What are some good phono cable options for around $150ish and under? So far I’m looking at BJ LC-1 and Zu Audio Mission cables. This would be for between my Pro-Ject Debut Carbon DC Esprit and most likely (still looking) a MoFi StudioPhono preamp. I have an extra pair of Kimber Silver Streak cables but they don’t look insulated well enough. I’ll be running DH Labs Air Matrix from my preamp to KEF LS50 Wireless speakers. I’d like something I can grow out a little with as I incrementally upgrade things. Stylus (Blue 2M?) is probably next.
Found this thread as I am looking for some phono interconnects, need quite a few. This comment from @lewm as always IMO summarizes it well.
I think Atmasphere would agree that in certain environments, like in the
middle of any big city, near power lines or large electric devices, it
would make sense to use shielded phono cables. Also, if you don't or
can't carefully route your phono cables so as to avoid RF and EMI
radiating from your own equipment (or your own refrigerator, for
example), it would make sense to have shielding. But, like certain
calculations in higher mathematics, once you know the rules, it's OK to
break them. I make my own cables. I usually twist the strands of wire
(hot with ground or the + and - phases of a balanced signal) to cancel
noise, rather than to add a discrete shield. (Twisting also adds
capacitance; there's no free lunch.) I've never felt the need for a
circumferential shield on such a cable. On the other hand, I would agree
that most commercial phono cables have an integral shield; you're stuck
with it. (I live in a suburb of Washington, DC, where there is not much
industry and no power lines nearby, etc.)
I have the Atmasphere's MP-1 and MA-1 (phono, pre, amp) and with a Technics TT I get a radio station with my current interconnects made with shielded Mogami when using an Ortofon MM cart, using a Pickering MM cart I don't get the radio station, neither using a Denon MC cart, just switching carts the radio station is gone. So yes "there is no free lunch" in metro areas RFI is an issue that even with shielded cables you might have. I have done RFI experiments with my spectrum analyzer on a different application and shielding unless the shield is thick enough provides "some minimal blocking" but most of the time is negligible. Capacitance (as Atmasphere pointed out) is a big problem with phono cables which is minimized with true balanced connections vs single ended but still present and noticeable. Personally I'm planning on getting my interconnects with no shield if possible or shielded if I have no other choice. Anyone has experience with these? https://www.ebay.com/itm/372605700088?hash=item56c107c7f8:g:6zUAAOSwMVhgabYx and this https://www.shop.back-promo.co.uk/RCA-XLR_Phono_cables/cat4417239_3843420.aspx
A big shout-out to lewm for recommending the Anti-cables. I went with the top of the line and had them burned in for 150 hours for an extra twenty bucks. I got them yesterday and am truly astonished by how they have transformed my vinyl playback. Wow! I wouldn't have believed phono cables could make such a difference if I hadn't experienced with my own ears. Thanks!
I have tried many but needed a longer run and made one myself. I used 2 Audioquest Digital coaxial cables and a ground. Wrapped it in McIntosh Green Techflex! Best I ever heard!
TyRay.......be happy with ClearDay double shotgun. I compared them to the very top of Wireworld, Kimber, and Audioquest, which were a multi-thousand dollar expense. I actually preferred ClearDay double shotgun.
Invictus.... wrong.....Anti’s can make shielded or unshielded cables...I had one of each to compare. In MY system shielded sounded a little closed in compared to the unshielded. Actually, Anti’s give better sound than their price reflects. They are both dead silent....no hum even with my ear against the speaker.
Yeah, the Lounge Audio LCR MK(???) was my first choice and I think that is where I first read the term ’giant killer’ for phono preamps. It is an outstanding preamp for the money and class A too. And as I did more research and found out about the Budgie, I bought one.
I later ’rolled’ in 2 matched NOS Telefunken E88CC/6922’s vacuum tubes and was amazed at the transparency, depth, wide soundstage and dynamic range with an added 3 Dimensional sound quality I had never heard before from my receiver’s phono jacks.
I took a chance and bought a used Shure V15VxMR MM cartridge for $150 bucks as they normally go for $500 and installed a JICO SAS VN5xMR stylus and have been using this set up for awhile now.
