How much does tonearm cable affect cart loading?

Vinyl engine is the best source for questions like this, they have threads on almost every conceivable aspect of tonearms and turntables.

Moving magnet cartridges are sensitive to load capacitance, and the capacitance of the cable should be summed with the input capacitance of the phono stage or preamp to determine if the total load capacitance is within the range recommended by the cartridge manufacturer.

The resistance of the cables, connectors, etc., will be utterly insignificant compared to the 47,000 ohm input impedance that is normally presented at the input of a moving magnet phono stage or preamp.

Moving coil cartridges are essentially insensitive to capacitance, but are sensitive to load resistance, which for most moving coil cartridges should be tens or hundreds of ohms. However, the resistance of the cabling, connectors, etc. is still likely to be insignificant compared to that resistance, as presented to the cartridge by the phono stage, or preamp, or step-up transformer, and/or added resistors.

Shield quality is of course important for such low level signals, and obviously it is important that connections be clean and tight.

Beyond that we enter the realm of metaphysics (some would say the twilight zone :)), and factors beyond the ones I listed above enter into the realm of unexplainable and debatable cable and connector effects, about which experiences, opinions, and ideological beliefs will differ.

Regards,
-- Al