EDITED Nov. 22/23
Some weeks ago I ran into a superb deal on a vintage Micro Seiki DD8 — a PPL direct drive table that mounts a nice Micro MA-505 Mk II arm. Unlike my Micro Seiki DQ5, its tonearm wire terminates at RCA plugs close by to the grounding lug.
As a stop-gap measure, I pulled out all the interconnect wire I had in my bins and selected what I thought was the most suitable. After learning how to set up the table, I experimented with several cartridges and was well pleased. But ... then it was time to take stock of what was really going on. I checked the capacitance of the TT's RCA terminated interconnect running to my Melos tube pre-amp and ... :thumbsdn: Even given some room for error on my amateurish sort of meter, the capacitance was pretty shocking. And all the other stuff in my bins was not much if any better.
And being on a tight budget — bills coming through the letter slot every day and so on — combined with the need for a very fast solution I considered this combination to construct an interconnect from stuff I had on hand. The objective was first and foremost low capacitance:
* very fine wire
* no twisted wire
* no shielding:scratch2:
* Teflon insulation
* single strand conductors
* bare minimal termination ... CHEAP, low mass, partly plastic.
* fiberglass outer cover to provide some robustness to the fragility of the conductors
* 32 gauge - 0.2 mm conductors
This (attached) is the reptilian, primitive result that crawled from the ooze of my pile of wire and crud.
How does it sound? Great! The run is only 70 cm and each cable has a ground strap. After fiddling with ground/hum issues, there is almost no hum. What hum remains is of a very low order; I can hear it with no signal at a volume level that would have the police outside my door in 10 minutes if music was actually playing. Detail has hugely increased. One cartridge that was very heavy in base had its resonant frequency moved up. Another was improved in the upper treble in regards to detail. Overall, everything improved. Not surprising really. And RF crud over the 70 cm is very acceptable, although I've not got graphs and equipment to verify anything in measurements.
I have yet to calculate the total capacitive loading, but I thought that this was so much cheap fun that I'd pass it along now. It has taught me that fiddling with DIY cable on such TT's that have the much maligned RCA terminals has the single advantage of being available for tuning capacitive loading — perhaps the only excuse for having RCA females on the backs of any TT.
I have several other reptilian crudities in mind as well as the stuff on hand to build them, including the same design with multi-strand core, lacquered conductors.
Laugh and ridicule me if you want. I'm laughing myself — mostly cuz it did not cost me several hundred dollars — more like a bottle of on-sale red plonk.
Sure ... someday I should rewire the entire arm and rid of the intermediate connections — that is unless the current versatility seems to outweigh the obvious electrical issues that dog connectors on tonearm wire
Some weeks ago I ran into a superb deal on a vintage Micro Seiki DD8 — a PPL direct drive table that mounts a nice Micro MA-505 Mk II arm. Unlike my Micro Seiki DQ5, its tonearm wire terminates at RCA plugs close by to the grounding lug.
As a stop-gap measure, I pulled out all the interconnect wire I had in my bins and selected what I thought was the most suitable. After learning how to set up the table, I experimented with several cartridges and was well pleased. But ... then it was time to take stock of what was really going on. I checked the capacitance of the TT's RCA terminated interconnect running to my Melos tube pre-amp and ... :thumbsdn: Even given some room for error on my amateurish sort of meter, the capacitance was pretty shocking. And all the other stuff in my bins was not much if any better.
And being on a tight budget — bills coming through the letter slot every day and so on — combined with the need for a very fast solution I considered this combination to construct an interconnect from stuff I had on hand. The objective was first and foremost low capacitance:
* very fine wire
* no twisted wire
* no shielding:scratch2:
* Teflon insulation
* single strand conductors
* bare minimal termination ... CHEAP, low mass, partly plastic.
* fiberglass outer cover to provide some robustness to the fragility of the conductors
* 32 gauge - 0.2 mm conductors
This (attached) is the reptilian, primitive result that crawled from the ooze of my pile of wire and crud.
How does it sound? Great! The run is only 70 cm and each cable has a ground strap. After fiddling with ground/hum issues, there is almost no hum. What hum remains is of a very low order; I can hear it with no signal at a volume level that would have the police outside my door in 10 minutes if music was actually playing. Detail has hugely increased. One cartridge that was very heavy in base had its resonant frequency moved up. Another was improved in the upper treble in regards to detail. Overall, everything improved. Not surprising really. And RF crud over the 70 cm is very acceptable, although I've not got graphs and equipment to verify anything in measurements.
I have yet to calculate the total capacitive loading, but I thought that this was so much cheap fun that I'd pass it along now. It has taught me that fiddling with DIY cable on such TT's that have the much maligned RCA terminals has the single advantage of being available for tuning capacitive loading — perhaps the only excuse for having RCA females on the backs of any TT.
I have several other reptilian crudities in mind as well as the stuff on hand to build them, including the same design with multi-strand core, lacquered conductors.
Laugh and ridicule me if you want. I'm laughing myself — mostly cuz it did not cost me several hundred dollars — more like a bottle of on-sale red plonk.
Sure ... someday I should rewire the entire arm and rid of the intermediate connections — that is unless the current versatility seems to outweigh the obvious electrical issues that dog connectors on tonearm wireAttachments
Last edited:
