Is there a maximum length for tonearm wiring?

No, you won't lose part of the signal, because the cable impedance (at audio frequencies) will still be negligible compared to the load impedance (the input impedance of the preamp). But you do have to be careful about a couple of things.

If you have a moving magnet cartridge, you have to make sure that the total cable capacitance, plus the input capacitance of the preamp, are within the manufacturer's recommended range of capacitance for the cartridge. Otherwise you will lose frequency response flatness in the treble.

That is not a concern if you have a moving coil cartridge. But in both cases you should be sure to use a quality cable, which presumably would provide good shielding to minimize noise pickup.

Regards,
-- Al

Thanks Al. That's exactly what I wanted to know. George.

Dear George: +++++ " Would I lose part of the signal by increasing the wire length? " +++++

in the same moment that the cartridge signal goes through a cable you start to lose/changing the original signal: adding and loosing information.

If you don't have a better choice to reduce the distance between the TT and phono stage then you have no alternative and the best you can do is try to use a cable that can do a better/neutral job that only conduct the signal and if it is in balance fashion the better.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Raul- The problem is that the rack I currently use is only 22" by 18" deep and I don't think that is big enough for most high end TT's like Galibier or Verdier. Maybe a Raven One would fit but I'm not sure so I'm thinking of putting the TT on an adjacent wooden cabinet but this would involve increasing the length of the interconnect to about 2 meters. Currently I use a Nottingham Spacedeck and it fits perfectly since it is very compact. I was just curious if increasing the interconnect to two meters would have any negative audible consequences. What is your opinion? George.

Dear George: There are negative consequences as we increment the distance, if we can or can't hear it is always person/system dependent specially on the tonearm to preamp quality of the cable.

Now you always can think to other TT like the top of the Nottingham line, SME, Monaco and the like that can fit on that shelf.

I'm sorry not be more specific on the subject.

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

Thanks Raul.

Kimber, AudioQuest, and Harmonic Technology all offer tonearm cables in 2M lengths, indicating that the capacitance is low enough to work over a 2M length. Kimber publishes its specs, and most of its interconnects are only about 50 pF for a meter pair, so 2M would still be in the ideal range for MM carts that want to see about 100-200 pF.

Johnnyb53- What about MC cartridges which is what I use? George.

What about MC cartridges which is what I use?

As I indicated above, load capacitance is normally insignicant for moving coil cartridges:

http://www.hagtech.com/loading.html

Regards,
-- Al

Oops. Make that "insignificant," of course, not "insignicant."

-- Al

1MTR is good as this is a very low level signal even shorter is good as well!!