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Help me pick a great phono cable

Good people of Audiogon:

I'm ready to buy a phono cable for my vinyl front end, and I'd like some suggestions. Budget is no more than $1000.00, but preferably on the lower side. So far, I've used only cheap / no-name interconnects for this application, and now I'd like to make some improvements by upgrading. It's a VPI turntable, and so has the standard RCA connections. I'm thus looking for a phono cable with RCA terminations. Moving in the direction of better resolution, detail, and soundstage would be ideal.

Full system is listed here and includes Dynavector XX2 MKII cartridge -> VPI JMW 10.5i > VPI Aries 2 Black Knight turntable > McIntosh C2300 preamplifier (using its MC phono stage).

Ideas? Suggestions? Thanks for any thoughts on the subject.
128x128goheelz
peterayer
1,382 posts
 
Hovland Music Groove 2. Extremely well balanced and neutral. Hey, it's Fremer's reference! I prefer it to the Harmonic Technology Copper, but I understand the HT Silver is better.
Ag insider logo xs@2x
uru975
684 posts
 
Another vote for the Hovland MusicGroove2
dover
2,182 posts
 
One of the best ways to improve your phono cable is to keep it as short as possible. Given that your TT phono sockets and phono inputs on the MacIntosh are right next to each other check if a 1/2 metre interconnect or less will be enough.
It appears you will need RCA to RCA, which means you could use any standard interconnect.
Personally if you want to save money, I found that 12-18" of the old MIT330 with the outer shielding stripped off, leaving you with just a raw twisted pair of time coherent teflon insulated wire, bettered many dedicated phono cables at a fraction of the cost. Spend the extra on quality plugs eg WBT Nextgen or Eichmann.
mosin
410 posts
 
I like Tel-Wire. They aren't flashy, but they are made with really good stuff. Best of all, they don't seem to color the sound.
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 
Goheelz, Your question is actually tricky because only some
of us are familiar with the McIntosh 2300 preamp. This is
obvious from the advice's you got. Everybody is 'promoting'
his own 'darling'. But Dover saved you at least $800. If you can solder you can make your own 50 cm interconnect with WBT or Eichmann RCA connectors. Or you can buy one on ebay. The short one are usually cheaper.
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