Phono Cable

Nobody has mentioned the Hovland. It too is incredible.

I've been happy for years with the Graham IC-30 running direct into my preamp; if you have a Graham arm, worth considering.

The siltech is very good, and pretty reasonable. Less than the Hovland, and the grounding scheme is so much better. I reduced the noise floor dramatically and increased dynamics and soundstaging quite a bit at the same time. Mine is an older model, which I think has been discontinued, but the new ones have the same grounding scheme. I think grounding is really significant with the low level signals coming off a moving coil.

rcprince- I do have a graham 2 arm and currently a XLO sig 3.1 phono cable. Have you compared the Graham cable to this or other cables? Thanx, Mark

Mark: I used to have the XLO 3.1 Signature, but I used it from an Expressive Technologies step-up transformer (used to have one of the early Transfiguration cartridges) to my preamp, in conjunction with the Graham cable running into the ET. I thought the XLO was very good, and would recommend it as another cable to consider for this thread. The difference in sound between it and the Graham would be hard to figure in that setup; I did feel that the bass was a little thicker and heavier with the XLO and Expressive vs. running the Graham right into the preamp, but I couldn't tell you if that was a function of the XLO, the Expressive or the lack of gain with that cartridge. If you are in the NYC/NJ area, let me know, you could bring over your cable, or I could bring mine so you could hear the difference yourself.