Is tonearm cable the most important cable in the system ?

jwpstayman

... I wonder ... where exactly would you get a seperate ground reference for left and right channels in order to run a "truly balanced" XLR cable from a phono cartridge that has only 4 pins (left/right +/- )???? Stereo Phono cartridges are INHERENTLY balanced devices no matter what connector you happen to be using at the phono stage.

You’ve answered your own question - a phono cartridge is inherently balanced. If you connect it to a properly balanced differential phono preamplifer, the cable will be much less critical - that’s the nature of a balanced circuit. As for XLR cables - I never mentioned them. As you note, you can have a balanced connection regardless of the connector. In this instance, you get the separate ground wire from the pickup arm - almost all pickup arm cables include the separate ground.

The issue with the tonearm cable is the extremely small cartridge output voltage traveling through it. Noise pick up (no pun intended!) can be a serious problem. A shielded cable is a real good idea.

@inna - if you want to improve the performance of your one piece harness you could install (or have installed) a pair of Absolute Harmony RCA's from KLE Innovations.

https://kleinnovations.com/kle-innovations-klei-products/klei-harmony-plug/

They are probably the best RCA's money can buy

You will hear more clarity, improved imaging, deeper bass and faster dynamics.

I have tried the other Harmony models, but the Absolute Harmony are extremely good and well worth the investment.

Regards - Steve 

It's an interesting question. All cabling is important obviously, but the tonearm cable is probably the one in my system where the differences in sound quality seem to be more extreme and easier to hear as opposed to speaker cabling, IC's or power cables.

And, incidentally, that is running fully balanced into a balanced/differential phono preamp with both balanced inputs and outputs so I don't buy into the idea that the cable is less critical in that application with a balanced phono pre. In my experience, that is not true.

Nope - the wires that carry he signal from the 4 cartridge output contacts to the headshell are the most important cables in the system.