Phono stage advice for a Rega P6/Ania

[chromewaves]

Hi - I've got a Rega P6 with an Ania cart running into a Rothwell Rialto phono preamp into a line in on my Rega Elex-R amp.

General sound quality is very good, but I have hum issues that i've narrowed down to the phono stage. there's always a low level hum that I can mitigate somewhat in moving the phono stage around, but even if I find a quiet spot eventually it comes back up. It's not really audible when music is playing, but at higher volumes or lower-output recordings, I can hear it.

Wondering if this is typical of phono stages (this is my first MC setup) or if the Rialto needs some attention? The LED has gone out, so it needs a little attention for that as well. And if some MC stages just have hum, would replacing it with something else - budget would be around the Moon or CAmbridge Duo ($500-$800 CDN) help? Should I expect phono stages to be dead quiet?

OR, should I look into a SUT and using the phono stage on my amp? It's a decent phono stage, and maybe it wouldn't hum? but there's not a lot on the market and they're kind of spendy.

 

[NickofWimbledon]

Absolute silence may be unachievable but any annoying level of hum should be fixable. If moving the phono stage to somewhere quiet sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, I’d suspect the phono stage itself or its being sensitive to noisy mains or both.

If you need a new phone stage, Rega’s better options may be out of reach even s/h, but the excellent (and quiet in my experience) Dynavector P75 mk4 would be affordable. However I could understand if you try sorting your existing one first.

 

[ste]

I’d check out the dead led. Unusual for them to just fail and could be a symptom of stg else wrong — and, in turn, related to your hum.