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OK, here's how it works.
The signal from a turntable cannot be patched directly into speakers, amp or other line-level receiver. The music on a record is changed when it is pressed: the bass frequencies are lowered, the mids and highs are raised and the whole lot is lowered to reduce the amplitude. To return the signal back to line level you need a phono preamp. All DJ mixers and almost all home hi-fi seperates set ups will have a phono preamp built in, you just hook up the cables to the phono input on the back. If your system is of the smaller variety, but has an aux input, you will need a separate phono preamp to return the signal to line level before you connect it to the aux input. If you have a mixer, then you can connect the turntable to one of its phono inputs and the output of the mixer into the aux input of the stereo.
In addition, turntables need to be grounded. There will be a special wire or terminal on the turntable that needs to be connected to an earth or ground. There is one of these on the back of any mixer, and on any amplifier that has a phono input.
When talking about cables, RCA and phono mean the same thing. They are identical. Some of these come with a ground wire built in so you can just hook the RCA/phono plugs into your turntables/mixer and the ground into its respective terminals. If you don't have these sort of wires, then you will need a separate piece of wire to do this. Some turntables, such as Technics, come with built in phono/RCA leads and ground wire, but others don't.
Hope this helps clear it up, if not just ask!
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