What makes a better phono cable ?

03-12-15: Syntax
Silver wire (silver can carry 6% more information than copper and 16% more than gold)

03-12-15: Dkarmeli
Syntax, where did you get this from? Its nonsense.

03-12-15: Syntax
Educate yourself

David (Dkarmeli), Syntax has made that statement on numerous occasions in the past, asserting that it is according to the AES (Audio Engineering Society). I have disputed the statement, and in the past asked for a link to the alleged AES source, which has not as yet been provided. I agree that it is nonsense, among many other reasons because it does not define "information," "information transfer," "information loss," "information carrying ability," or any other such term that he has used, and also because it does not take into account that the information loss of a cable, whatever it may mean, will be dependent on length (and most likely directly proportional to length, as for a given cable design nearly all cable parameters and cable effects are directly proportional to length). And as you alluded to the effects of the cable will also be dependent on numerous other variables, in the design of what it is connecting as well as the design of the cable itself.

03-12-15: Franklapdog
Jmcgrogan2
Your comment is so true but somewhere in my past travels,I heard that solid core silver with low capacitance makes for a better phono cable because of the very low signal transfer.Is this not correct?

No, it is a gross oversimplification at best, probably deriving from the fact that silver has SLIGHTLY (about 6 to 8%) lower resistance than copper, everything else being equal. However, simply making a copper conductor one gauge size larger than a silver conductor will compensate for that difference in resistance about three times over, and making the copper conductor 8% shorter than the silver conductor will also compensate for that difference. And in nearly all cases the resistance of a phono cable won't matter anyway, because aside from a few unusual circumstances it will be a miniscule fraction of the load impedance. Which in turn means that essentially all of the signal voltage will appear across the load impedance, rather than being dropped in the cable resistance, and essentially all of the signal energy will be absorbed by the load impedance, rather than by the cable. Which is not to say, of course, that the cable won't affect the signal in ways that are unrelated to resistance.

IMO, John's (Jmcgrogan2's) comment, which I know to be based on a great deal of relevant experience, is the bottom line.

Regards,
-- Al

03-13-15: Roscoeiii
I'd recommend taking advantage of the Cable Company's lending library of cables if you don't have the ability to audition in your system locally. Cables are so system dependent.

+1. Excellent suggestion by Roscoe. Also, Frank, it may be helpful for us to know what cartridge and what phono stage you are using, what load value you are applying at the input to the phono stage, and approximately what length the cable would be.

Regards,
-- Al

Really nice equipment you've got there, Frank! Given its quality and price range, and after reading through the writeup John provided on the Stealth Hyperphono cable, although that cable is certainly not inexpensive I think his recommendation is well worth considering and auditioning, perhaps via The Cable Company.

Your cartridge has an inductance of 11 uH, which is helpfully and unusually low for a cartridge having a rated output as high as 0.56 mv. Although the capacitance of the Hyperphono cable isn't specified, I see no reason to doubt the statement in its description that "there are two identical solid core signal wires inside each signal cable, symmetrically woven in a matrix geometry which offers high interference and noise rejection without the capacitance increase typical for simple twisted pairs." I suspect that the combination of its capacitance (for a 1.2 meter length), the 100 pf input capacitance of your phono stage, and the 11 uH inductance of the cartridge will put the resulting resonant frequency in approximately the 3 to 4 MHz (million Hertz) area, which seems very comfortably high, considering also the ca. 300 kHz bandwidth of your phono stage.

I'll say also, FWIW, that I see nothing in the writeup that from a technical standpoint raises my BS meter significantly above zero. I say that as someone whose meter is not uncommonly pegged at max, or close to it, by a lot of cable literature.

Good luck! Regards,
-- Al

There is a Silent Source Extreme Phono for sale at a very good price and according to L.W.the silver version is a good bit better.Any further thoughts?

Beyond the usual kinds of proclamations of great sonics and performance well above their price point, there isn't enough info at the Walker site for me to have any particular comments, either positive or negative. Although I recognize that based on the reputation of Mr. Walker and his products those proclamations are likely to be a good deal more credible than in a lot of other cases.

Also, as I alluded to in my comments on the Stealth cable, the low inductance of your cartridge, in combination with the reasonably short length of the cable, would work in the direction of minimizing the possible effects of whatever amount of capacitance per unit length the Silent Source cables may have.

Regards,
-- Al