If you live in a low RFI environment, you might not suffer for lack of shielding. I use unshielded tonearm leads in my suburban environment, for some of my arms, and I don't perceive a problem. Which is to say that my tonearms using shielded wire sound the same as those using unshielded wire, in terms of RF noise. If you live in a city or industrial area, shielding is a good idea. Furthermore, I would think that the SME arm wand itself acts as a sort of shield for wires traveling within it. Not so, once those wires exit the base of the tonearm. On the other hand, I have never read that SME used inferior wires. Is there any reliable source for that info? (Is there any reliable source for anything in audio?)
Trying to reduce noise while listening to tube phono
Let me start by staying that I'm in love with how my system sounds right now. Hagerman Trumpet and Decca London Super Gold (paratrace stylus) is a ridiculously good combo. The only "but" is that if I raise the level to 3 o'clock on the preamp (Herron) I start to get tube hiss... or some hiss from somewhere. It used to be worse but then I got all new very low noise tubes and it improved a ton but I want to see if I reduce it some more. I'm wondering if the issue is the amount of gain on my preamp? Should I try another preamp with more gain and see if that solves the problem? On other inputs there's no hiss even at full volume so there's nothing technically wrong with preamp.