Temporarily eliminate the ground connection on the plug using an adapter. If the problem goes away, purchase a “floating” (ungrounded) phono preamp.
Tried this. No noise when twisting connections.
mmm
This level of poor functionality, and on both channels suggests the pre-amp isn’t functioning.
Given its vintage that might not be a surprise.
You could do worse than to directly connect the turntable to the amplifier. It should give you a quiet and very top heavy sound, but one without noise or distortion.
Personally I would spring for a better pre-amp. But it depends on what you want to accomplish.
To add to the above. Direct connection is to establish that the rest of the system is working.
If you turn up the bass, turn down the treble, and turn up the volume you might get an approximation to the expected sound. This might be enough to identify if there are issues outside of the pre-amp.
By this do you mean to connect the turntable directly to the receiver (bypass the pre-amp)?
If so, I’ve tried this and get no sound at all. Wouldn’t that be expected?
mmm
I would just go ahead and get the $16 phono preamp in my previous post. The one you have is really old, and has an internal power supply that likely has bad caps. Plus the one you have may be connecting the common (outer conductor) of the cables to earth ground. I consider it to be a wise investment, even if it’s not the root cause of the problem.
I think I will. I can always return it if it has no effect.
mmm
I would expect a tiny amount of sound. There is a reason you need a preamp. Output should be of the order of a few millivolts for loud music. That is about 500 times less than a CD player.
Which sounds a lot but is really just the equivalent of very soft sound. About 50db down. Turning the volume up should have clawed some of this back.
As it goes the Pioneer PL-115D was a good entry level turntable. One of the most popular out there. It’s a reasonable cartridge as well. It deserves better than a bottom of the range preamp.
If the preamp is not actually amplifying, then the noise to signal ratio at the output could be very high. Your stereo will try to amplify that horrible signal. So it would likely sound somewhat static filled. Weak wanted sound very small amplitude, combined with high amplitude noise. Also very little bass.
This makes a lot of sense.
New pre-amp ordered, we shall see.
mmm
This thread makes me nostalgic for my stereo component days. I sold everything before we moved from Anchorage in 2009. Our home in Portland just didn’t have room for that sort of setup, and neither does our apartment here in MSP. I ended up uploading all our CDs and LPs, the latter being a long and tedious process.
I have somewhere around 1,300 albums (not “vinyls” 
). I’ve recently decided to start selling them off. A handful are, I’ve learned, somewhat valuable. I recently sold a punk album I bought in the early 80s for $87.
Anyway, firing up the turntable to test the records before selling is what prompted this thread.
Guess who’s having second thoughts about getting rid of his records.
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I had about 400 CDs. . .actually, I still have them, all in slip covers, as previously they were all loaded into carousel CD components and I ditched the jewel cases. Still have the jewel inserts somewhere, though. Sold and gave away all the vinyl, some of which had some value. Paying for shipping all that dead weight every time we moved was really stupid, as we had no way to play the records. I bought an Ion turntable that I could connect to the computer, recorded what was still viable, and then. . .GONE!
UPDATE:
Welp, it weren’t the pre-amp. I received a new one today, hooked it up, and received the exact same poor quality of sound.
I have a new cartridge coming, I’ll try that next but I’m not optimistic.
I think perhaps the old table is about done, at least as far as I am concerned.
If so, I may dismantle it out and sell it piece by piece.
mmm
Can you do … this?
While you’re waiting for the new cartridge?
Also, FWIW, I found a service manual for your turntable:
That could help if there’s an internal cabling issue.
Wow, thanks @DavidNRockies.
I do have a multimeter, and I could follow those instructions. I’m not sure what the info would tell me, though, and I’m not sure what I would do with it.
Maybe I’ll give it a go.
mmm
We (you) have to start the process of elimination – breaking the system down into its component parts and testing every component that you can test.
An alternative is to change any component that you can change – a path you’ve already started down.
If you had a different receiver into which you could plug the turntable (with and without your old preamp), that might yield useful information.
Knowing that a CD player sounded okay helps. Did you plug the CD player into the same receiver inputs as you had the TT and/or preamp plugged into?
Do you have a set of AUX inputs that you could try plugging the TT (via the preamp) into?
Trying to keep everything constant while changing one thing at a time is always helpful.
But the multimeter approach to verifying the function of the cartridge, wires, and internal cabling (that leads to your TT’s output cable and terminates in the RCA plugs) drills down even further on the TT itself.
Never mind…
Sorry to hear that. My advice (once you solve the root problem) is to use the new one, and ditch the old one.
I was planning to return the new one. Why would you keep it?
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