I find my tonearm cable to be very sensitive to magnetic fields and it's the stock cable that comes with the Technics SL-1210M5G. I have not upgraded this cable as it is decent.
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Yes of course every cable is important but not necessarilly equally important in each particular system. Often the closer to the source the more important. I am not talking about power cords now. When upgrading, most of us cannot afford upgrading all the cabling at the same time, especially when doing serious upgrades. |
Leeds - I wonder.... where exactly would you get a seperate ground reference for left and right channels in order to run a "truly balanced" XLR cable from a phono cartridge that has only 4 pins (left/right +/- )???? Stereo Phono cartridges are INHERENTLY balanced devices no matter what connector you happen to be using at the phono stage. |
jwpstayman ... I wonder ... where exactly would you get a seperate ground reference for left and right channels in order to run a "truly balanced" XLR cable from a phono cartridge that has only 4 pins (left/right +/- )???? Stereo Phono cartridges are INHERENTLY balanced devices no matter what connector you happen to be using at the phono stage.You’ve answered your own question - a phono cartridge is inherently balanced. If you connect it to a properly balanced differential phono preamplifer, the cable will be much less critical - that’s the nature of a balanced circuit. As for XLR cables - I never mentioned them. As you note, you can have a balanced connection regardless of the connector. In this instance, you get the separate ground wire from the pickup arm - almost all pickup arm cables include the separate ground. |
@inna - if you want to improve the performance of your one piece harness you could install (or have installed) a pair of Absolute Harmony RCA's from KLE Innovations. https://kleinnovations.com/kle-innovations-klei-products/klei-harmony-plug/ They are probably the best RCA's money can buy You will hear more clarity, improved imaging, deeper bass and faster dynamics. I have tried the other Harmony models, but the Absolute Harmony are extremely good and well worth the investment. Regards - Steve |
It's an interesting question. All cabling is important obviously, but the tonearm cable is probably the one in my system where the differences in sound quality seem to be more extreme and easier to hear as opposed to speaker cabling, IC's or power cables. And, incidentally, that is running fully balanced into a balanced/differential phono preamp with both balanced inputs and outputs so I don't buy into the idea that the cable is less critical in that application with a balanced phono pre. In my experience, that is not true. |
I don’t know yet Steve, the arm just left the UK yesterday. It will be here in about a week. I too am an admirer of Jeff Spall’s Audiomods Arm, one I recommend anyone in the market for a very high-value pickup arm at least checkout. I would rather have it than any other pivoted arm anywhere near it’s price. Hand made one-at-a-time (as is the Trans-Fi Terminator) by an excellent designer and machinist, and offered at a modest price. The British are SO good at the phonograph, aren't they?! |
Eric - the Brit's do seem to have a "knack" when it comes to most things vinyl, although there is much more competition from elsewhere these days, but the Audiomods and the Terminator do seem to be among the best on offer. Looking through his web site Vic seems to have a rather unique view to speaker construction also. Open baffle is really tough to get right What cartridge and phono stage are you using? And what TT are you going to install it on? It's always nice to know what other combos work for people Cheers |
@inna - I have experimented extensively with cables/connectors over the past 11 years, One of my first endeavors was replacing the tonearm wire in my RB250 tonearm with a one piece Cardas harness. The resulting improvements were easy to hear over the stock Rega offering I then replaced the RCA’s with a pair of Silver Bullet RCA’s. Again, the improvements were very noticeable. I now have a silver litz one piece harness terminated with KLE Innovations Absolute Harmony RCA’s - the details conveyed are exceptional. I believe a quality tonearm wire and RCA’s to be essential to phono reproduction. It also allows you to hear improvements in other cables and components throughout the system as they are introduced. If you think about it - if the tonearm wire is your weakest link (i.e. not conveying the highest resolution signal possible), then trying to discern improvements in the rest of the system by introducing cables or components becomes folly, simply because you will never really know what the other cables and components are truly capable of since they are not receiving the best signal possible. Granted, the cartridge plays a significant role here - but again, unless the tonearm wire is top notch, you will not know how good a cartridge performs either. If your tonearm/turntable is terminated with RCA jacks, i.e. requiring an interconnect to attach to the phono stage and if installing a one piece harness is not an affordable option, then having a good IC to connect to the TT to the phono stage will prove most beneficial. In this case, take a look at the KLE Innovations IC products. I have auditioned/reviewed most of their IC line over a four year period and believe they are among the best commercial products available. . The gZero3 is exceptional for an introductory cable, but I regard the gZero20 to be the best "value". The top end of their lineup take you into the territory of diminishing returns, but does offer exemplary sound quality. If you are reasonably handy at DIY - take a look at some IC’s I have developed - which I use throughout my system. They allow the natural and dynamic transfer of an extremely high resolution signal with little distortion or coloration (if any), regardless of signal strength. http://image99.net/blog/files/4127b5fe2694586e383104364360373b-74.html Hope that helps Regards - Steve |
