How long can one go with interconnects to a cart.?


Curious about how far can you get away with in using a quality cable for distance from the phono amp? I have a .45mc Cart. and It might need to be mounted to wall down the way from the system in the near future, Right now its running on a 2.5 foot cable, which is obviously extremely short, and then has probably 12 to 14" of tonearm cable after that feeding the cartridge..

In this config I have ZERO loss or issues, powerful output and rock bottom bass, perfectly vast soundstaging etc... However how far can I go without lossing any power output or details with putting in a much longer interconnect to satisfy the new location distance? I might need something as long as 13 to 20 feet at a point depending how neatly I can tie up stuff running up and down walls.

Before I get all the questions of Why do this? Why not do that? Understand I know every option of placement in the world, thats not the point here, No I don't want to run my amps with 20 ft speaker cables, or 20 ft interconnects, and move the preamps etc.. with the turntable if possible.

Thanks for your experience and suggestions in this matter.
undertow
About one meter is about as far as you can go without significant loss. If you put the phono stage close to the TT you can run longer cables from it.
I admit I haven't tried it, but it seems to me that a long interconnect (say 15-20 ft) might be OK. The current from the cartridge is tiny, so resistance is not an issue. Capacitance might be, depending on what the cartridge wants, and hum might occur if you can't physically isolate the wire. Try some inexpensive very low capacitance coax, and see what you get. I doubt that many audiophiles have actually used such a long interconnect because it is generally convenient to have the preamp close at hand when playing LPs.
Most cable manufacturers will tell you that 1.2M is the maximum length for tonearm cables when using a moving coil cartridge. Two of the folks I work with suggest 0.5M or less as ideal and both are big time vinylphiles with multiple analog front ends.

Moving magnet cartridges permit cables a bit longer due to the higher impedance but lengths of 10'or 20' as suggested can cause severe degradation of the signal.

Yes, in some cases shorter is better.

Disclaimer: cable retailer