BEST INTERCONNECT FOR $25 EACH?

terry9

The problem with connecting the shield to the source end is that if a source has no ground connection, you will end up with an ungrounded shield.

Almost all components today have a separate ground. If not, you can always run a wire from the chassis to ground.

If you always ground at the source end, it’s easy to maintain star grounding. That helps avoid noise and hum by keeping all grounds at the same potential.

Many turntables and tonearms are like that, especially vintage ones - think two-prong plugs.

The typical pickup arm/phono cartridge assembly has a separate ground wire - it’s a balanced circuit with a separate ground intended to be connected to the preamplifier. Again, that helps maintain star grounding.

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@cleeds 

"Almost all components today have a separate ground. If not, you can always run a wire from the chassis to ground."

Agreed. But for those which do not ...

"If you always ground at the source end, it’s easy to maintain star grounding. That helps avoid noise and hum by keeping all grounds at the same potential."

A star ground is important if ground is used as a circuit element, such as a signal return. A shield attached at one end is not part of the circuit, and cannot form a ground loop, or hum. Also, the term 'source tend' seems ambiguous to me - is it the turntable or the preamp?

"The typical pickup arm/phono cartridge assembly has a separate ground wire - it’s a balanced circuit with a separate ground intended to be connected to the preamplifier. Again, that helps maintain star grounding."

As noted, star grounding is unimportant in this case. The rest, I agree with - but vintage gear may vary.

Nice discussing with you Cleeds, helps me to clarify my thinking.

Craig, I'm sure that you will be pleased with the result. My first suggestion was predicated on the possibility that you might be in a radio-rich environment. Since it seems that you are not, unshielded may be a better solution.

If these work out, that is, no obvious radio frequency interference, you should never need to upgrade.