Steve, I’m a long-time Decca/London pickup user, on-and-off since 1972. I have had a Super Gold Mk.7 mounted on a Zeta arm (which replaced a Cardas-rewired Rega 300), itself bolted onto a Townshend Audio Elite Rock (Mk.2) table for awhile now. The Rock, with it’s headshell-end damping system, could have been custom made for the Decca/London design, and in fact a Decca was used in the research and development of the original Rock. I’ve been very happy with the Super Gold/Zeta/Rock combo, but found the Terminator too seductive to resist. I saw pics of the Trans-Fi arm with a London Reference mounted on it, and learned it was that of the arm’s designer. That really piqued my interest; not many people use the Reference as a, well, reference! Needing a table for use with the arm, I decided to get myself another of the table I had before the Rock, and liked a lot---a VPI HW-19. I quickly found a nice MK.2 with acrylic top plates and black gloss plinth, and replaced the stock platter with one from a TNT MK.3. VPI’s are a great table for linear trackers, providing a stable, high-mass platform for their considerable moving mass. Users have found the VPI/Terminator pairing to be a real good one. My phono amp is a Herron VTPH-1mm, which was optimized for my London’s by Keith, with lowest-gain tube selection (London’s, with 5mV output, don’t need much, and can easily overload amps which have too much gain, that gain achieved by sacrificing headroom), with the capacitance and resistance loading I specified. Decca/London’s benefit from non-standard moving magnet phono amp characteristics, as Harvey Rosenberg hipped me to back in the mid-80’s. |
"Often the closer to the source the more important. I am not talking about power cords now." @inna EVERY cable is a power cable. What do you imagine is traveling through your speaker wire right now? Every cable you have conducts the flow of electrons (or photons in some xD). There's nothing magical here. |
williewonka, I don't think I will have this Nottingham arm modified. One reason - I might upgrade it to the newest Nott arm in the next couple of years, and another - I cannot be certain that it will actually sound better. I could just upgrade the RCA connectors, I guess. So far, every interconnect upgrade from the Acoustech phono to Redgum RGi120 integrated yields big improvements, and I didn't start with junk, I started with old Purist Maximus. I guess, Nottingham wiring is quite good. So is $500 Goldring 1042 MM cartridge. I am impressed by both. |
@inna - re.... I could just upgrade the RCA connectors, I guess.I would highly recommend updating the RCa’s - after all, if you really like them you can always transfer them to the next arm. They are extremely easy to install and remove. My RCA journey - I initially replaced the RCA’s on my turntable with renown Silver Bullet RCA’s - I was so impressed, I immediately replaced the RCA's on all of my IC’s - Wrote a review of the Silver Bullet on my blog - which was read by Keith Louie Eichmann (KLE) of Silver Bullet "fame" - KLE ask me to review his new RCA’s - the Harmony product line - the improvements between the Silver Bullet and the Copper Harmony were easily discernible and also between each successive Harmony model I now recommend the Silver Harmony as a more affordable starting point and the Absolute Harmony for the more "enthusiastic" audiophiles. Both are extremely good compared to the other competition out there. In my opinion, the Copper Harmony lacks the fine details and dynamic perofrmance of the Silver harmony and if you are considering the Pure harmony, you may as well spend the extra couple of bucks on the Absolute Harmony and get the best. My system is what I consider "modestly priced" (around $11,000 MSRP including cables), but due solely to the cables, RCA’s and other connectors, it performs well above it’s price point. The image is expansive, three dimensional and has a clarity most other systems costing much more seem to lack. I’m not trying to sell anything here - I’m just spreading the word about a product that actually works. OK - I’m done with the preaching. Happy listening :-) Regards - Steve |
There's little you can do about the wiring to cartridge when the TT's wiring is "captive" (ie, non-detachable/replaceable). But if you have RCA L+R jacks on outside of your TT, what you CAN do is up your game by getting the best possible cable to connect TT's outputs to preamp. I won't try to recommend cable for that. There are many worthy candidates. I'll just say this: 1 - In doing this, you are increasing the sonic potential of your TT in the same manner as any other source component that connects to the TT via RCA cable 2 - The difference is that the signal coming out of the TT (assuming RIAA equalization is done in the preamp or phono amp, not in the TT) is even lower in level than the typical 2.0-3.0 volts being output by tape decks, CD players/DACs, etc. The TT output signal is more fragile than that--so will benefit (perhaps dramatically) by a really good RCA cable w/low capacitance and other qualities of robust design. |
If you have a Nottingham with the Rega tonearm, you can send the tonearm to Britaudio (www.britaudio.com). I sent them my tonearm and had Mr. Wharton install the Incognito wiring harness. I now have better wiring and a proper ground. I sent out the tonearm by UPS on a Monday (from Ohio) and had it back by the weekend. |
25 yrs ago I let a pro rewire my SME III w/ Van den Hul MCS-300 pure silver path from cart pins to phono inputs. It made a HUGE improvement to the already superb arm (designed especially to HC carts), dynamics and details/nuances and the high registerd in particular got much refined and not showing even a hint of harshness. But I must point out that silver wire instantly reveals faults such as sibilance w/ your carts or your records. Then I realized that the extremely low voltage output from a cartridge needs and deserves nothing but the best quality wires available... I haven ´t looked back since. I also use Trans-Fi audio´s linear airbearing arm w/ uninterrupted silver path from cart pins to phono input (125 cm to be exact). I bought a pair of the KLEI Absolute Harmony RCA’s (that I will send Vic at Trans-Fi soon) on the ends of the 1-piece silver loom with which he will wire my Terminator Arm aluminium wand. Regards and thanks bdp24 :) |
My pleasure, h-n-t-b! Vic is running low of his silver litz wire, the longest length he had left for my Terminator being 90cm. Luckily that’s enough for me, as my phono stage is right below my table. I can not believe people are still putting RCA jacks on the ends of their tone arm cable "blocks" (ala Cardas, VPI, etc.) and inserting RCA plugs/cables into them, or the arm makers who install a plug in the bottom of their arm (SME, etc.). If there’s one place you don’t want a solder joint or crimp, let alone jacks and plugs, it is in the path of the tiny signal coming from a phono cartridge! Almost all RCA jacks, even the nice looking Cardas, are made of brass, not a great conductor (though it makes a great cymbal ;-). Where one must use them, WBT makes some nice copper ones. WBT also makes very good RCA plugs, the only real competition to the KLEI. |