@mulveling , The advantage of making your own cables is being able to keep them as short as possible. If you use a high bandwidth balanced cable like Canare Da206, use the two inner connectors for signal wires and connect the shield only at one end ( I usually use the load end), you will have a better cable than you can possibly purchase. You will also save a pile of money which you can spend on music.
SUT Interconnects
What cables have you tried between an MC SUT box and 47K MM phono stage? What was your favorite?
I’ve tried the AudioQuest upper-line "normal" ineterconnect cables (Sky, Fire) - great cables in other slots - but very colored coming out of a SUT. Not great performance. I assume that at 1.0m+ lengths, their capactitance is far too high for this application. I’ve tried 0.5m runs of Wind & Niagara (a bit lower in their "normal" IC line, slightly smaller guage wire and less shielding to boot) and got better results. However, my best results by far are with a 0.5m AQ WEL Signature LP phono cable (optimized for low capacitance phono applications). I’ve also tried the Bob’s Devices custom cables, 0.7m, both copper and solid silver versions - these have good performance (particularly the silver), but are more on the level of the 0.5m Niagara, still short of the WEL LP.
The problem I have is that the WEL LP is quite spendy, and I want a 2nd good SUT cable for a 2nd arm & SUT setup. Looking for more reasonably priced options. I’ve had excellent results with a Synergistic Research Foundation phono cable on a tonearm (DIN plug), and wonder how a short all-RCA run of it might do off a SUT (also interested in the Atmosphere X series). Any experience with SR or other cables off a SUT would be appreciated!
- ...
- 22 posts total
DNM Reson for unique coherency and overall sound and cost effectiveness but these are not shielded. Shielded ICs are safer in general between SUT and phone. I added custom mu metal foil shielding to my SUT section to facilitate using unshielded ICs with the SUT. See my system pics. I use DNM Reson ICs whenever possible. Cheers! |
@mulveling Its critical to keep the capacitance down on either side of the transformer. Ultimately you'll want to load the transformer correctly for the cartridge you have and the input impedance of the phono section (typically 47KOhms). Some SUTs are designed for a specific cartridge and assume a 47KOhm load so these are less worries. Something like a Jensen which is designed to work with a wide variety of cartridges will need very specific loading to work right. The interconnects are part of that loading and very simply have to be low capacitance. |
I would have assumed you want low capacitance all the way from the cartridge to the phono inputs. Now you’ve got me thinking. audioguy85, can you say more about your 1:10 SUT that results in the cartridge seeing 100 ohms? Insofar as transformers have no intrinsic impedance (ideally) you would have to place a 10K resistance across the secondaries of a 1:10 SUT to achieve a 100 ohm load. Maybe that’s what you do. Just curious. |
- 22 posts total