RCA Phono Extension

Hi-Fi Corner
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I don’t have room on my rack at the moment for my Turntable and waiting to decide how I develop my system before considering changes or adding shelves. As a temporary measure I wondered if it would be OK to use an RCA extension cable from my 222 to where I can locate my TT - would need about 2M. Any one done this or any reason why I shouldn’t? Thanks

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Ideally you want phono cables as short as possible.
But would help to know what kind of cartridge.
If the connection is after a phono stage then might not be so bad.
Not so good is if it’s on the end of a MM cartridge on its own.
Worst case would be on the end of a MC before any phono stage might be detrimental although in most cases I suspect the average arm lead to be about 1 to 1.5 metres anyway.
At worst it’s an extra 50cms plus more connections. :thinking:
I don’t think I’d like to add 2 meters to the existing arm lead if only the cart.
Try and see.

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As Skeptical advises above, it’s best after the phono stage (i.e. at line level, post eq and gain) rather than before. The signals coming from the cartridge are very small and any extra cabling, signal junctions etc… will have a detrimental effect on performance, particularly if an MC.

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Thanks both of you. It’s a Rega Exact on my old P3 and I’d be using the phono stage in the 222. I can suffer a minor drop in quality as a temporary measure, but don’t want to do anything that might harm the system.

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Temporary measure as a compromise but not ideal.
Wont do any damage but might limit performance.
Hope it works out ok.

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I’ve had to do this. Turntable on the right stack, phono stage on the left. Captive leads on the rb808 are too short. I made up a couple of leads phono rca female to phono rca male using van damme cable, about 50cm long just to extend the rega leads. MC cart. Ok it’s not ideal but it works. One day I’ll get everything reorganised.

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Thanks all.

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Had a similar issue when using my LP12. Fortunately Linn had a replacement cable that was long enough (and at a reasonable price, somewhat rare for Linn). That could be an option for you if the standard Linn plug fits your tonearm.

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When I bought my ARO thirty odd years ago, I asked Grahams HiFi to ask Naim to fit the longest interconnect possible. Naim obliged, and the lead is (from memory) 1.6m, against the standard 1.2m. It could not be made any longer, as that would compromise the signal to the control amp.

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If you extend the phono cables before the phono-stage, you will add capacitance. That may possibly result in changes to cartridge loading, and probably detrimental of performance. You really want capacitance from the cartridge leads to the phono-stage inputs to be as low as possible. Higher capacitance generally requires more loading (i.e. smaller values) at the cost of dynamics and treble extension.

I have a Naim Fraim brain/brawn rack with the turntable on top of the brain rack so the 1.1 m is more then enough.

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