What are good options for re-wiring an SME 3009 tone arm?

@stereo5 @gregm 

Thanks for the advice.  The Vinyl Source can install the tone arm cable, but this would mean shipping the arm round the world - Australia to England and back again.

My own inclination is to always do any job myself, otherwise how can I learn?  It certainly de-mystifies a lot of hype when you find out how things are actually assembled!

I now have prices for The Vinyl Source at GBP-110 plus shipping and SME, at an eye-watering GBP-370 plus shipping.  The latter is more than the arm is worth and I still have no details of what is included.

These are the trade-offs I am looking for help on:

• is it better to eliminate two connections by running the Litz wire all the way to the pre-amplifier, or
• would conventional RCA cabling be better from the arm base to the pre-amplifier
• would 'better' Litz cable, for example silver versus copper, make much audible difference
• does the topography of the Litz cable, for example its weave, make much audible difference

@d-vinyl-3009

Thank you so much! The audiokarma thread is very informative. My biggest fear has been reconnecting the ground (black) wire inside the arm tube using that little floating nut! Gluing the nut to the cable eyelet makes sense.

The Vinyl Source claims the capacitance of their full-length Litz cable is too low for them to measure. This length is the tone-arm plus one metre. They supply a strain block to replace the SME DIN block.

If I just replace the tone arm cabling, I would prefer to keep the SME DIN block and the original DIN block to RCA connector block cable, which is where those two connection points are located in each wire! This is using the engineering principle "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it".

I started down this path because the original SME head-shell connectors have oxidised and I broke one from its wire.  Looks as if they are tinned copper, not the gold plated items common today!

In general, I am not a fan of spending big money on cables, but I reckon the tone arm cable should be the most important in the whole reproduction chain for vinyl playback.

I found this at SME Tonearm Rewiring : SME Tonearms, SME 3009 Turntable Parts Templates & Manuals

It is on the side of the fewer connectors the better.  They seem to use Cardas Litz wire and charge GBP-400 for a complete rebuild:  The following is from their website:

"There are so called professional / expert SME rewiring services both here in North America & in Europe that will try to sell you on the idea that by pulling a piece of wire through the arm tube & replacing the vintage SME lower four pin horizontal DIN connector with an RCA termination will solve all your problems.

"All we can say to this is, that is nonsense & pure lies.

"This is nothing more than the easy way out, involving the least possible amount of work & the highest possible profit. This is basically a $49.00 rewiring job. Anyone that even knows the most basic amount about electronics & sensitive audio components will clearly tell you that the best type of connection is no connection at all.

"All these alleged professionals are doing for you is swapping one problem for another problem.  We on the other hand believe that the correct solution to the problem is the more difficult and time consuming road. No one else in the world employs two independent continuous runs of 4 X 33 fully RF shielded wire further encapsulated in an additional outer fully shielded RF jacket.  We actually use almost 10 feet / 3.04 Meters of 4 X 33 to accomplish a 4.25 feet/ 1.25 Meter run of cable.

"Our custom bottom end completely eliminates the original SME bottom end.
With our custom stand off and strain relief system all mess & clutter on the bottom of the tonearm are eliminated.  And miracle of miracles, there is no longer a connection point there ...
"By employing the system we have perfected over more than twenty one years, you will achieve far greater sonic improvements than by just pulling a wire through the arm wand , sticking a set of RCA connectors on the bottom of the existing SME screening can and buying a $1,000.00 phono interconnect cable to run from the bottom of the tower to your phono preamp.

Thanks everyone for your inputs.  I had no luck dealing with either SME or van den Hul, so I have just ordered a custom made cable from The Vinyl Source in Scotland.

It comprises long copper Litz wires running from the cartridge pins to the phono stage, eliminating the connection at the base of the tone arm, and another connection at the plinth.  I have ordered XLR connectors for the 1.4 metre cable run from the tone arm.

The cable cost about half the value of the tone arm, and I don't really expect to hear any difference.  I don't think the Litz copper is that special, and the RCA connectors offered as standard seem pretty ordinary.  But I have tried!