Thoughts on moving from a 1200G to Sota Saphire or above

Mr m, dedicated phono cables meant only to be used between a tonearm and a phono stage input, usually have a female DIN plug at the tonearm end. A DIN plug mates with a male DIN to be found at the base of the tonearm, and it contains five connections, two for right channel hot and ground, two more  for left channel hot and ground, and the fifth connection makes contact with the body of the tonearm. That fifth connection is what you see as an external ground wire, and it is meant to be connected to the external ground lug on a typical phono stage. Some tonearm/turntable combinations offer a pair of RCA outputs. In that case one can use conventional ICs. As you noted, those don’t give an external ground connection per se. In that case the only grounds are the Audio grounds. If your tonearm offers RCA outputs, then you might consider adding a secondary wire that you can attach anywhere on the tonearm or to a metal part of the turntable and then to the ground lug on the phono stage. Sometimes that is not needed. In fact, sometimes you’re better off without it.

Phono cable can be RCA to RCA and mr_m posted in Technics thread, phono cable for “G” is RCA to RCA and easily can be confused with regular interconnect cable. The main difference of a phono cable is shield, an unshielded cable can pick up a radio signal, if you don’t want to hear a radio station in your speakers use shielded phono cables.

I read recently that a low capacitance cable also help with carts. Any suggestions other than Fire IC’s that make good RCA to RCA phono IC’s? 

Hi Tim - My SOTA / Sumiko FT-3 came w Sumiko din to 2xrca plus ground wire box. Lew is spot on, some experiments w various ground schemes recommended to get best performance. i do have a Nordost Rca to rca that i use w integral wire for grounding. AQ Fire w a seperate ground wire sounds better.
ideally i should have had tonearm wired in one continuous run from headshell to phono inputs…..like my Triplaner..

I read recently that a low capacitance cable also help with carts. Any suggestions other than Fire IC’s that make good RCA to RCA phono IC’s?

try this (you can return them for full refund if you don't like them, it’s their policy)