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Vintage DIN phono cables, any good?

The question is about old DIN tonearm phono cables for the top of the line vintage Japanese tonearms. 
I wonder how good those old cables are compared to the mid priced new cables ?

For example an old Audio Craft, SAEC, Fidelity Research, SONY  cables made for their top of the line tonearms are good? It's easy to replace an old RCA connectors, but what about the cables? Some of them are silver and must be a good quality. 

Any thoughts? 
Thanks 
128x128chakster
chakster's avatar
chakster OP
6,144 posts
 
@nandric

Anyway I hope you deed not spend mucho dollars for your speaker wire(grin).


I did, long time before, tried various brands and stopped on Stereovox Firebird designed by Chris Sommovigo, same with interconnects (Stereovox Colibri with Xhadow RCAs) and finally managed to get Stereolab Master Referense Phono RCA cable here on audiogon. Chris has moved from USA to Japan and excluded all distribution chane from his business, he sells direct. His cables are the most impressive ones that me and my local hi-end mates has ever heard. It’s like changing the component in your system. I think the hi-end business is in big chrisis now. Luckily we can buy them all used for 50% off. But i’m not intended to buy $600-2000 high-end cables for each of my vintage tonearms anymore.

Maybe you're right about vintage cables, i will try, if they are crap i do rather buy signal cable from Frank, but they are all silver (i have no silver cables in my system). 

BTW those German guy (i forgot the name) who supply cables for Reed makes the affordable phono cables, i use one of them, it was replaced with Cryo one with better RCAs at Reed factory. The old one was removed directly from Reed tonearm Then i have soldered DIN connector to that cable to use it with one of my vintage tonearm and that's ok, but not special.  
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear chakster, It is a question of preference while we also need

to save on something or other. So I use, for example, Bullet RCA

instead of WBT (grin). Thanks to my brother Don (Griffiths) I can

get those Signal cables with discount and use for both; IC's and

phono-cables. Pure silver or silver coted copper wire. One of

my FR-64s has silver inside the other copper. I think that the

armwand wire is better isolated than the (old) phono-cables wire.

This may explain the fact that there are not much complains about

(inside) wire by the ''old tonearms''. Except by Rega 300 for my

son I never changed inside wire by any of my tonearms.

BTW I am not a wire fetishist.

chakster's avatar
chakster OP
6,144 posts
 
@nandric 


So I use, for example, Bullet RCA instead of WBT (grin). 


Those Eichman Bullet RCA are ok to use (i have 2 pairs), but they are not good for re-soldeging as the pins inside are very fragile and it's easy to destroy them in case of overheat while soldering. Now they call them KLE, that's what i have on my Reed phono cable. The WBT nextgen are much better and extremely well designed, but very expensive (got them on my Zu Audio Mission mk2 phono cable). But the ultimate RCA connectors are the Xhadow in my opinion.  

BTW I am not a wire fetishist.

That's good :) 

I never changed inside wire by any of my tonearms.

This is interesting and that's a proof you're not cable fetishist. Not sure about your headshell leadwires. 
nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear Chakster, I needed some time to answer your last question.

Curious but true the most frustrating ''part'' in our system chain

are those damn ''tags'' or ''pins''. Consider those expensive tonearms

(Reed,Triplanar,etc) with fast headshells and worthless tags. That

is to say when the invoved tags break or drop. I would be sorry

for whomever is in your vicinity. Anyway I compare this state of

affairs with Armani suit in combo with Nikes. We, the decent people

would not like to be associated  with such kinds. Well there are

only two kinds of decent tags in our known universe. Clearaudio and

Cardas. Alas both very expensive and , curiously, sold as 4 samples.

We of course need 8. Depending from the number of your Armani

suits you need to multiplay with 8. This means using those tags

for our most expensive and beloved carts.

BTW I noticed that our dear Lew does not like Litz wire. He obviously

 forget headshell wire or overlooked the problem (grin).

nandric's avatar
nandric
4,086 posts
 

Dear chakster, you divided my (former)  post in different issues

or questions. You last question was about headshell wire. But

you also questioned my preference for Bullet and WBT (RCA)

connectors  and put your own opinion about ''the best one'' as

Xhadow kind. But you obviously missed the ,say, ''essence'' of

Eichmanns innovation. That is ''one point'' grounding and as less

metal as possible. WBT copied Bullets invention two years

later probably because Eichmann deed not protect his invention

by patent. However WBT kept its complicated construction with

fastening mechanisme for both (opposite) connectors which

meant the use of more metal for the connector. Consider those

thin wire , needed for those (damn) Din 5 connectors in relation

to ''abundance '' of metal on the other side. ''Your Xhadow'' looks

like the old WBT connector. Ground on both sides of the connector.

From this follows that you don't believe that Eichmanns innovation

is actually  ''innovation at all''. Or you missed the ''essence'' (grin).



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