Is a captured good tonearm cable better than a high quality one DIN connection?

you know the answer

NO ONE can tell you... you can only find out by yourself

What exactly have you purchased, and what exactly do you propose to do? it sounds like you have purchased a triplanar with a continuous cable from the cartridge pins all the way to the inputs of a phono stage. If that is the case, then no it would not make any sense to attach that cable to a box so you could then use your expensive interconnects into the phono stage. Anyway, so far as I know, the tri-planer is offered either with a continuous single cable such as I just described or a short external cable that terminates in a box with female RCA connectors on the other side. It is not conventionally offered with a DIN interface. But I suppose you can get it any way you want it.

Use the continuous.  Sell the $4k cable or use it for your second arm. You do have a second arm..?

A $4,000 tonearm cable? Damn, how much was the arm it was used with?!

I am certainly with lewm on this. On an arm like the Triplanar you do not mess with the cable. Direct is always the best and the only way I would ever order an arm. Some makers like Schroder will give you a choice of cables usually offering different metals, copper vs silver. They will usually now give you a choice of terminations as many of the best phono amps now use balanced connections. But, the cable is always a direct run to the cartridge clips. 

If all things were or are equal, which they rarely are, a single run of cable from the cartridge body to the RCA jacks on the phono preamp --- is best.

the hardcore used to run van den hul mono-crystal wire from the cartridge clips back to the RCA’s on the phono input.

the most far gone among us (I’ve done this myself) would hardwire the mono crystal wire to the board of the phono preamp, via removing and eliminating the phono preamp chassis mounted input RCA’s. Where one has to take the phono preamp apart and de solder from the board, in order to decouple the tonearm from the system.

"Worth it", as Deadpool would say.... 

Thus, only two solder joins in total, one single wire. Cartridge clips and board soldering and the set of clops and their friction fit on the pins.

Some go one step further and solder the wire right to the cartridge pins... 33% mo-better (from three to two points)...

It is exceedingly doubtful that any captured phono cable is actually the same wire from the cartridge pins to the outer male RCA jacks, on the output end of the cable. There will invariably be two types of wire involved, with a set of solder joins in the middle, right where they join..

I watched Herb Papier install the wire in myTriplanar. It’s a continuous run from cartridge to plugs.

That sort of thing makes a difference, as this signal is small. 

Very small, so interference is an issue and at that level all materials know to humanity make a noticeable difference.

Thus, educated and applied fanaticism is the byword of the day.

The problem with captured cables, they seldom do well in captivity.

In my younger more fanatical days, when I was borderline addicted to the odor of burning solder flux 😜, I did all that teo_audio described.....three different times with three different tone arm wires. Totally worth it! However, a PITA. In fairness, not nearly as difficult to do with an ET2 than with pivoting arms. I know audiophiles are often accused of using hyperbole, but the sonic improvements gained by the elimination of multiple solder joints, plugs and dissimilar cables in the signal path were not only very significant, but also different in nature compared to improvements gained by actual upgrades of gear. The purity of sound one gains by smoothing out the “bumps is the road” caused by cabling (not just in tone arms) is wonderful. At one point I had my system ENTIRELY hard wired with not a single plug or jack in sight except at the ends of power cables. I ruined a phono cartridge doing this and will never do THAT again; those days are over.

Good thing Frogman your gonna burn yourself. 

I once gutted a perfectly good Conrad Johnson preamp. Mounted the main board in a new chassis, the power supply in another chassis, eliminated all the switches except the selector switch and volume control,
and wired the whole thing with silver wire I got from Mark Levinson using the best switch, pot and RCA jacks I could find at the time. I was using Acoustats that had their own high voltage power amps. I suppose it sounded better for a while. But, is was not long before it was bested by a Threshold preamp. Then, the speakers were bested by a new model but the bass still sucked so I started up with sub woofers and on and on and on.  

It all boils down to my motto: the best connector is no connector. No matter how expensive a connector might be, no matter how elegant it may appear, and no matter what precious metal it is made of, you are better off getting rid of it.

@millercarbon,

I like cables that weren’t captured. 

Very little difference....captured wins and if you don't need to unplug it, then choose captured.   I doubt you could hear a difference.

Good tonearm for me is only with removable headshell.
The same with  removable cable - you can change length, capacitance etc.
Freedom.

Some go one step further and solder the wire right to the cartridge pins... 33% mo-better (from three to two points)...

Maybe 25% mo-better ; )
Don't forget the solder join inside the cartridge.

https://www.musicdirect.com/Portals/0/Hotcakes/Data/products/000122d8-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/me...

Lewm- I have a Triplaner w silver wire ( from factory- when Herb was doing surgery, I hope you had a nice nip of Rye.

seriously tho did you eliminate connections by soldering cart in and 2 phono pre ?

jim

Tomic, that is exactly what I would do; right to the circuit board at the four points where the wires that were soldered to the backs of the RCA phono input jacks were soldered to the circuit board.

Think about it, a .2 mv signal would then not have to go through: solder joint connecting tonearm wire to male RCA plug, RCA plug, female RCA phono input jack on preamp, solder joint connecting input jack to preamp internal wire and finally, internal wire to circuit board. How could doing this NOT make a positive difference. It does.

Obviously, I am not recommending this; but it is possible to do to good effect. Boy, those were the days! I think.

Tonic, no. Sometimes fanaticism yields to convenience. However, if I ever owned a SUT, I would be sure it utilized flying leads between SUT and phono stage.

Tomic not tonic.

Ahh @millercarbon is at his funniest ever!