Hovland Cable plugs


I'm thinking about improving, i.e. reterminating, the RCA plugs on my Hovland MusicGroove tonearm cable running into the preamp. Does anyone have thoughts on this.The plugs used by Hovland look junky.
thanks
gladstone
URGENT !!! H E L P !!
i'm in need of an adress ( contact ) with an
HOVLAND-Dealer !!!!!!
thanks a lot
regards
detlef
Bill Pilcher from Tom Evans Audio (makers of the amazing Groove phono stage) highly recommends their non-ferrous Bullet plugs. See their web site. Hi-Fi+ mag also reviewed them. But I would not recommend messing with the Hovland. They work great.
The XLR actually has less effective mass, as the contact points are just 2 pins, compare that with the big center pin of RCA.

It is true that I recommended using the cheapest, cheesy looking RadioShack Plastic RCA plugs on tone arm cables. One guy replaced the Cardas with the RS and found major improvement. "Music was dead and distant, now they are alive and vivid.".

The Eichmann's Bullet Plug takes this to the extreme by reducing the mass further even the outer RCA shell has been reduced to a pin.

The major benefit is that the inherant random noise in metal is proportional to the mass, the effect is defined as the Lentz law:

A current flowing through an inductor sets up a magnetic field so changes in the current result in changes in the magnetic field. Those in turn produce an induced voltage drop in the element, a voltage drop that opposes the change in the current. The magnitude of the induced voltage
is proportional to the time-rate-of-change of the current.

So basically, the ensuing mass of the cable following a weak signal such as the MC must be as light and approach 0 weight to be theoretically perfect. At 0.5mV, and to resolve a S/N of 60dB, which means we are looking at levels in the range of 0.005mV, or a noise in the nano-volt-sqr range.

Search the net for bio-medical research electrodes and the wires that use to probe bio-signal (very low level signal), the electrodes and wires are tiny!

Another part of this argument is that a balanced phono stage may not sound as good as single-ended because the noise and the doubling of circuit will quadrupled the noise.

The case of MC signal, preservation is the key, so I believe conventional wisdom of bigger is better must be put aside. The benefit of balanced is to cancel out common mode, but in MC, that's not the problem, rather it is the signal degradation.

www.extremephono.com

I share your preference for Fritz, Detlof. There's also Toscanini's/NBC 1940 recording and (dare I mention this) Karajan's/Berliner 1972 version.
All single-ended, ofcourse!

Gladstone, sorry for usurping yr thread! On topic, may I strongly suggest you LEAVE those plugs on, as per A-Odyssey above. Otherwise you MAY be in for an odyssean sonic misadventure! (pls excuse the pun)

Cheers!
For Verdi's mass, Greg, I still like Reiner best, and begosh,CFB, he was anything but balanced with the CSO, but rather heavily single ended in throwing his weight about!
Cornfed, I for one, beleive that Celibidache or Klemperer sound best of all -- on Mozart's mass!
Cheers!
* connectors typically sound better with less mass to them* hmmmm....... does this mean one should avoid mozart's requiem? especially with xlr's?

BTW, does anyone have an opinion as to whether balanced ic's sound better than single-ended? i mean on masses?
-cfb
Hovland chooses to use the plugs FOR SONIC REASONS! I wouldn't recommend reterminating them.

Connectors typically sound better with less mass to them. The fancy connectors with lots of fancy plating don't usually sound as good (but they do look nice).