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..
