Certainly not a troll, nor did I come here to pick a fight, nor will I back down when again a response does nothing in regards to adding to the original question or my hope of a discussion.
"If I were to try and do a comparison between the 2, is there an ideal location w/in the signal chain to do so?"
Again, take a moment to reread my original post and this is the only question that was posed. That's it, no expectation nor request of opinion, simply asking for this group to confirm pretty much what I was already thinking.
The implication that I am trying to bait anyone hints at a bit of a conspiracy theory or insecurity on your part.
Regardless of any other additional equipment I may own or use in my 2 channel set-up, that was not part of the topic and shows a lack of ability to identify the subject matter.
But again, I am being pushed off topic. It was a simple question, if you don't have any information to ADD to the inquiry, then just stay quiet.
My answer was confirmed by 1 participant, now you guys are just being bullies sitting behind your keyboards.
Your original question though is not answerable, because it is nonsense. There is no reasonable answer to a question like that.
The phono issue is largely a red herring.
The fact is different cartridges have different capacitance loading requirements, which are important. However the answer is not trying a bunch of cables, hit and miss, to see which sounds best with X cartridge.
The answer is the application of good engineering.
This is the solution and what I do: -
Know the correct loading of the cartridge. Good manufacturers specify the correct loading capacitance.
Now good manufacturers also specify the loading capacitance of the phono input.
Now I choose well made cables of low capacitance.
So you start with the correct loading capacitance of the cartridge, then add the capacitance of the cable and phono input. Then subtract the sum of those two numbers from the optimal capacitance loading of the cartridge. Then you add that capacitance.
This is a very important part of setting up a turntable, but just about never done properly, end especially not by the lunatic high end.
The older SME arms had a place where you could solder on caps, under the screening can where the cable connector went.
When I set up a turntable, I make a short lead with female RCA one end and male the other, and solder the correct cap into the male RCA plug. So I get it right first time.
Peter Walker had the easiest solution to this in his Quad 44 pre amp. It has dip switches on the top of the unit to select the correct input capacitance to load the cartridge correctly.
If you go on the Needle Doctor site you will see a huge selection of phono preamps, quite a few costing thousands, which in itself is ridiculous. Not one, yes not one, has a means of providing to get the loading of choice correct for different cartridges. This alone epitomizes everything that is wrong with the high end currently: - no sensible useful engineering, just eye candy, unjustified prices and marketing hype.
The result, when I audition turntables at high end voodoo dealers, the turntables sound pretty dreadful actually, compared to my carefully set up vintage turntables.
Worse, in general these dealers have no clue as to how to really set up a turntable. This is especially true of having to match arm weight (and therefore inertia) cartridge compliance and weight to get the total arm cartridge in the correct place. Getting this right is absolutely fundamental.
Worse a lot of these high end turntables do not have the means to actually make the minute essential adjustments to get really good results from LP.
But back to the phono wire question. The wire is just one part of the system, and has to be adjusted to the cartridge in use and and the preamp loading.
Unfortunately turntables are not plug and play to any extent, and require obsessional set up of numerous parameters, based on science and basic sound mechanical and electrical parameters, not voodoo and folk law, which is what one encounters far more often than not.
