Transparent Phono Cable

Thanks so much,Ed!Not to worry.I'm quite pliable,and will be my oldself soon.You are a great guy,as are all of the fine folks responding(thanks Larry,Dan, Raul,Dgad etc)!
Larry,matbe I'll hear your Schroeder some day?

"I'll be back"!!

Hello again, guys.

Well, the cartridge issue is resolved for now. I got the XV1S. My SRA Craz racks and the Graham Phantom are due to arrive on Thursday. I have also replaced my Levinson 20.5s with Lamm M1.2 Reference hybrids which also are due to arrive on Thursday, which is shaping up to be a pretty big day.

I still don't have a phono cable yet, and need to order one this week. The shortlist of phono cables is:

TransparentReference Phono Interconnect
PAD Venusta
Silversmith

I would very much appreciate your thoughts on these phono cables. Also, should I get the phono cables with straight DIN or right angle DIN (TT is SME 20/2)?

Thanks,

Ed

I think your list is good (never heard of Silversmith) but with the (lo output) XV-1s cartridge, I think you owe it to yourself to audition the Silver Breeze www.silveraudio.com/

Max will terminate one just for you if you have any special requirements (like rt. angle DIN, XLR, etc.) and let you try it for a couple weeks. If you decide to keep it, it's only $700 or so. So I'd add that one to your list, along with the Hovland Music Groove 2, and of course the Siltech, which has them in the same price ranges as the Venustas and Dominus.

The ones I consider the best value-for-dollar, in ascending price are:

Hovland MG-2 (runs circles around Cardas, XLO, Kimber)
Transparent (runs circles around Hovland MG-2)
Silver Breeze (runs circles around Hoveland, Nordost)
Purist Venustas (runs circles around everything but Purist Dominus and Siltech)
Siltech (runs circles around everything!

(No fights please; just my opinion, of course!!)
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If I was getting the Phantom,I would surely get the cable manufactured by Graham.The IC-70 is a superb design,and mates very well with the arm.I own it,along with the Graham 2.2.
I don't know what it "runs circles around",but I have compared it to other cables.Some mentioned.BTW,I too have my pre/phono hook-up to amp with Transparent Ref.No complaints,here.
Best!

By all means try the IC-70, it comes with the arm anyway doesn't it? If it doesn't, then throw one into the mix if you like, but don't buy one until you've done your due diligence and made some comparisons.

I thought the van den Hul Silver Hybrid cable supplied w/ my SME V tonearm must be "The Best" for two very good reasons:

1.) van den Hul, and
2.) SME

and for years accepted that I had "The Best". How could I be so stupid not to at least try some others? And it never occured to me to try any others until the tonearm guy at Sumiko mentioned he preferred the Cardas Golden Reference to the vdH supplied with the arm.

Well, I never had a chance to actually try the Cardas GR, or audition the Silver Breeze which I had ordered from Max, because I fell into a Venustas at CES. My first response upon installing the Venustas was freak-out joy! followed immediately by fury at SME for including such a piece of muddy-sounding crap with a $4000 tonearm!

You're going to make a serious investment in a cartridge and electronics along with everything else. Don't make the mistake of running with the the stock cable due to associative attribution, ESPECIALLY if it's not included with the arm! With all due respect, I think Speedy's statement represents poor reasoning:

"If I was getting the Phantom,I would surely get the cable manufactured by Graham. The IC-70 is a superb design,and mates very well with the arm."

"Mates very well with the arm"? -- means it plugs in easily? What are we talking about here? If a tonearm cable needs to "mate very well" with anything, that would be the cartridge and the phono preamp. Do not assume. Do your homework.
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