Cable runs for TT

[John]

I am hoping to get a Salvation soon and want to put it on the wall as I have a suspended wood floor
Ques 1)
If I have to use a long cable run to make this work would it be best to have the long run from phonostage to pre or pre to power amp.
Ques 2) Will I have to use a active pre due to the longer cable run At the moment I get loads of dynamics as the passive just powers up the mid and treble I use sub plates for the bass I like the transparency of passives and at the moment I have no issues using a passive pre

[Ali Tait]

I'd say it will depend on the in/out impedances of your preamp.It's generally said you need an active pre to drive long i/c's,but I'd suck it and see.If you do need an active pre,something like the WAD Pre 2 or WD Pre 3 use output transformers,and are in effect minature triode amps,and can drive very long lengths with ease.

[John]

I really liked the WD pre when I heard it
At the moment I usually have my passive at 12 o clock with 1m length and think I might need 3m but should get away with 2.5m

[Spectral Morn]

Short run to phonostage and long runs to pre would be my suggestion. Getting the delicate signals to the phonostage is critical after that they are boosted to line level and are less easy to damage. Picking a phonostage with a slightly higher output would help if the cable runs are long in your case what 3 to 4 m perhaps.

Use ferrite clamps on the cables and a few on the one to the pre. A shielded cable would be better keeping in mind your mystery problems with sound quality. These could be mains carried but could also be air carried.

Regards D S D L

[dave2010]

I'm not an expert (in the practical sense) here. How long a run do you envisage?

I would hazard a guess that if you use a passive pre-amp (really just an attenuator, with possibly some frequency mods) the long run should be from the arm to the pre-amp. However if the run is really long I suspect that this will give poor results, and that the solution would then be to use an active pre-amp. The signal levels from a cartridge are much lower than from digital devices such as CD and DVD players.

If you use an active pre-amp, then this should be as close as reasonably possible to the arm. This page gives some hints - http://www.dact.com/html/passive_preamp.html

I'm basing my answer on what seem to be fairly clear physical principles, and my concern is to keep the signal level up in the most vulnerable link. What actually works in practice may turn out to be different. It's possible that if you use really good cable that a long run to a passive pre-amp might work for you, since you have expressed a preference for passive pre-amps, though I still think this could be unlikely. I would expect the signal levels from a pickup cartridge to be too low for long cables to be appropriate.

I'll be interested to know what you try and how you get on with this.

[DSJR]

If you have a passive pre, then the interconnects to power amp should *usually* be as short and low in capacitance as possible.

There are good active preamps out there - http://www.spl.info/index.php?id=184&L=1 - this one has been designed to drive two pairs of remote active speakers (or power amps) and apparently it's invisible sonically and not expensive.

Another option could be an upgraded MF X10-D between volume pot and power amp. When modified along the Rock-Grotto lines, I found mine to be acoustically transparent, the warmth and slight "thickness" of tone completely disappeared.

[dave2010]

PS Neil's answer makes sense - but you didn't say whether you were intending to use a phonostage close to the arm. I assumed no gain before the pre-amp.

I guess I'm probably out of touch here, as you'd need something to do the RIAA or other frequency corrections. In days gone by this would have been done in an active pre-amp. If you have a phonostage to boost the signal and do the frequency corrections then you could probably treat the link from there the same as from any other high level output device, such as a CD player.

[Ali Tait]

John,at a guess I'd say you will probably be ok with those lengths,obviously the shorter you can get it the better.

[John]

Thanks everyone this really helps

[Ali Tait]

Let us know how you get on mate.

[Reid Malenfant]

Ques 1)
If I have to use a long cable run to make this work would it be best to have the long run from phonostage to pre or pre to power amp.
Ques 2) Will I have to use a active pre due to the longer cable run At the moment I get loads of dynamics as the passive just powers up the mid and treble I use sub plates for the bass I like the transparency of passives and at the moment I have no issues using a passive pre
Keep the phono pre amp which is active as close to the deck & arm as possible, this way you are boosting the output of the cartridge (0.2 - 0.5V) & you'll have much less chance of interference messing things up. 3mV or even worse 300uV over a 3M run doesn't need thinking about :eek: You can then run a reasonable length of cable to the passive attenuator :) Keep this as close to the power amp as possible as has been mentioned.

As long as you use a good cable between the phono amp & passive you'll be ok :cool: You'll obviously need a decent cable from passive to power amp to keep capacitance low & bandwidth wide (which has also been covered).