tonearm cable, do you need one?


I recently got a VPI classic 3.  It has regular RCA outputs.  All the arms I've used have always had built in wire with a ground on the end that hooks to the ground on the phono preamp.  The VPI has a ground lug and I see RCA tonearm cables have grounds on both ends.  How important is this?  Do I need a tonearm specific cable?  
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Zu Audio Phono cables with ground wire are excellent!
You need shielded phono cable.
Read more here.

And on ebay you can find their auctions for Mission Phono RCA cables with starting price at $1, normally goes for $80-100 on those auctions. They are great for the money! 

If your phono cable does not have this third ground wire then you can still try it, and if you hear some hum then you can’t use it without separate ground wire, just try it.




You do need a cable that is specific.

The reason is capacitance, something that occurs with any interconnect cable. With a phono cartridge, which has inductance, the capacitance will form an electrical resonance. If its a high output cartridge this might be at or just above the audio passband.

If you don't have a low capacitance cable, the resonance will be in the audio band with that high output cartridge. It will sound peaky and bright. So you need a low capacitance cable, nor more than about 20picofarads per foot. The ground wire is there to prevent buzz from being audible. It is connected to the ground of the arm itself and the chassis of the phono preamp.
+1 what @chakster  said.

Also you have shielded IC's you can run a  separate ground wire using an inexpensive 16-18ga wire
Easy peasy ADD a ground wire. From the source to the phono stage and the phono stage to the preamp... No phono stage! Go from the source to the preamp.. I use good copper... 1.00 usd.. for the GREAT stuff...

NOISE... connect it..

Regards


Thanks Ralph @atmasphere . I think I may have known that but its been a long time since I had an arm without the captive cable. Its good to be reminded of error. But don’t tell my wife I said that. (-: