CUTTING DOWN A TONEARM CABLE


Is there any reason why a tonearm cable cannot be cut down to a shorter length? - I have too much length on my tonearm cables

lohanimal

You could have made the issue clear from the beginning.

Is this correct?

1. this has nothing to do with a factory din or rca connector.

2. you need to desolder and resolder INSIDE a phono stage?

3. you will get someone competent to do the work

4. existing cable is ’inconveniently’ too long, While desoldering/soldering you want to shorten it to ___ (leave yourself enough slack)

question: any guidance on length?

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btw, title says cable (singular), in post you said too much on cables (plural). in that case, other cables: they do involve din or rca connections? 

are these expensive cables? 

 

I read/feared tales of ideal length for tonearm cables - something to do with capacitance

@lohanimal A good tonearm cable will be low capacitance. But I would not be concerned about shortening one, because when you reduce the capacitance (which will happen when the cable is shorter) you reduce the problem which the capacitance causes.

If you want to know more, in a nutshell the capacitance of the cable interacts with the inductance of the cartridge to cause a high frequency resonance. If you have a moving magnet high output cartridge, this resonance can be just inside the audio band (causing brightness) or just above it (causing phase shift, which the ear interprets as brightness, so essentially the same thing). By reducing the capacitance of the cable, that resonance is shifted to a higher frequency and so becomes less audible.

If the cartridge is a low output moving coil, then the resonance is so high as to be considered radio frequencies- and so shortening the cable will have no audible effect.

Either way you're better off, so if you can solder well, have at it!

Dear @lohanimal :  The reason or reasons is only common sense: in any audio system  cables should be as shorter as the system audio items permits.

 

Through a cm. or inch that the audio signal musts pass exist degradation of that audio signal as longer the cables as worst that degradation.

 

Capacitance?, who cares. What's important is that the audio signal " trip " to our ears been the shorter we can achieve.

 

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.