Tonearm cartridge wires question

1. Yes. I've occasionally had it matter sonically with a few cartridges, but not usually.
2. You can buy replacement clips and re-solder them in place without rewiring the arm, but ONLY if:

a) you use high quality silver solder;
b) you have good closeup vision, steady hands and experience soldering small, delicate parts; and
c) you have a low-powered soldering pencil suitable for the purpose.

Those 1200W soldering guns that look like a Colt .45 would melt these delicate wires and clips in a flash. If you don't know what you're doing, practice on some throwaway wire and parts before risking that Valhalla. (NICE wire by the way!)

Two questions:

1) Given the proximity of the cartridge pins and tonearm wiring, don't most headshell wires come into contact normally on most setups?
2) As Raul pointed out, if the choice of the wire pin connectors matter, how do you change them? Doesn't it necessarily entail re-wiring of the tonearm?

Thanks guys. I have the silver Valhalla tonearm wire on my Classic tonearm and there is quite a bit of "slack" in the wires between the pins and the opening in the tonearm tube where the wires come out. I'm not sure what sort of insulation Valhalla wire has as it just looks silver. I suppose they come together as they enter the tube anyway so there should be no detrimental effect, but I wondered whether I should try to keep them as far apart as possible. Sounds like I need not worry about this.

Dear Actusreus: Agree with Almarg. Now, some cartridge manufacturers designed the cartridge pin connectors in a way for the connected wires can cross in between to avoid in better way what Almarrg pointed out.

In the other side and due that the wire length is to short maybe you can't be aware of any improvement if at all. This depends not only on the high resolution that the audio system has but the sensitivity of the cartridge or how high is the noise polullation at your place.

In the past the audio dealers always been sure that those headshell wires been crossed in between.

Btw, either with tonearms designed with removable headshell or tonearms designed with fixed headshell the wire pin connectors quality always makes a difference, IMHO we have to have there the best female wire connectors we can find out.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

I agree with Pops. In general having two conductors carrying a given signal in close proximity with each other, and perhaps also in close proximity with two conductors carrying a different signal (in this case, the one for the other channel), can affect inductance, capacitance, noise pickup, and crosstalk between the two signals. In some situations the net effect of all of that may be for the better, and in other situations it may be for the worse.

However, in this case the lengths along which that close proximity would occur are so miniscule that I can't see it making any difference whatsoever.

Best,
-- Al

My guess is absolutely not, you are talking about the insulation on the wire...right?

It's easy to try. Each cartridge will react differently.