Transparent Phono Cable

I second the Purist Venustas. If you really dig deep, you'll find a few people who've moved up to the Purist Dominus and say they can hear the difference; but I'm not rich enough to make that call. If you're considering cartridges in that (low-ish) output range, you will get stunning performance with the Ferox shielded Purist products.

The other "worst kept secret" tonearm cable is the Silver Breeze from Silver Audio Cable http://www.silveraudio.com/
Max is great to talk with and will let you audition a pair (which I almost did until I lucked into my Venustas) It's a lot less money, but don't let THAT scare you!

As for cartridges, you should also be considering the Colibri (it's still the best with the right equipment, I'd have one but I'd be too scared of damaging it)

Also the $4000 Magic Diamond, available from Lloyd Walker, (the current sleeper from Switzerland but expensive) along with Jan Allaerts made-to-order gems.

Absolute best value is the brand new $5000 Transfiguration Orpheus- ( available for $2650) I haven't heard one, but if it's actually better than my Temper W, then it's phenomenal!

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I think your list is good (never heard of Silversmith) but with the (lo output) XV-1s cartridge, I think you owe it to yourself to audition the Silver Breeze www.silveraudio.com/

Max will terminate one just for you if you have any special requirements (like rt. angle DIN, XLR, etc.) and let you try it for a couple weeks. If you decide to keep it, it's only $700 or so. So I'd add that one to your list, along with the Hovland Music Groove 2, and of course the Siltech, which has them in the same price ranges as the Venustas and Dominus.

The ones I consider the best value-for-dollar, in ascending price are:

Hovland MG-2 (runs circles around Cardas, XLO, Kimber)
Transparent (runs circles around Hovland MG-2)
Silver Breeze (runs circles around Hoveland, Nordost)
Purist Venustas (runs circles around everything but Purist Dominus and Siltech)
Siltech (runs circles around everything!

(No fights please; just my opinion, of course!!)
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By all means try the IC-70, it comes with the arm anyway doesn't it? If it doesn't, then throw one into the mix if you like, but don't buy one until you've done your due diligence and made some comparisons.

I thought the van den Hul Silver Hybrid cable supplied w/ my SME V tonearm must be "The Best" for two very good reasons:

1.) van den Hul, and
2.) SME

and for years accepted that I had "The Best". How could I be so stupid not to at least try some others? And it never occured to me to try any others until the tonearm guy at Sumiko mentioned he preferred the Cardas Golden Reference to the vdH supplied with the arm.

Well, I never had a chance to actually try the Cardas GR, or audition the Silver Breeze which I had ordered from Max, because I fell into a Venustas at CES. My first response upon installing the Venustas was freak-out joy! followed immediately by fury at SME for including such a piece of muddy-sounding crap with a $4000 tonearm!

You're going to make a serious investment in a cartridge and electronics along with everything else. Don't make the mistake of running with the the stock cable due to associative attribution, ESPECIALLY if it's not included with the arm! With all due respect, I think Speedy's statement represents poor reasoning:

"If I was getting the Phantom,I would surely get the cable manufactured by Graham. The IC-70 is a superb design,and mates very well with the arm."

"Mates very well with the arm"? -- means it plugs in easily? What are we talking about here? If a tonearm cable needs to "mate very well" with anything, that would be the cartridge and the phono preamp. Do not assume. Do your homework.
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Mark, as I said, I didn't know if the Graham cable came with the arm. And I am well aware of all the obstacles to auditioning cables -- but it's no excuse for grabbing the first thing and running with it. If there's a will, there's a way -- especially when one is planning a (retail) expenditure from $800 up to $2000 or more.

Three of the excellent cables we discussed are all in the $800 +/- range (four, if you include the Cardas GR) so even avoiding the pricey stuff, if you just "go with" the first thing that comes up (for whatever reason) then you are automatically "unchoosing" all the other candidates. You wouldn't by a car or a computer that way?

BTW, I don't go by price alone, and for a very good reason, I can't afford the most expensive products. If I hadn't been offered a Venustas phono cable for 1/3 retail, I probably would have wound up with one of the $800 choices, but only after first listening to at least three of them.

I don't know from personal experience that Siltech is the best, but I talk with a very dispassionate guy who sells Siltech, Purist, Transparent, Argento and has heard the rest. He wants me to hear the Siltechs in my system, but I courteously declined.
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