Long distance connection of turntable to home audio receiver

[Pierat]

I am in the middle of doing some wiring under my house for my home LAN. I have a thread on the forum about that going on already. I figured that while I'm under the house installing my new ethernet cables, I should also get my turntable connected to my home audio system, since I'll already be pulling ethernet cables up that wall to the media center. I have an old turntable, technics SL-3300. It is about 20 feet from my media center, but the cable will likely need to be at least 40 feet to go down wall, under house avoiding high voltage interference and up the wall on the other side of the room. I have a preamp that doesn't really work, so I want to buy a new one. Looking at inexpensive options like this one here.

https://www.amazon.com/PYLE-PRO-PP444-Compact-Turntable-Preamp/dp/B004HJ1TTQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488696365&sr=8-1&keywords=phono+amp

There are a few things I don't know how to do with this setup. I see this preamp comes with a ground connection, but I do not know how I terminate the ground. I have seen information saying I should run a ground wire to a water line, or to an electrical outlet. It would be much easier to ground it to the electrical plug. Do I just punch it into the wall and connect it right to the ground connection in a power receptacle? What kind of wire do I use for this?

Second thing I don't understand is about the RCA cable. I have seen references to balanced and unbalanced cable. I would like to just be able to get something off the shelf locally tomorrow. Do I need to worry about balanced or unbalanced? I am not looking to get studio quality sound, I just want to get something that will allow my family to enjoy the truckload of LPs we own. And finally, does the length of the RCA matter? Like I said, it will be around 40 feet. I haven't found anything locally available that long, but walmart has 25' rca audio cables and I already have a pair of female-female connectors I can use to connect them together. I would tape that up really well to avoid having to climb under house to repair it. But if I run RCA cables 50' long, will the signal travel that far? I can buy 50' RCA audio cables online, but I have a good opportunity to do this tomorrow.

I have also seen recommendations to use coaxial cable from the preamp to the receiver on long runs like this. If that would be better, I could look into how to put RCA phono plugs on coaxial cable and do that if it would work. Not sure that's an option.

Thanks for taking time to read this and thanks to anyone who can help.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Personally I would use FST cable and try it without the pre amp first as a phono signal is non amped and a phono input may suffer from distortion if an amped signal is used. RCA connections are unbalanced as there are only two pins ( + & -) a balanced connection requires three pins (+, - & ground).

 

[Pierat]

Are you saying I should just buy bulk cable and make my own rca connector ends? My receiver doesn't have a phone input, so I need a preamp somewhere. Are you suggesting I put it at the end of the run instead? I do know that turntable's are not designed to send signal more than a couple feet or so, so I don't think that would work.

 

[Mousemonkey]

If your receiver doesn't have a phono input what input do you intend to use?

 

[Pierat]

Probably the CD input.

 

[Mousemonkey]

I would advise trying it first before running any cable or buying any pre amps.

 

[Pierat]

I've owned the turntable for awhile and I have used it plenty of times before. I have used it plugged into the cd input or another input on my same receiver and it has worked fine. I don't understand why you are saying to try it first. What problems are you suggesting I try it to check for?

 

[Mousemonkey]

The last time I plugged my Tecnics turntable into a CD input it didn't work so I had to get an amp with a dedicated phono input.

 

[Pierat]

I already know that my turntable will not work plugged into a line level input without an amp. I have an amp already. I have used it many times with this receiver, albeit without proper grounding. The problem with the amp I have is that one channel is dead. I would like one that fully works. So I am definitely going to buy an amp. What I don't know about, is how long a run I can do with RCA cables, what type of cable I should use and how to properly ground the turntable. I think I may just buy the amp and a long rca cable and try it. I didn't get to do my other install today, so I will delay this a few days and order it all online. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks.