Detachable Head shell or Not?

I prefer removable arm wands to head shells, (I own arms with both).  Nothing against removable head shell, but removable arm wands simplify greatly cartridge setup.  My ET2.5, all I need to do is set the tracking force.  With my VPI JMW, all I have to do is check the tracking force.  Both keep azimuth, zenith, and vta right where I left them.  The Magnepan Unitrack 1 I have I need to set azimuth, vta and tracking weight.

frogman - I indeed understood your comment to rewire the entire cable from clips to RCA's with the same wire as before but this time with no intermittent connections.  We would suspect an "improvement"  here.  But hearing this would be tough to confirm as we are depending on aural memory from before the change that was hours or days ago.   Only when two of the same tonearms, with removeable headshells,  were installed on one TT, one with a DIN inserted and the other the wire with no breaks.  The arms are setup for the one cartridge.  Swapping the cartridge between the two arms would then possibly allow for quantifiable differences to be identied.  My suspicions are that the differences would be minimal, very minimal.  And then take the experiment one level further and drop in a tonearm cable like the Stealth or Transparent Opus, and put this on the arm with the DIN connection.  Here, I suspect the difference could be significant.

Jafox, you’re replacing one conjecture with which you don’t agree with another conjecture that suits you. By the way shouldn’t the comparison be between tonearm A that has a permanent headshell, where the wiring runs all the way from cartridge pins to phono input jacks, vs tonearm B that has a removable headshell and a DIN output connected to a tonearm cable that has a female DIN at one end and RCA or XLR at the other? In this example, tonearm B in set up B would have 3 sets of physical connections in the signal path that are not present for tonearm A.

by any seat of the pants reasoning, it would be hard for me to believe that tonearm B would sound better than tonearm A with the same cartridge. But it is quite possible that there would be no audible difference, especially for a medium to high output cartridge.

Lewm - It’s not about any conjecture suiting me or not. And I did not disagree or agree on anything. I noted suspicions, based on cable differences I have heard, and that was it. The only variable in the comparison would be whether there is a DIN connection or not. Only when both arms are the same can such a test be made, to DIN or not to DIN.

One tonearm I have under consideration has a removable headshell. One appealing factor of this product is that the headshell connection is only a mechanical coupling.....the electrical connections are not made through the headshell as the wires come through the arm tube and directly to the cartridge; the only potential wire break here would thus be a DIN or some kind of RCA junction box if the customer wanted that.

The to-DIN-or-not hardware difference is what needs to be quantifed. Then compare that with a follow-on test between the arm with the stock DIN’d cable vs. my DIN cable. As stated before, my "suspicions" would be that the cable difference would more dramatic than the to-DIN-or-not case.

The problem with this discussion is that it’s often comparing apples and oranges. For a level playing field you’d need a comparison with one cartridge in the same arm with and without the option of detachable headshell. Like the SME 3009, which was originally available with both options. I never owned these, but I’ve made a comparison that could be regarded as sort of ‘next best’. I own an Audiocraft AC-4400, which has the option of interchangeable armpipes. There are various straight armpipes with fixed headshell as well as an S-type armpipe with SME bayonet to accommodate detachable headshells.
So just for the hell of it I made a comparison with one specific cartridge mounted in the straight armpipe as well as in a headshell connected to the S-type armpipe. Of course everything else remained unchanged, from the tonearm cable all the way to the loudspeakers.

I used a Sato Musen Zen Diamond cartridge as Guinea pig. The choice is purely coincidental, but it’s a suitably revealing albeit old MC cartridge (based on the Victor MC-L1000 direct couple but with diamond cantilever). I used the Audiocraft AS-4PL headshell to keep the comparison as ‘level’ as possible.

It may well be my aging ears, but as much as I tried I was unable to detect a discernible audible difference between both options. Direct switching was impossible because I obviously needed some time to chance over the cartridge between both armpipe/ headshell arrangements. To some folks this will likely invalidate the experiment, but nonetheless I would not make too much of a thing about this issue. If it’s flexibility you want, choose a high quality tonearm with detachable headshell option and don’t loose any sleep over it.

Contrary to Raul’s opinion I think very highly of the FR-64/66fx tonearm, but would strongly advise against having it converted to continuous wiring. If anything the very considerable market value of the 66fx will drop like a brick. Changing the internal wiring to silver could make sense though. Depending on the quality of the original wiring there can be an audible sonic benefit and it won’t have a negative impact on the market value.