Vintage DIN phono cables, any good?

Nandric,
Passing an electrical signal through a metal tube creates an inductive effect which distorts the signal. Changing your metal plugs to plastic will minimise this effect. The downside of using plastic plugs would be that that leaves the joint exposed to rf ( now unshielded ).

Same principle with interconnect - if you use a symmetrical twisted pair with a shield, the shield creates an inductive element. If you take such a cable and physically strip the shield off, you will find in most instances improved speed and resolution. The downside again is that if you live in an rf heavy environment you may get added noise.

My system is optimised for speed and resolution, but when I had a top end audio shop I found that some folk prefer a slow and smooth sound, so as with many audio components listening preferences often trump science or truth.

With regard to Lewm's comment on the Xhadows I took it from his comments that they are based only on review, not experience.

Minimum metal will minimise skin effect and distortion resulting from the signal passing through a big lump of metal. The worst example I have had in 30 years was changing the phono sockets on my ET2 air bearing tonearm - I lost the bottom end completely and had to reinstall the cheap ( 25yr old teflon ) sockets, even though both RCA sockets had similar construction. Other examples are the original WBT's which had steel covers, later replaced with lightweight aluminium that reduced distortion, then ultimately they developed the Nextgen.

Chakster
I use either the Kleis or some proprietary MIT plugs produced in the 80's which were never available to the public. I was an MIT distributor along with Siltech, Kimber and a few others at the time.
As regards vintage cables they are hit or miss in my experience. I use only MIT ( mostly Oracle series ) in my system. The only exception is between MC transformers and preamp as the MIT is quite capacitive. I would also expect MIT cables not ideal for MM's as a phono cable due to its highish capacitance. I have some high end cables from the 80's that still beat most out there today, but they have not oxidised or deteriorated, and that may be indicative of their inherent quality.    

  

This discussion was most informative but for some reason died, I guess you all know what sounds best.

Well I read through it looking for the answers to chaksters original question.
I believe it was chakster that stated that he has never had issues with the internal wiring in a tonearm. Well I know from reading chaksters preference in buying vintage tonearms is that he likes to find NOS or as close as he can get to it. Even if a tonearm was mounted it has much less environmental degradation if it sits under a cover, that will also contribute to it still looking as new.
Cables on the other hand are not covered and if not in an environmentally controlled climate may indeed have issues with corrosion. Most of these nice tonearms come from Japan, an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It's easy to see that depending on where the cable was, it could very well be in either excellent shape or in terrible shape. A lot of time the damage is hidden under the plastic insulation.
When new, my guess is that the cables were of high quality, after all they were to be used with a very high quality tonearm.

BillWojo

It's easy to see that depending on where the cable was, it could very well be in either excellent shape or in terrible shape. A lot of time the damage is hidden under the plastic insulation. 

Yes - and if it avoided the tsunami, did it survive Fukuoka - has it been nuked.