tubelvr1, the characteristic that is most noticeable in turntables is noise either self generated or from the environment. Most modern turntables have reasonable speed stability. The way the cartridge performs is determined by the tonearm. The tonearm has to be the right mass for the cartridge and it must give the cartridge only two degrees of freedom, up and down, side to side. Any other freedom particularly torsional is bad. There are other fine points of tonearm design that are also important. The way the anti skate is set up. It should decrease as the tonearm moves towards the center of the record. A neutral balance arm is always best. Most arms are Static balance which is worse. You can tell right away what an arm is. Defeat the anti skate and put the stylus guard on. Balance the arm so it stays perfectly horizontal then lift the head shell up an inch and let go. A neutral balance arm will stay there and inch up. A static balance arm will bounce up and down eventually finding the balance point.
Will you hear a difference? Depends on your system and how critical you are. There is definitely a point of diminishing returns. Get a SOTA Sapphire. Put an Origin Live Enterprise arm on it and you are 95% of the way to the best turntable made. Whatever that is:)
Will you hear a difference? Depends on your system and how critical you are. There is definitely a point of diminishing returns. Get a SOTA Sapphire. Put an Origin Live Enterprise arm on it and you are 95% of the way to the best turntable made. Whatever that is:)