Cartridges: Complete Scam?

If someone asked you: "Would I see a major improvement in sound if I upgraded from my Elac bookshelves to a pair of Magico Q3s?" You would answer, absolutely yes you would.

Not: "You have to pair them with ultra high end amps and sources."
Not: "Some people can tell the difference but not everyone..."
Not: "Wrong way of thinking..."

It's very simple: Magicos are better than Elacs. The end. Anything other than that is just useless information that doesn't serve anyone. Magicos weigh 250 lbs, can you handle them, do you have the room for them, etc and so on -- useless info, anyone can read a spec sheet and understand the possible drawbacks.

"You have to pair them with ultra high end equipment..." Why? Will they lose their superior performance capacity because they're hooked up to a more modest amp? Will the extreme engineering techniques used to eliminate resonance across the audio band turn itself off because they're running from a $5k amp as opposed to a $50k one? Will their unique drivers downgrade themselves? WHY, exactly, are you responding to a simple question with a qualifying non-answer?

So. Can someone explain WHY a $1,000 table's tonearm can't be used to mount a $2-3k cartridge? What is the technical reason? Will it fail to transmits certain frequencies, or certain voltage swings, what exactly? Do cheaper tonearms not have the capability to hold the cartridge in the right angle and apply the right amount of tracking force?

What's going on here?

My my Mr Madavid do you have it all wrong. Magico Q3s will sound absolutely awful paired with the sort of amp any normal person would use with your Elac bookshelves. In fact in 9 out of 10 Hi Fi shows Magico Q3s sound terrible because they get paired with the wrong sort of amps. 

Getting the most out of a set of Q3s is just like getting the most out of a cartridge -- it takes a lot of careful matching and time spent on ancillary supporting components. Simply dropping them in to your system may cause you great heartache (see this thread for what I mean https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/magico-s5-speaker-set-up-advice-please-tow-in-etc)

And as you probably know, I run Q3s and what I really like is when people come to my system they often say "these speakers are great, they don't sound like Magicos [do at shows]"

Oh and to your question on why a $5K tonearm with a $5K cartridge.

A $5K cartridge usually means the designer has spent extra effort in minimizing problematic resonances and other sources of distortion. Mounting this on a $1K tonearm that itself is subject to all sorts of distortions and resonances is simply throwing this benefit away. 

I could go on but that's just one small example of the constant in this hobby how a change in one component often throws up problems elsewhere in the chain

Its very easy to get carried away by rave reviews of expensive cartridges. However, when you think about it, a cartridge is just doing one thing - its converting stylus movement into electrical signal. Therefore as far as I am concerned, tracking ability is paramount, it's everything. Yet the number of times cartridge reviews gloss over tracking performance..

As Randy-11 said earlier, there's definitely a law of diminishing returns at work here. The biggest step up is from conical to spherical stylus. After that you're on your own, though I do remember a ($250) Shure being commended for it's excellent tracking performance and electrical behaviour. As for other stylus profiles eg line contact, I don't know whether they offer any more.

In my own experience a Nagoaka MP11 Boron was as good as it got. Swapping to a much more expensive cartridge (Linn K18) just made the sound thinner and brighter. So yeah, tracking first and foremost.

According to this comparison exercise that compared sub-$1000 cartridges being played on a $1,500 VPI Traveller, the reference setup thrown in there as an ultra high-end control (almost $200k) came in SECOND to a Audio-Technica. And then there were all the people that voted for the really low end stuff. Guys, how on Earth does anyone explain this?

https://www.analogplanet.com/content/nine-cartridges-compared-reviewed-and-voting-results