Phono cable question

Hello,

I purchased an Audiomeca Septum unipivot tonearm a few years ago. I requested that the wiring be an uninterrupted loom from the cartridge clips to the tonearm base, plus a couple of feet instead of the stock version that would come with only a short length of Litz wire that connects to a little phono box with two female RCA "out" jacks. I figured I would save myself a set of connections, and it could only be good, right?

The sound is fine, but noise reduction is my target right now. What approach do you think is better, all other things being equal?

1- an uninterupted run with the Litz wire going from the cartridge clips to the phono preamplifier, with a braided shield over each half (left-right) of the signal starting where it exits the tonearm base, or:

2- a phono box as close to the Litz wire exit point on the tonearm as practicable, with a "proper" phono cable taking the signal from there to the phono preamp?

I am asking, because I can only cut wire once...the noise is not really objectionable, but I recently went from 101dB speakers to bi-amplified 109+ dB speakers, and since then I have been on a noise hunting crusade.

Thanks for sharing your expertise!