The arrangement of my components is the consequence of my thinking in terms of the signal path and it’s inter-connect terminations.
I’m a firm believer in the notion of tonearms being wired in the single-shot fashion: single uninterrupted runs of wire from the cartridge clips to the RCA jacks that plug into the RIAA phono stage. The phono cartridge/pick-up (the British term for cartridges) output is of the lowest level in the entire hi-fi chain, low output cartridges producing only 0.2mV or less!. The last place you want avoidable breaks in the signal path is in that of a cartridge on it’s way to being amplified by the phono amp.
The most common way tonearms are designed and built is with their internal wires terminated on RCA jacks (NOT plugs), with a required interconnect plugged into those jacks, the other end into the phono amp. That’s great in terms of ergonomics, but less than optimal in terms of signal degradation.
However, not terminating the arm’s internal wiring into RCA jacks requires the arm’s external wires be long enough to reach the phono amp, yet also as short as possible. Designers who make their arms with single-shot wiring like to keep the external wiring to no longer than 1/2 meter, 1 meter tops. They often then add shielding to the wire, which is a whole ’nother discussion!
With an arm having a very short length of external wire, the phono amp must then be placed very close to the turntable. I actually place my phono amp directly behind my table, with that amp’s rear side facing the back side of the table (and therefore the listener). Not pretty, but which do you prioritize: Looks, or sound quality?
The output of the phono stage is much more robust, fully the equal of most other sources. How long can be the inter-connect between line stage and power amp(s) is a function of: 1- the output impedance of the line stage; 2- the input impedance of the power amp; 3-the electrical characteristics of the inter-connects; and 4- how much you want to spend. ;-)
I’m a firm believer in the notion of tonearms being wired in the single-shot fashion: single uninterrupted runs of wire from the cartridge clips to the RCA jacks that plug into the RIAA phono stage. The phono cartridge/pick-up (the British term for cartridges) output is of the lowest level in the entire hi-fi chain, low output cartridges producing only 0.2mV or less!. The last place you want avoidable breaks in the signal path is in that of a cartridge on it’s way to being amplified by the phono amp.
The most common way tonearms are designed and built is with their internal wires terminated on RCA jacks (NOT plugs), with a required interconnect plugged into those jacks, the other end into the phono amp. That’s great in terms of ergonomics, but less than optimal in terms of signal degradation.
However, not terminating the arm’s internal wiring into RCA jacks requires the arm’s external wires be long enough to reach the phono amp, yet also as short as possible. Designers who make their arms with single-shot wiring like to keep the external wiring to no longer than 1/2 meter, 1 meter tops. They often then add shielding to the wire, which is a whole ’nother discussion!
With an arm having a very short length of external wire, the phono amp must then be placed very close to the turntable. I actually place my phono amp directly behind my table, with that amp’s rear side facing the back side of the table (and therefore the listener). Not pretty, but which do you prioritize: Looks, or sound quality?
The output of the phono stage is much more robust, fully the equal of most other sources. How long can be the inter-connect between line stage and power amp(s) is a function of: 1- the output impedance of the line stage; 2- the input impedance of the power amp; 3-the electrical characteristics of the inter-connects; and 4- how much you want to spend. ;-)