Just over a month ago I bought 2 pair of 8' Clear Day Cable double shotgun speaker wire for $300 and the sound improvement was immediate.
I guess my choices makes me a ’budget audiophile’ too! ☺
@tyray thanks I was looking at the Puffin and tried to locate a Budgie too. I ended up with a Lounge Audio LCR MKIII w/silver upgrade for a great deal. Picked up a minty used Orofon Bronze too for a steal. I’m still keeping my eyes open for deals on other used stuff to satisfy my wannabe audiophile upgradeitis...lol.
To suggest that small signal cables need no shield is an insult to
electrical engineering and all of the hard work that goes into proper
design and not just in cables but in any electrical components.
Especially in today’s polluted world.
I ran Kimber cables for some years and never had a hum problem of any sort. I stopped when I got the Triplanar, as it has its own cable integrated with the arm. In either case, I ran balanced.
With the Kimber, I could easily handle the phono cable and not induce any hum, despite its ground connection being a wire instead of a proper shield.
However I would not expect this to work in all environments as Lewm points out above. Just like sex, drugs and rock and roll, it worked for me but I don't recommend it for everyone :) If you are running single ended, an unshielded cable will be more susceptible to environmentally induced noise, but common sense applies to this one- cable manufacturers couldn't get away with selling this sort of stuff if it didn't work. If the cartridge is low impedance, its going to be a lot harder for induced noise to get going. Further, if the input to the preamp is a low resistance, the same will be true. The problem areas will be if a power transformer, AC cord is nearby, or if a radio station is close enough to cause problems. In those cases, a shielded cable of low capacitance would be a good idea.
@asahitoro, and you other good folk here, I ended up buying 2 pair of Amadi Maddi Signature .75 meter interconnects made by Philip Amadi with KLE Innovations Copper Harmony RCA plugs.
And they sound amazing right out of the box even without full burn in. It will take me about 2 months to burn them in as I don’t have a cable burner and I will write a separate review then.
@asahitoro, if I’d have known you were looking for a ’giant killer’ phono preamp I would’ve recommended a Parks Audio Puffin at $399 from Shannon Parks. Thanks guys for all your suggestions.
best-groove, Please compare my comment that you quoted to your comment. I hope you'll see we are in complete agreement with respect to the desired endpoint, which is to know approximately how much capacitance your phono cable adds. Without knowing that, you cannot dial in the remainder of the recommended total, using your phono stage(s). Going crazy is not necessary, I agree.
By knowing the capacitance per foot, you can incorporate the total number of pF’s into your calculation of the capacitance load on the cartridge.
I do not have to go crazy to do any calculation; I always just search the phono cable with the lowest capacity per meter; to all this we think the Xono and Pioneer C21 to offer me the necessary settings available to compensate for the lack of pF.
GroverHuffman.com made silver very low capacitance phono cables 20 years ago for $75. Mr Record, Robert Pincus (IMPEX, swears by them). No, they are not the end all SOTA cables but they have a mid-range sound that is excellent, good bass and treble extension, open and detail sounding. Contact him for a pair under $150 (although he would try to persuade someone to purchase this superior phono-cables). I bought his cables 20 years ago and was satisfied with them then and consider them a bargain for how good they sound today (I've got the Pharoahs now at $750-see his site for the Empress description at half that price).
Just picked up a Lounge Audio LCR MKIII w/silver upgrade. I’m looking forward to trying the cables. I already have the burned in AS Impact SE and the DH Labs. Just waiting on the Jelco and Zu Audio Mission V1.
Thanks again to all for the great advice on some options to try.
Another plug for the audio sensibility impact se. Just added one to my vpi scout/dl110 combination and the increase in detail and smoothness is stunning. That said, I was using a wireworld Luna 7 which is not really intended as a phono cable, so would expect a big improvement. Though the wireworld Luna is one heck of a cable for the price.
I’m going to send my other Audience interconnects in too for the uprade. It’s cheap. $300 and you get a completely new cable. Upgrades are great when reasonably priced!
