Advise on Long Phono Cable run

I do not know if I can rewire it from RCA to XLR plugs.

We've done it but its a real pain. You have to take the base of the arm apart; there's a tiny circuit board in its base where the wires from the cartridge are interfaced with the output connections. To make the conversion the balanced cable you use has to be very small diameter; we've had good luck with Mogami console cable, which is 1/8" diameter and low capacitance. This should all be performed by a qualified technician!

You probably know that very long microphone cables are common at performance venues.

@bommerbillone  The reason this works for microphones and not cartridges is pretty important! Microphones are typically driving an input transformer which is properly loaded on its secondary- eliminating any issues with electrical resonance. Microphones also have considerably more output. You might want to take a look at this article, which shows what the engineering issue is with electrical resonance:
http://www.hagtech.com/loading.html

The problem here isn't that the length, so much as it is capacitance! Even with a balanced connection, the physics are a bit different than it is with a microphone; the capacitance of the cable and the inductance of the cartridge make a tuned circuit with a resonance. Over 5(!)meters, the capacitance will be significant regardless of the cable, single-ended or balanced, such that the resonant frequency will be quite low. That will in turn make for problems with many phono sections if the resonance is even outside the audio band. With MM it will be **in** the audio band and make a mess of things.


If you can't find a compact phono section with a balanced output, I would get a single-ended phono section that can otherwise do the job and have it drive a line transformer which can convert from single-ended to balanced to drive the long run. Most high end audio phono sections that have a balanced output don't actually support the balanced standard, and as a result will be unable to drive a length like that.


But if you use a line transformer you can pull it off. This would be best driving a balanced input at the line stage; if that's not available you'll need another line transformer to convert back to single-ended.


If you do it this way the long interconnect will not have to be expensive yet will be sonically neutral.