OK I could use a little advise here. I am thinking of upgrading my tonearm cable from the din plug to the rca`s. I don`t want to spend a fortune to do so and have seen a few listed from $ 60 to over $300. I would like to stay in the $150 and under range and have seen a number of them that say copper and silver 99.9% ox free and so on and so on. Help?? A little clarification here would be nice. Thanks in advance.

If you are using the 5-din standard tonearm plug, why would you want to change it? I have actually converted several tonearms to this plug so I can use dedicated tonearm cables. Audioquest makes a fantastic 5-din tonearm cable (the Wildcat if I recall) for under $100 which is very low impedance and shielded so it blocks all RF/EMI (which is an issue for my house).

James R.

Odd that you should mention it at a time that I have a good answer. I just ordered a set from Ultimate Cables. ( www.ultimatecables.com ) They got a good review over at audiophilia web site and they look all fancy with silver 20 strand yada yada and cryogenic blah blah blah. That probably means something to a lot of folks - all I know is they'll fit the table I just got and they probably sound better than any cables I have now.

Tech support seemed pretty nice and prompt and they went $70 for a 1.2 meter set - no tax, no shipping. Haven't gotten them yet, but figured you could look at the specs and see what you think. I don't know if they're as good as the $6000 cables from needle doctor, but I'm not really ever gonna find out.

Originally posted by jwrosenthal:If you are using the 5-din standard tonearm plug, why would you want to change it?

Sorry if I wasn`t clear. I want to replace the existing cable with a newer and better quality one.

Originally posted by monkeyling:Odd that you should mention it at a time that I have a good answer. I just ordered a set from Ultimate Cables.

I saw that one as well as the Jelco one on the bay with free shipping.:scratch2:Maybe I will wait until you receive yours and you can tell me what you think about the quality and the sound difference if any? :thmbsp: There certainly has to be some improvement over a 20+ year old cable!

I saw the Jelco too but I think it was coming from Uzbekapakimankatostkighan (or somewhere near there) and I'm just not all that international. Canada is exotic enough for me.

I'm afraid I won't be able to give you much of a review beyond the build quality. All my tables to this point have had the rca connect so this is my first foray into the DIN/JIS connection. It looked pretty sexy for a cable though...

I kinda thought you were getting rid of the 5 pin in favor of more rca too, but my brain doesn't work right either, so I was able to understand you prefectly.:yes:

I have been using the Jelco cable for some time now. I'm very very happy with it. I've used it with midmarket MC's and some upmarket MM's. It's the same cable as the Extreme Phono Crimson Cable at half the price.
I'm not at all into silver cables: the difference between copper and silver in terms of conductivity is neglible and most of the signal path is copper anyway.

I bought some Teflon coated, OFC, 34 gauge wire from a guy on Ebay. Less than $20 He has an Ebay store specializing in Teflon wire. It only came in gray color, but once installed what's the difference. I'm not a believer in the mega-buck, cryo, whatever. I also bought some clear insulated 32 guage from the same guy. I use this with some gold plated DIN clips and colored heat shrink to make headshell leads. They look cool and work great. Cost effective and a good upgrade for vintage TTs. Stripping and soldering this small wire is difficult.

Jon

I have an Ultimate Cables Silver Series C4 Cardas female to Neutrik RCA's on my Kenwood KD-500 and have found it to be a very fine cable. It was definitely an upgrade from the stock wires that came with the 'table. The cable is very nicely made, reasonably priced, and the company is great to deal with. Ultimate Cables usually has several listings on eBay at any given time if you want to go that route, too.

Good quality interconnects are nice, but a better cartridge or turntable is even nicer. So I suggest going with a (very) moderate price well made set or make them up yourself. Then trot out and buy new equipment with the savings. Remember, while it is true that if the signal is screwed up early on, it's never going to be better, but there are solder joints and steel leads all over the place in the signal path, so a magical pair of interconnects is not going to raise plain old electrical circuitry to the real of ineffable perfection.

I don`t think that the upgrade needs to be in either my cart (currently DL-103R) or my TT as that is a completely revamped AR ES-1. Including all re-wired top to bottom.

I realize that part of the fun of this equipment is tweaking and upgrading. Knowing what to spend money on that will really make a diffference and what not to waste money on is the key. Most of the wild claims of benefit from wires with fancy technical terms and pseudo-science, techno-babble claims have never really been put to a scientific test to evaluate whether they really make a difference. I know many people will jump in and claim they made huge a big difference in the sound of their system. I also realize that at least some of the time we can convince ourselves that we hear a difference that may or may not be real. Upgrading a cartridge is something that makes sense, fancy wires often do not. Either way, if it makes you feel good it's your money, spend it on what makes you happy. For me at least, I prefer to spend it wisely.

Jon

Good quality interconnects are nice, but a better cartridge or turntable is even nicer. So I suggest going with a (very) moderate price well made set or make them up yourself. Then trot out and buy new equipment with the savings. Remember, while it is true that if the signal is screwed up early on, it's never going to be better, but there are solder joints and steel leads all over the place in the signal path, so a magical pair of interconnects is not going to raise plain old electrical circuitry to the real of ineffable perfection.

A good interconnect will not make a mediocre table/arm/cart any better for sure but the AR/DL103 deserves a good quality interconnect. I used Linn's own stock cable on my Linn Axis/K9 for many years until I scored a Van Den Hul D-501: it was the equivalent of cleaning windows after years of neglecting them.
A phono cable is an intergal part of a system and as such, the law of diminishing returns will apply: using an exotic cable that will allow you to hear that splash of saliva hitting the recording microphone is senseless if the details aren't there in the first place. Imo, a decent set-up of AR stature will benefit from a $ 100-ish cable. The Jelco is a very good choice imho.

Thanks guy`s I wasn`t planning on spending a fortune just replacing a 20+ year old piece with something better end newer. BTW the AR has a Sumiko MMT arm so it`s not too shaby to start with.

I saw the Jelco too but I think it was coming from Uzbekapakimankatostkighan (or somewhere near there) and I'm just not all that international. Canada is exotic enough for me.

I'm afraid I won't be able to give you much of a review beyond the build quality. All my tables to this point have had the rca connect so this is my first foray into the DIN/JIS connection. It looked pretty sexy for a cable though...

I kinda thought you were getting rid of the 5 pin in favor of more rca too, but my brain doesn't work right either, so I was able to understand you prefectly.:yes:

I totaly rewired my Ariston RD40 with enigma arm with pure silver tonearm wires from ebay and soldered them to custom ultimatecables. It took 1 month
to burn in and it was one of best tweeks I,ve done!!

before you get much farther, make sure to look up the petra cable thread here on AK with original poster hakaplan as the thread starter