I think Atmasphere would agree that in certain environments, like in the middle of any big city, near power lines or large electric devices, it would make sense to use shielded phono cables. Also, if you don't or can't carefully route your phono cables so as to avoid RF and EMI radiating from your own equipment (or your own refrigerator, for example), it would make sense to have shielding. But, like certain calculations in higher mathematics, once you know the rules, it's OK to break them. I make my own cables. I usually twist the strands of wire (hot with ground or the + and - phases of a balanced signal) to cancel noise, rather than to add a discrete shield. (Twisting also adds capacitance; there's no free lunch.) I've never felt the need for a circumferential shield on such a cable. On the other hand, I would agree that most commercial phono cables have an integral shield; you're stuck with it. (I live in a suburb of Washington, DC, where there is not much industry and no power lines nearby, etc.)
best-groove, IMO, it's more important to be aware of the capacitance of your particular phono cable, rather than to take such pains to minimize capacitance that you compromise other aspects. By knowing the capacitance per foot, you can incorporate the total number of pF's into your calculation of the capacitance load on the cartridge. This is most important for MM types. Any decent phono cable should not add much more than about 150 pF to the load, usually less, sometimes much less. Some MMs require much more than 150 pF for optimal loading, the rest are OK with up to 100 pF. So, for many MMs you end up adding C on top of the inherent cable capacitance, rather than subtracting it. Capacitance is much less important for MC types.
I strongly second Dave Pogue's recommendation regarding a "cable cooker". Anti-cables told me that my new phono cable would require 500 hours of burn-in, assuming only normal use carrying the signal from a cartridge. I put it on my cooker for 5 full days, and yowzer!
Just got my amp back today, left channel went out. Found out a faulty cable was the culprit for the damage to the amp. Just ordered Zu Audio Mission with the WBT nextgen connectors. Au24's are going back to Audience for free lifetime repair and an upgrade. One can never have too many cables.
Side note: Listening to the only rca's avail, those being my Wireworlds which are satisfactory for my dig end, but aren't even close to the Audience. I never expected them to be. It's better than nothing!
Hi, for me the phono cable must have the lowest capacity (pf) possible; many manufacturers of phono cables, this important parameter almost never indicate it.
After having tried different cables in the past lately I find myself very well using the Van Den Hul D102 Mk3, very low capacity with pin rca input and pin rca output; excellent ratio q/p
Good luck! As a geezer, I am totally confused by the wireless thing but have fun and report back after you're done so you can rile up the masses here a bit more haha!
For the record I have or will have to try the: -AS Impact SE (burned in version) -Jelco RCA/RCA -Zu Audio Mission (V1) -DH Labs Silver Sonic Air Matrix
Whether I can tell a noticeable difference on my modest setup remains to be heard but I’ll try to post an update when I can. @chakster yes, the LS50 Wireless speakers have wireless capability but as I’ve stated earlier all my sources will be hard wired as well as the speakers have a wired connection to each other. I have a Node 2 connected via Lifatec optical and my turntable will be connected to the phono pre by one of the above cables. The phono pre will then be connected to the KEFs via another pair of DH Labs Silver Sonic Air Matrix.
It’s coming down to a MoFi StudioPhono or Lounge Audio LCR MKIII w/silver upgrade for my phono pre.
These are not blanket statements. This is the LAW. To suggest that small signal cables need no shield is an insult to electrical engineering and all of the hard work that goes into proper design and not just in cables but in any electrical components. Especially in today’s polluted world.
A further advantage is that unshielded cables have lower capacitance per foot, which is really helpful when dealing with the resonance that develops due to the cartridge inductance and the cable capacitance.
So, the disadvantage would be the converse of what he says. Potentially higher capacitance, for example.
However, you miss my point. My point was that you and Invictus are making these blanket statements as if they are facts, and absolutes. Nobody is "unintelligent" for using something that works. There are NO absolutes in this hobby. You are misdirecting the OP by providing your opinion as if it is fact. It may be fact in SOME situations... but not in others.
And, the fact that it works for me isn't any kind of miracle. As stated by Atmasphere and others in this thread, there are some situations where a shielded phono cable is not as good as an unshielded one.
