Breakdown of Turntable Performance

A cheap/effective alternative to all of this is a proper platter mat.

The MyMat is quite possibly the most effective cure for most tt ills. Read a review on "What’s on your turntable tonight" thread.

The amplitude portion of the musical waveform comes from the cartridge, but the frequency portion, the time element of that waveform, comes from the turntable. The most important characteristics for a turntable are stable speed accuracy and low noise. If you want to talk about turntable construction, pay attention to the motor, controller mechanism, bearing and their implementation.

The tonearm must hold the cartridge in the correct three dimensional alignment with proper down force to allow the cartridge to extract maximal information from the groove wih minimal distortion.

Without these elements you won’t get what you paid for from whatever cartridge you have

I am running a cart that cost me $150 on a $3200 table/ arm .
Nuts right?
It's all about synergy, you just cannot make any reliable call on this type of thing.

And as a beta tester of Slaws MyMat I can attest to the veracity of his statement.
Anyone is free to pm myself for more detail about the results.
But much improved Dynamics and tightness of bass are easily audible.
For me it really opened up the upper registers.
Obviously ymmv.

Thanks to all for your feedback!  A fascinating subject, at least for me.  

Fellows, I tried finding the Slaws My Mat, and couldn't. Can you direct me on where to find them?

Thanks,
Dan