Tonearms to hard core audiophiles are like politics for most all of us. Best left off the table, As several have mentioned, what is really needed are actual data. One sort of experiment that I would like to see done would be as follows:
Decide upon two or maybe three cartridges, one with high compliance, one with low compliance, one that is "medium".
Mount each of them in turn into the tonearm that is to be evaluated.
Inject into the cartridge pure tones that span the audio frequency range, say 20 to 10K Hz at log intervals, e.g., 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1K, etc, and at each single frequency, take a look at a spectrum analysis of the output. Absolutely no subjective judgement allowed.
This would tell us something about tonearm/cartridge interaction. For example, to obtain data that would bear on the Raul/Halcro battle, compare an FR66S to a tonearm of equivalent effective mass (if there is one) that is perhaps made of wood or is otherwise dampened. Or, compare results for a high-ish compliance cartridge in an FR66S to those for the same cartridge mounted in some other tonearm that is deemed to be more appropriate by conventional wisdom, because of its much lower effective mass.
In other words, it would not be so impossible to obtain data on this subject. "Sturm und drang" only take us so far. I wonder whether HW has ever done such an investigation.
Decide upon two or maybe three cartridges, one with high compliance, one with low compliance, one that is "medium".
Mount each of them in turn into the tonearm that is to be evaluated.
Inject into the cartridge pure tones that span the audio frequency range, say 20 to 10K Hz at log intervals, e.g., 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1K, etc, and at each single frequency, take a look at a spectrum analysis of the output. Absolutely no subjective judgement allowed.
This would tell us something about tonearm/cartridge interaction. For example, to obtain data that would bear on the Raul/Halcro battle, compare an FR66S to a tonearm of equivalent effective mass (if there is one) that is perhaps made of wood or is otherwise dampened. Or, compare results for a high-ish compliance cartridge in an FR66S to those for the same cartridge mounted in some other tonearm that is deemed to be more appropriate by conventional wisdom, because of its much lower effective mass.
In other words, it would not be so impossible to obtain data on this subject. "Sturm und drang" only take us so far. I wonder whether HW has ever done such an investigation.