In my case, I would need a tuner to hear the radio... my cables don’t receive FM broadcasts, as you so arrogantly insist they do. Several people here, including industry experts are saying phono cables don’t need to be shielded in most (not all) cases.
Ok, forget about radio, but for the rest of the statement, especially using ART-9, it’s nothing but a miracle. Alleluia!
But i don’t believe in miracles, the majority of the cables for a phono application are in fact shielded. There is a difference between interconnects and phono cables, no doubt. Swaping phono and interconnect (even from the same manufacturer) between tonearm and phonostage is not in favor of unshielded cables. This is my experience, but you may like unshielded for whatever reason. So your cable is just what we call "interconnect" ? I can reverse a question and ask you what is a disadvantages of the shielded phono cable in your opinion ?
Firstly, Dopogue is absolutely right about cable burn in, especially on phono cable which is subjected to such a small signal under normal circumstances that it may never fully break in. Which is why I strongly recommended anyone purchasing the Audio Sensibility cable earlier in the thread pay the extra few bucks for the optional burn in.
For the past 10-15 years every piece of cabling in my system has been cyrogenically treated and then burned in either on the Nordost cooker or the Audiodharma including all 4 phono cables that I’ve used over the years. Both Steve at Audio Sensibility and Gene at Takefiveaudio (who built a custom phono cable for me years ago with Cardas wire) use the Audiodharma.
Secondly, the Jelco phono cable (at least the Jelco 506 balanced/XLR version I used) is not poorly constructed, nor does it sound like junk. Is there better out there? I’m sure there is. For the price, though, I think it is a good, very high value cable which bettered both the Cardas wire/Din/Vampire XLR cable which Gene constructed for me and Van den Hul 502, which I believe is the stock cable included with the upper end SME tonearms and retails for around $450.
In my opinion, the Audio Sensibility Impact SE copper cable easily bested all of these though as I said earlier, and not by insignificant margins. For perspective, this is on a Gyrodec with Sumiko FT3/Jelco 750D arms and an AT 33 Mono & Accuphase AC2 cartridges into an Aqvox phono preamp.
Whether the differences would be as pronounced on the OP’s equipment I don’t know, and then subjective listening preferences, as always come into play. I hope the Audio Sensibility works out for him, or the Jelco, even though I consider it to be considerably inferior. And the DH Labs might be interesting as well. I have no experience with DH Labs interconnects but do use their power cabling in my system and it is a very high value cable.
Finally, Mogami (real Mogami-not fake) manufactures a lot of different wire, almost all of it reasonably priced. But there are certainly lower quality lines within Mogami that possibly do not offer much in terms of performance.
Their 3103/3104 speaker cable, for example, is anything but junk. The 3103 outperformed Kimber 8TC in my system at a fraction of the price (about 1/6th of the cost actually) and there are many 3103/3104 users that have compared it to much more expensive offerings and are using it in moderate to high end systems with very good results.
Finally, if the OP is indeed using wireless speakers and the signal is ultimately being digitised, it would seem to be self-defeating in terms of investing a lot of time and effort into an analog front end.
@invictus005 Thank you for pointing out my lack of intelligence... as well as that of Atmasphere. And further, thanks for citing all that wonderful expertise you have, facts to back up your opinion and your personal experience that backs up your point.
No intelligent person insults someone of whom they know nothing.
In fact, maybe you are right. I'm pretty stupid to let myself be dragged into the fray with people like you.
@chakster, thanks for the sage advice! Going forward, I will avoid touching or holding my cables while listening to music.
FWIW, to answer your condescending question, I use LOMC. An Audio Technica ART9, to be exact. Not exactly junk. Neither is my Chinook, nor my Primaluna Dialogue HP.
In my case, I would need a tuner to hear the radio... my cables don't receive FM broadcasts, as you so arrogantly insist they do. Several people here, including industry experts are saying phono cables don't need to be shielded in most (not all) cases. Why do you continue to argue your point, while seemingly putting me down?
well, touch your unshielded phono cable by hand and let me know if you hear hum in your speakers at that moment.
