Does Everyone Use 2 Phono Cables with SUT

Hi Jollytinker,

You made my day. I’m glad this discussion was helpful.

I find the Auditorium SUT’s to be stunning when used as intended.

I’m still breaking in my 2 new phono cables and will report back shortly.

I have never really found the difference between the two.

Dinov, there really IS no difference except I guess in the minds of some or where a phono cable could be defined as a cable that terminates at one pair of ends by a usually female DIN plug or the like.

There is actually one substantial difference between the cable that feeds the input of a SUT and the one that comes from the output of a SUT.  The difference is the impedance level at which they operate which dictates the situational needs.

Lets assume a 10Ω cartridge and a 1:20 SUT.  The cable from the cartridge will be operating with a 10Ω source impedance which is so low that length and cable  capacitance is typically not much of an issue.  Granted the signal levels are also quite low so noise pickup can be a concern so this wire is always typically shielded. Since it is a low impedance line, the penalty of the shield is minimal.  On the other side of the SUT the cable sees 4000Ω and suddenly capacitance starts to take its toll.  Due to the higher impedance shielding is a must for quiet operation but the capacitance that comes along with the shielding becomes the "gotcha".  This is the main reason it is wise to keep this cable as short as possible.  This is particularly important when you get into the higher impedance cartridges through high ratio SUT's 

dave

This is particularly important when you get into the higher impedance cartridges through high ratio SUT’s

Dave @intactaudio, thanks for this explanation. So my takeaway is that the higher capacitance of standard interconnects makes them problematic for use between a SUT and phono stage, especially if they’re not short and especially if you’re using a higher impedance cart and high ratio SUT. That would explain why I had a problem using the Denon 103 and EMT JSD 6 with an A23 T2 SUT with standard ICs of various brands and why I’ve gotten such a big change from switching to a phono cable that’s advertised for its low capacitance. Nice to have such a clear narrative on this!