Thanks, WEEZ.
I'm looking primarily at used wire less than $100/ 1.5m shielded pair: VH Audio Pulsar, Lat International, Goertz, etc...
I was thinking perhaps someone was using a MMF table (or Project table with Project 9 arm/wire) and had some specific experience with interconnects that display some good synergy due to proper capacitive loading.
tvad4,
A LOT has to do with your choice of cartridge (and any capacitive loading you already have at your phono stage).
If your using most MM's, you generally want as little capacitance in your IC's as possible.
High inductance cartridges (generally all high output moving magnets and irons) automatically translate to rolled off highs - and adding high capacitance cables adds further to this woe. The Grado's (all of them) are different in this regard and aren't as affected (at least in the range of hearing frequencies) as
all other MM/MI I am aware of.
There are certainly other issues that might lead you to choose one make over another - but know that nearly any MM/MI cartridge will roll off treble and using high capacitive cables rolls them off earlier (often well within the human hearing range). That said, many cartridge makers specify a capacitive load to terminate your cartridges into the bog standard 47K inputs to
flatten the frequency response. ADC, with the vast majority of their cartridges having a 480 mH inductance, always specified 275pf as proper capacitive load.
If you have a MM (most MI's), the Alpha-Core Goertz might be the
worst choice of all
It has the highest capacitance figure I've ever seen
on an interconnect. It's really high, higher than any other maker I know of. Ditto for their loudspeaker cables....but it seems to matter less there if your amp is properly designed. Note - I owned a 0.5 meter pair of IC's (TQ-2) and thought they were fantastic from CD to preamp...they were just too short to continue with. I also still own 5' pairs of MI-2 speaker cable...and I still think they are the only pair of speaker cable wires I've ever owned that were definitely an upgrade over anything else. So, I'm not
at all biased against Alpha-Core, but I'm aware of their capacitive downside.
It helps to know if there is added capacitance at your phono stage inputs, too. Most don't add a resistor, but many do.
If you have a Moving Coil (or a Grado), high or low output, capacitive loading won't matter. A good bit of the 'openness' folks suggest these have are due to electrical realities...lower inductance (more extended treble) and lower DC resistance (measured in Ohms) so there is more signal to pass thru those dozens or hundreds of feet of wire within your cartridge.
I think all the high output Grado's have 475 ohms of DC (internal) resistance...half of what many MM/MI cartridges are. Even a high-output MC will typically have less than 100 ohms (my Ortofon X5-MC, at 2.0mv, has only
80 ohms). That translates to 'openness' and probably 'speed' many vinylphiles hear with moving coils. It is of course weighed out against many other factors that are highly personal in the end. Most MC's don't even offer inductance figures...such as it doesn't matter much with them (as they will not have rolled off highs anywhere near the audible range)
It's not as much synergy you require (tho there certainly is room for subjective tastes), so much as it is electrical reality you are hoping to manage
You only have a few feet of wire from cartridge to TT rca's, and a few more feet for IC's.
Most of your wire length is already pre-determined within the cartridge itself (dozens or hundreds of feet)...managing that electrically is the real goal.
This might be helpful, too:
http://www.hagtech.com/loading.html
