2. cables
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Advantage of Balanced over RCA for phono cables


Anticipating the arrival of an Aesthetix Io phono pre and wonder if there's solid advantage to cabling the front end with balanced cables.

The run from TTable to phono pre, and phono pre to preamp will not be longer than 1 meter. The associated gear is Aurum Acoustics solid state CD/preamp and Aurum hybrid amp (proprietary SS amp for woofer, 300B and 6SN7 tubes for mid and high frequencies).

I don't really understand the need for balanced cables for other than signal coherence and fidelity over long runs. Just my ignorance.

Hope you can help me understand the potential virtues and pitfalls.

Best, and Thanks Ahead,

David
128x128cdk84

Showing 1 response by kurt_tank

kurt_tank
1,188 posts
 
The signal from a phono cartridge is basically a balanced signal, so going with an all balanced system makes sense. Ralph Karsten, with Atma-Sphere, can probably explain it better than I can. (Ralph designs his preamps primarily to use balanced connections, including the phono inputs and outputs.). I suggest you contact him. He is very knowledgable and very helpful. (A true gentleman, IMHO. And this coming from a guy who doesn't even own any of his gear, although I certainly wouldn't rule it out in the future - especially his MP-1 preamp.)

FYI: I use balanced connections from my tonearm cables all the way through to my amplifiers. I am very happy with my system and have no plans to ever go back to single ended connections.
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