Phono cable, are they really different?

The Discovery Essence is a good reco, I used it happily for a couple of years. It was a huge step up from the Transparent Reference MC phono cable I had been using. VPI does use Discovery cable inside their arms.

Currently I'm using a pair of Nordost Valhalla, mainly because I was very impressed with a Valhalla power cord, and saw a pair of Valhalla interconnects for sale with RCA>XLR connectors, which fit my VPI arm to BAT phono stage. I'd heard that it's best to use the balanced inputs on the BAT phono stage. Is the sound better than the Discovery? Different, not really better. It's faster and more transparent, but has lost a little musical weight.

Cheers,
John

With my Aries 2 equipped with Koetsu Urushi I use Harmonic Technology Crystal Silver Phono Cable.

Excellent extension and natural detail.

http://www.harmonictech.com/product_detail_interconnects.asp?keyword=16

My experience has been that the signal from your cartridge is especially susceptible to EMI. I had a phono cable from a very well known company and everytime I tried to use my TT there was background noise from a radio station. I switched to another cable and the problem went away.
So, I would say that there are two things that make a phono cable different from a regular IC. It needs better sheilding and many arms require a din plug. Other than that I would say that the differences in the different brands are the same as the differences in any IC. Which means some people will claim that changing from one to another is as significant as buying another pair of speakers and some will say that it will have about the same effect on your audio system as painting your walls a different color.

I think the Audioquest DBS cables a winner especially when conducting a weak phono signal. The DBS minimizes the great affect the insulation has on a weak phono signal. You get an open , coherent but detailed sound with a great sense of space.

VPI email me today and state that they do not use Discovery cable in their arm nor their phono cable. This is contrary to what I have read on discussion forum, but maybe VPI switched vendor recently. Or maybe VPI just doesn't want people to buy straight from the vendor.

I am aware of EMI/RFI issue that weak phono signal has to battle and phono cable should provide better shielding than vanilla RCA cables. But what about impedance or capacitance? What's the typical cartridge output impedance/capacitance and is there a need to match up phono cable to your cartridge to minimize top end loss for example?

Wondering if any cable manufactures have a white paper on this topic.