CUTTING DOWN A TONEARM CABLE

The shorter the cable the better. Do not reuse the RCAs. Canare makes the best RCAs. If the inner conductor will not solder it is litzed. The pros deal with this by holding the end of the wire in a solder bath which burns the laquer off and tins the wire. You can accomplish the same by carefully heating the end of the wire with a torch. Some people try to scrape the lacquer off. This never works well and frequently damages the wire. 

If you are using a MC cartridge capacitance is never an issue. Lower capacitance will make some MM cartridges brighter but it is really high capacitance that is the problem as it will roll the high end off.

Good for you! I always use the shortest connection possible. It makes for the cleanest installation and the best sound.

@lewm, Canare makes a wide variety of connectors all very heavy duty and beautifully finished. They even make 75 Ohm RCAs for wide bandwidth SPDIF cables although I prefer BNCs. Most of their connectors are crimp on and require special tools. I make all my cables to length. The only one I did not make is the tonearm cable and I see no reason to mess with Frank Schroders work. If I go to a balanced phono stage I will have no choice. 

If you have not checked out the Channel D Lino C recently you should give it another look. They have added a regular MC input and a MM input as an option. The price is also much higher.