Mini-din vs Female RCA in tonearm rewire?

[rplace]

I'm going to have my tone arm rewired. What are the prevailing thoughts/arguments on having a 5 pin mini-din installed vs short female RCA terminations vs one continuous cable all the way to male RCAs?

 

Seems like the older standard-ish way of one cable back to you preamp in the form of male RCAs gives you less connections and less change for problems down the road. Seems like a mini-din or female RCAs close to the tonearm give you the ability to have a shorter cable run...or longer if necessary and experiment with cables which is a whole different can of worms. Mini-din seems closer to the size of the actual tonearm wire and off the top of my head perhaps "better" though I have zero idea why I think that.

[LarryC]

Hi Rich -- long time no see!  Do you still live in that very nice place in No. MD?

 

I don't have any great opinions of my own, but note that AJConti (RIP, very sadly) in his highly regarded Basis Vector ran a continuous wire from the cartridge pins to the RCA pins entering the preamp!  Very awkward to install, but the fine sound from that arm suggests his extreme idea might have some merit.

 

I like the quality of good RCA's, and think long-term interchangability ease between future arms and preamps will save time and trouble down the road.  I just suggest you minimize the number of connections, whether RCA or DIN.  I doubt you will gain by having mini-anything after the tonearm in your signal path.

 

I think some quality manufacturers like Graham use DIN-like connectors inside the arm and TT-arm connections, but go to RCA's at the preamp.  Jud Barber's and Ken Stevens's preamps stuck firmly with RCA's.  Since so many high-quality makers use either RCA or XLR, I myself would stay with them,  

 

 

[rplace]

Larry, great to hear from you. Yes I still live in the same place. As I'm sure you know, Gary moved and he is only about 15 minutes from me now. It has been great to reconnect and catch up.

 

How truly sad about AJ. Way too young. I think you are right if AJ did  it that way he was probably on to something and gave it some serious thought. I guess I never looked at the back of your Basis or Garry's I always assumed those tiny tonearm wires terminated at the back of the table with either female RCA connections or a mini-din connection. Is that not the case? In the picture below is that clear block at the back of the table just anchoring the wires and they keep going, continuously beyond that to the preamp?

 

I'm still saving my pennies for a Vector some day. Everything Basis does is top-notch as @jacksonbart would say. Can't even remember when we last talked about gear. After a few different TTs I got a Basis 1400 with Basis modded Rega 300. I later got a Origin Live Silver MK II arm. I'm still lagging behind you and Gary but pretty happy. I've not seen it in action but I think the VTA mechanism on the Vector 4 is part engineering and part art!

 

[thebes]

Hey Rich, welcome back!

 

I've had, and have got, both types of connectors on various arms.  If you fiddle with your gear a lot, and I still do, the DIN plug provides a extra safety margin, since most cables get broken at the rca end from pulling etc. The DIN  plug just pulls off without taking the threaded wires that run all through the arm to the headshell which are a pita to replace (hee,hee).

 

Upgrade that Rega arm Rich. Modified or not, my view of that arm is at stark variance to what most people think. Then make your cable decision from there.

[rplace]

Marty thanks for the shout back. You and Larry in the same thread seems like the band is getting back together. I'll call Ringo, er GaryMD

 

Interesting on the stability of the DIN I would have thought being smaller it would be more fragile...but several of my decent cables from themid 90s are surely showing their age at both ends of the RCA. They really need to be handled carefully now and some are shot. I probably need to open them up and solder them.

 

My initial thought was have the arm terminated at the base with a mini-din then a Cardas box http://www.cardas.com/phono_box.php to go from din to female RCAs attached to the cabinet below TTable. Then Standard male/male RCAs to the preamp that I could "fiddle" with as you say. I'm a tweaker too...but not in the meth head sense, more gear swapping. That really seemed like a lot of $$$$ and unnecessary connections just to have cables the length I wanted (very short) and the ability to swap them around. So now I'm really leaning to a one piece Incognito short kit. This will be one continuous wire from headshell to female RCAs only about 6 inches from the base of the arm, then a custom 10" cable from the arm to the preamp.

 

Below is a picture of my current configuration. See the turntable wires sticking way out the front? If I touch them or put them anywhere else I get a pretty bad hum/buzz. This is the quietest place. If they go close to the BBX or in the rear anywhere it really gets bad.

