How important is the quality of tonearm rca cables?

[colinB]

Bit of a cable thread here so my apologies before hand
Im looking at tonearm cables to connect my jelco arm to my preamp and as usual in the world of hi fi their is differing opinions. If you are using a MM cartridge it doesnt seem to be as important an issue as moving coil so im wondering if i can get away with a modest priced interconnect with some basic shielding?

[The Vinyl Adventure]

i think this has come up before with jelco cables... i think dave c says you have nothing to worry about in terms of its quality, and would need to spend a hell of a lot to better it ... i might be wrong but, im sure i read that somewhere

[MartinT]

The Neglex cables are natural partners for Jelco arms and sound mighty fine.

[colinB]

To be honest Hamish i was thinking the jelco was a bit to high end to me. Audio engineers rate neglex highly in terms of RF rejection and they look beautifully made, but i guess im just being a cheap skate and im struggling to set funds aside to get my arm done. God knows ive waited long enough!

[chris@panteg]

Hi Colin

Well the neglex is around £80 or so ! J7 does some Van Damme one's at £55 but i personally wouldn't skimp on the cable its a false economy .

[colinB]

And then another 80 for a quality armboard. No more record shopping for me for a while i guess. Very difficult when you live in central London.
I have had bad experiences with cable buying in the past. I spent a small fortune on Chord cabling and was very disappointed. Good to hear your endorsements though and i appreciate it.

[chris@panteg]

Hi Colin if its any comfort its not that much better here ! just had my Gas and leccy Bil :eek:

[colinB]

Sorry to hear that Chris. At the moment ive got Capital One phoning me up asking "whats in your wallet?" And the answers not very much im afraid.:rolleyes:

[Hypnotoad]

Sorry to hear that Chris. At the moment ive got Capital One phoning me up asking "whats in your wallet?" And the answers not very much im afraid.:rolleyes:

Watch out if you get a call saying: "What connected to your turntable?".

I bought some very nice looking interconnects made by AR. They were really video connect cables and sound as good as any I have heard. I got them from a Dollar and More store for a little over a pound each.

I wouldn't waste a lot of money expensive cables with phony claims, it's snake oil IMO.

[DSJR]

MC cartridges aren't so bothered about cable length or capacitance, but it's still better to keep them as short as reasonably possible IMO.

MM cartridges are sensitive to cable capacitance and hum pickup amongst other things IIRC.

Now, regarding "bought" tonearm interconnects, I made up a Cardas mini-din socket to inexpensive neutric/Rean phono's using van damme pro-patch mic cables (same as Audio Origami use) and some heat-shrink, connecting the drain at the phono plugs and the four inner cores (plus a separate earth wire) to the cardas socket. Total cost was £15 or so and my soldering was just up to doing a neat job (I bottled out on the arm fitting and hifi dave did this for me).

Sort of makes £100 related wires a bit over-priced, although the cable that Jelco use may cost rather more to justify the £80+ they charge on ebay.

[colinB]

How do the two seperate cables wire into the 5 pin neutric plug?

[Barry]

MC cartridges aren't so bothered about cable length or capacitance, but it's still better to keep them as short as reasonably possible IMO.

MM cartridges are sensitive to cable capacitance and hum pickup amongst other things IIRC.

Now, regarding "bought" tonearm interconnects, I made up a Cardas mini-din socket to inexpensive neutric/Rean phono's using van damme pro-patch mic cables (same as Audio Origami use) and some heat-shrink, connecting the drain at the phono plugs and the four inner cores (plus a separate earth wire) to the cardas socket. Total cost was £15 or so and my soldering was just up to doing a neat job (I bottled out on the arm fitting and hifi dave did this for me).

Sort of makes £100 related wires a bit over-priced, although the cable that Jelco use may cost rather more to justify the £80+ they charge on ebay.

Agreed. The only thing to bear in mind is that MC cartridges have a very low output, roughly the same as a ribbon or capacitor microphone, so the use of (low resistance) microphone cable is appropriate. Furthermore, microphone cables are designed to be in themselves non-microphonic. This is achieved through the use of an additional (semiconducting) layer, situated between the shield and the insulating dielectric, so improving the shielding to RFI and hum.

Regards