Capacitance is really a concern only with MM cartridges. What cartridge are you using?
Phono cable (RCA-RCA) from TT to Phono Pre Question
Hi all,
Something that came up in a conversation with a friend was that the cables I am using for my TT to phono-pre might not be ideal at all. I'm currently using custom RCAs made with Canare Lv-77s (capacitance 67 pf/m; double-shielded) with a ground wire. What I was told was that it really needs to be a low capacitance wire to get the best results (sub 50 pf/m).
I admit, my technical knowledge when it comes to matching cables like this has a lot of gaps, so this may be a silly post, but I wanted to investigate further.
Anyway, when looking around at various options online, very few cable manufacturers list the capacitance ratings at all - like Cardas, Shunyata, and others I looked at quickly just going off the top of my head. I did find ratings for Mogami and other Canare cables, but didn't see anything that could really be categorized as 'low capacitance.' - though maybe I missed them.
I don't really want to spend a ton of money on one right now, and it's just RCA-RCA. I have separate ground wires so I can use them with RCAs when needed. So if this is an actual problem I should be concerned about then can anyone point me to some solid (affordable) low-capacitance options?
Actually, I suppose I should simplify this to try to make it as straight forward as possible, as these cable threads tend to get contentious:
1. Is there cause for concern with the capacitance of my current cables (67 pf/m) for TT -> Phono pre use? If so, what value should I be looking for, ideally?
2. If so, what are some sub-$500 (ideally cheaper for now) options that are suitable. Not looking for reference quality at the moment as it'd be a band-aid 'fix' if this is indeed a problem until I can do some demoing of better stuff later (though suggestions for demo later are fine too - but don't need to go into detail about their sound or anything since that is going to be totally dependent on how they end up fitting in my system).
Thanks for any guidance! Happy to look at any reference material anyone can send along on this topic as well. Always appreciative of learning opportunities.
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- 12 posts total
@mmcgill829 - rarther than simply replace the cables with another basic interconnect, I would take a look at Zavfino cables. They have a lot of experience with well designed phono cables. Cable science gets complicated and the capacitance of a cable is just one facet of good cable design. My own interconnects, that I have been told work very well as interconencts from TT to Phono stage, have metrics per meter of
Some might be of the opinion that the inductance number is on the high side, but it seems to make little to no difference to my ears Personally, I went with a one piece harness from the cartridge to the phono stage to eliminate as many juction points as possible. The results were very impressive Hope that helps - Steve |
@cleeds Ah, okay. Great! Good to know. I use a MC cartridge (Hana ML), so I suppose this isn't a concern for me then! @williewonka Thanks for the info. I don't see these metrics listed on their website for their offerings (do they have them listed elsewhere than the product pages?), and they only offer phono cables with DIN vs RCA-RCA. I'm not interested in rewiring my table, so I'm not sure these will work for me. |
@mmcgill829 - while zavfino does not post values, several reviews state that all their cables are described as low capacitance in several reviewse. I would think they would b lower than 38 pf per meter, probably closer to Nordost cables.
Hope that helps, Steve |
- 12 posts total