Best Phono Cable for SME Series V

Purist Proteus Provectus using this on my Graham Phantom2 wonderful great staging quiet great bass etc.

Hi Nsgarch: my SME V is from 2008. Regarding the headshell leads Ikeda silver wire was highly recommended to me by a dealer. I have talked to Chris from Stereolab - they do not officially build tonearm cables.

Given the excellent reputation of the PAD cables I will give them a trie. Has anybody ever experienced the bigger Nordost, Siltech or Stealth phono cables ?

Hi Frank: I'm pretty sure your arm has the latest internal wiring. The Ikeda silver sounds lik a good wire -- but basically, all silver litz wire is the same. The important difference between various ones will be in the quality of the clips, and the strength of the solder connections; and in that regard, I think Cardas is probably the best.

Stereolab? StereoVOX does make TA cables, but I think production is down while they reorganize the company. You can't go wrong with Purist, that's for sure. I've never had a second thought about buying them, and would probably stay with PAD if I could afford to upgrade.

On the other hand, if you can't find some used Purist, or if money is tight for you right now, you should call Max at Silver Audio and see if he'll lend you some Silver Breeze to try. They seem to have developed a cult following, and what have you got to lose? I never drank the Nordost Kool-Aid, and haven't heard Stealth or Siltech.

Neil

Neil,

I am wondering if you had a chance to compare the Silver Breeze with tonearm cable with the Purist Audio directly? I have two SME V's and I am thinking about swapping out phono cables as well. I am leaning towards the Silver Breeze as it seems to be pretty consistent in regards to performance in comparisons to other top league cables.

These two cables use different metals, the Silver Breeze silver the Purist's use copper, hence my question. Thanks in advance.

Ciao,
Audioquest4life

I am wondering if you had a chance to compare the Silver Breeze tonearm cable with the Purist Audio directly?

No I haven't. My purchase of the Silver Breeze -- which was all but a done deal -- was inadvertantly sabotaged by Jim Aud (owner of PAD) offering me a Venustas phono cable at CES for the same price!! Until then, I'd not even heard of PAD, and figured I could easily sell the Venustas if I didn't like them ;--) BTW, the Venustas line uses copper/silver/gold alloy conductors.

So I'm hoping someone like yourself will take Max up on his trial offer and let the rest of us know what you think. I am having Max build a special mono Silver Breeze phono cable for a friend, but it hasn't been made yet.