Transparent Phono Cable

I think you should listen if you can. I've owned the Graham IC50, the Hovland, and now the Purist Venustas. (All sme din to XLR's) I also exclusively used all Transparent Ref w XL speaker and interconnect. That was until I tried the Purist Venestas tonearm cable.

Purist has now replaced every piece of Transparent. I love it in comparision.

Your results may vary...I'd highly highly suggest the Purist Venastas DIN to XLR for your setup.

I have not A/B'd the purist and transparent in my own system so I can't be as helpful as John. I own purist venutas speaker cables and I have heard transparent speaker, IC, and power cables often enough to say that both are very, very good. My bias is against any extra components in the signal path so I'm a little prejudiced away from Tranparent. Of course, the best thing would be to get both, plus the nordost and Graham cables and see which you like best in your system. I have not found that there is any advantage to staying with one brand or the other unless that is just what sounds the best.

As for the cartridges, if you can swing it get the Universe. The XV-1s is very good (I just bought one, but would have gone with the ZYX if I could have) but the Universe is a good step above it.

I second the Purist Venustas. If you really dig deep, you'll find a few people who've moved up to the Purist Dominus and say they can hear the difference; but I'm not rich enough to make that call. If you're considering cartridges in that (low-ish) output range, you will get stunning performance with the Ferox shielded Purist products.

I don't know if Transparent makes a special cable specifically for phono. If they do, great. I, however, once used a Transparent IC between my table and phono amp, and it hummed loudly. I replaced it with an Audioquest Jaguar, which didn't hum.

Cheers.