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I have a Technics SL-3310 turntable which I connect to the phono input of my amplifier. The turntable has a short RCA cable coming out of it. The turntable and amplifier are far apart from each other, therefore I use a female-to-female adapter to attach the turntable RCA to a longer RCA, which ends up in the amplifier.

Now the turntable has a grounding wire as well that should be attached to the amplifier. That wire is also short. Without attaching it there is some buzzing.

I attached it to the RCA adapter and now the buzzing has stopped, but I'm wondering: is this somehow bad for the amp or turntable?

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No problem at all. The amp connects ground to the RCA shell anyway, so it doesn't matter where it happens.

Another good way of minimizing buzzing is to have all units that are connected on the same AC circuit, however, that may require running some extension cords.

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Since ground loops are not predictable, some audio and related equipment, including amplifiers, can have ground bypass switches, or terminals for grounding or not grounding their internals.

So whichever of ground/no-ground results in no hum, or the least hum is OK.

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    For safety reasons all audio gear SHOULD ALWAYS BE PROPERLY grounded. Ground lift switches are a bad idea and mostly illegal these days. Hum problems can be solved with proper AC lines management, balanced connections and isolation transformers.
    – Hilmar
    Commented Nov 24, 2012 at 21:56

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