Unshielded cables are problematic for Low Output Moving Coil cartridges, the signal of LOMC is under 0.3mV while the MM signal is 2-5mV. Low signal from MC is extremely sensitive, not like MM.
Not sure which type of cartridges do you use, probably MM or HOMC?
You don’t need a tuner to hear radio in your speakers with unshielded cables :)) It was very interesting when some spanish voice blabling something in my speakers when the tonearm was lifted up. This is because of the unshielded cable only. You never know. To be honest i’ve never seen unshielded phono cable, even those free cables that comes with cheap turntables are all shielded for phono signal.
@three_easy_payments, you’ve answered your own question and it’s that dreaded ’disease’ we audiophiles get called ’upgrade-itis’ and it looks as if you’re starting to get symptoms of it. But don’t worry cause it’s actually kinda fun.☺
chakster1,919 posts10-16-2018 3:53pmPhono cable must be shielded, good cables have low capacitance anyway, so we don't have to worry about it.
With unshielded cables anyone can listen to a radio in the speakers, it's a free bonus of unshielded cables, i don't think this is what we need.
I hear you Chakster. Then again, I think the most learned and intelligent person here is Atmasphere. If he speaks in definitive terms, I believe him. And he said:
atmasphere6,625 posts10-16-2018 3:08pmThe reason you can make an unshielded cable work in a phono situation is that the cartridge is a pretty low impedance. Its hard for radiated noise to impinge the cable when such a low source impedance is present. A further advantage is that unshielded cables have lower capacitance per foot, which is really helpful when dealing with the resonance that develops due to the cartridge inductance and the cable capacitance.
If Atmasphere says not to worry about it, I'm going to heed his advice and worry about something else. And, BTW, in my own experience, I am using unshielded silver cables, and they sound fantastic between my vintage TT and Manley Chinook. I don't hear the local radio station because I don't have a tuner.
Therefore, it's not a fact that a phono cable MUST be shielded. There may be specific situations where a shielded cable works better, but it isn't an absolute, and in fact may work better if NOT shielded for most situations. IMO, and based on advice from Atmasphere.
Definitely, cartridge is much more important. Despite the cartridge and cables the OP is using wireless speakers which is nonsense in analog chain.
Mogami (Jelco) is just a basic cable, nothing special, they are the cheapest, i’ve heard Mogami speaker cables and phono cables, not impressed at all, they are just like the free cables or like those from your local guitar shop.
I suppose the underlying assumption behind spending hundreds of dollars upgrading a phono cable is that you’ve already maximized the incremental returns that can be realized from a cartridge upgrade on your particularly setup? It just seems that all things being equal, $500 spent towards a better cartridge will almost always yield more sonic value that a $500 cable upgrade (or even $150 at the OP's price point).
In all the responses above I haven't seen anything about cable cooking, which IMHO makes more difference than just about anything else. Phonocables carry such tiny signals relative to other ICs that they never get broken in by playing alone. My Jelco and Nerve phonocables, fed by a pair of Jelco SA-750 arms were in use for almost a year before I got my Audiodharma 3.5 Cable Cooker. I know this is hard to wrap your head around and it's virtually impossible to do before-and-after comparisons, but it REALLY works in term of clarity, openness and dynamics. I wouldn't have believed it myself.
Hi, Does anyone here have any experience with clear day cable interconnects used as phono interconnects? They are purposely made unshielded and I have an opportunity to purchase a pair with ETI Silver Bullet rca jacks. I have never seen a bad review on them even though they use proprietary solid silver wire and are unshielded.
Also, can anyone here compare/describe the quality of cable and sound of the Delund interconnects and the Amadi Maddie Signature Interconnects?
@ asahitoro, thanks for the post. I appreciate it as I’m getting ready to spend some hard earned money on 2 pair of interconnects. 1 pair from the turntable to the tube phono preamp and 1 pair from the tube phono preamp to the auxiliary jacks. And please, only comment if you have experience with the
cables/interconnects
mentioned above as ALL silver cables/interconnects are not alike, as some people like to say...
Just make sure you buy from an authorized Jelco dealer, or direct. I know for a fact Chinese are cloning this cable. Anything from a not authorized source is 99.9% guaranteed to be fake.
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