the wiring for everyone else in the building (which is only 3 stories/units). I am by no means an electrical expert though so this is an arm chair theory at best.
After doing some research, I resolve to get a power conditioner to try and get rid of potential RFI/EMI, specifically this one. I plug everything in my audio setup into the power conditioner, power on the receiver and turntable and... still buzzing :/
My last resort was to test if the phono preamp in my receiver was screwy somehow (even though this wouldn't explain why my roommate's completely different setup was having the same issue, but I'm at wit's end here). I bought a Schiit Mani and ran my turntable through that then to my receiver... still, the buzzing remains. And yes, I did verify the load and gain settings on the Mani were appropriate for my Sumiko Rainier cartridge.
So at this point I have no clue what else to try. If anyone has experienced/fixed this sort of thing before, please let me know how you did it. Otherwise, any solutions that I haven't already tried are still welcome. I am beginning to think that the wiring in my apartment is simply too old and crappy and this is just something I will have to learn to live with, but very much hoping that's not the case.