re: Audiophile/Vinyl Thread - Post Pics, Advice, Questions, Setups, etc.

Be careful buying the correct phono cable.

A true phono cable is terminated at one end with either an RCA or balanced XLR (depending upon the input type of your phono pre amp), and terminated with a 5-pin DIN connector that plugs directly into a tonearm plug. This is common practice in the higher end tables as an audiophile will sometimes use a table, tonearm, and cartridge from different manufacturers. So it became common for the connection to come directly out of the tonearm, not the table/plinth.

Nowadays, for simplicity, the lower priced/entry level tables (and some high end too) have put an RCA jack on the back of the table. They have pre wired the tonearm through the plinth to the output jack on the back. This means that you just need to use a cable with an RCA on both ends.

When looking for tonearm/phono cables, you want something that is well shielded as the signal that is passing through the cable is of very low voltage (around 2v for MM and around 0.5v for MC). For reference, a CD player pushes out a 4v signal. This sometimes allows for interference or cross voltages to bleed into the cable if the cable is of a very poor quality or it is close to another cable that is carrying a high voltage or a high amperage. Try to keep the phono cable isolated from just about everything else if possible.

Go to the Nordost website and look at Odin, Valhalla, and Tyr phono cables to see what I am talking about with regards to the 5-pin DIN connector (just so you can see what they look like...you'll shite a brick when you see how expensive those cable lines are!!)

Actually, the entry level lines for Nordost are pretty good. They are the White Lightning, Purple Flare, and Blue Heaven. You can get a standard RCA cable from any one of those series and be OK.