 

BTW that is a home brewed dust cover. One week old today. Guess who inspired me to give plexi-cutting, bending and torching a go??? Not perfect but a good first try for a total investment of $14.

 

[LarryC]

On 10/6/2017 at 7:06 AM, rplace said:

Larry, great to hear from you. Yes I still live in the same place. As I'm sure you know, Gary moved and he is only about 15 minutes from me now. It has been great to reconnect and catch up.

 

How truly sad about AJ. Way too young. I think you are right if AJ did  it that way he was probably on to something and gave it some serious thought. I guess I never looked at the back of your Basis or Garry's I always assumed those tiny tonearm wires terminated at the back of the table with either female RCA connections or a mini-din connection. Is that not the case? In the picture below is that clear block at the back of the table just anchoring the wires and they keep going, continuously beyond that to the preamp?

 

I'm still saving my pennies for a Vector some day. Everything Basis does is top-notch as @jacksonbart would say. Can't even remember when we last talked about gear. After a few different TTs I got a Basis 1400 with Basis modded Rega 300. I later got a Origin Live Silver MK II arm. I'm still lagging behind you and Gary but pretty happy. I've not seen it in action but I think the VTA mechanism on the Vector 4 is part engineering and part art!

 

Hi Rich! -- No, it must only anchor them, because those TA wires are continuous all the way from the cartridge pins to the preamp connecting pins!  A real pain to unpack and install, because the arm and wires all have to be pulled out of the box together and handled as one piece.  I've heard of one to-hell-with-it case of someone breaking the connection and putting in RCAs at the back of the Vector for easier disconnecting and re-connecting! 

 

Yeah, a micrometer VTA is a lot better than trying to do miniature hex key juggling while sliding the arm base up and down with the other hand.  I've had to do it both ways...

 

Larry

[thebes]

Hey Rich, great job on the dustcover, grasshopper.

 

If you go the way you are thinking I would just mount the female rca's on the  table itself.  I have that setup (factory stock) on a couple of my tables so there are probably stock mountable female rca's out there of the right width. This would give protection for the actual tonearm wire, and then you could use any decent generic male rca's for the connection to the preamp.  I'm not at all a believer in fancy cables and on a short run I'm even less then enraptured about wasting the bucks.

 

Now what I would strongly suggest, given your narrow space between the VRD's and the Blackberry is getting one of those wall mountable isolation tables like the Target Audio tables from England.  I would also suggest taking a good look at the rca terminations at the Blackberry.  There have been lots of troubles with these, and since Mark went out of business, Craig has repaired many of them.  I say this because there should be no, as in none, buzzing issues with the placement of any standard rca cable between a preamp and a table.

 

Now as far as Gary, I haven't heard from him lately. Called a few times over the last couple of months but no response.

 

 

[rplace]

All good info as usual, Marty. I did some cable swapping not for sound (I'm with you on the cable thing) but for one channel cutting in out. I for sure narrowed it down to where the cable entered the RCA back end. Then the very next day I had the same problem with my solid state stuff and the connections to my outdoor speakers. 20+ years and moves through 3 different states and I guess my cables are saying I want to retire. These were kind of high-zoot cables from back in the day when I was young and impressionable ;-)

 

So I've really got two issues. Old cables that have been yanked on time and time again with lots of gear swapping and moving over the years. And something up with my tonearm wires. I know for sure (cuz I did it) the internal wires in the Origin Live are broken then twisted/taped back together. So the Origin Silver + Zu-Audio Denon 103R are on the sidelines and the Rega + standard Denon 103, non-R, is back in action for the time being. Already dead quiet.

 

I did see the Peach currently for sale and the mods to remove the connections from the board. The BBX of mine is the one thing that does not get too much abuse. So fingers crossed no issues there. I actually thought that might be an issues early on.

 

Good idea on isolation. Since that picture I've got a home grown platform for the TT. From the bottom up it is rubber/cork/rubber pads>>MDF>>adjustable spiked feet>>MDF>>Turntable. If it works well in the short run I might swap one or two of the MDF layers out for granite. Its a basement floor so zero problems with vibration of foot falls. The only thing that could bother the gear is the rest of the gear or vibrations from the music it self.....at least in my mind that is how I see it. Interested to hear what others think.