Stingreen - nice to hear about the arm - I have a VPI HW-19, upgraded over the years, although now I mainly use another player (Hanss T-30). I had a Souther / Clearaudio parallel arm for some years, but could never get it to work well with the VPI.
A little reality check today. I played my three versions of Credence Clearwater Revival: Heard it through the grapewine. If my cartridge is poorly adjusted, I will be confused which one sounds best. I wasn’t. Instead I could hear, not only, that all in all I prefer my latest (Acoustic sound RTI) version, next the Mofi version, and then the original - but I could hear the different plusses and minuses with each version. My gratitude to Lyra.
This experiment does not prove anything, except that it indicates that if the cartridge is fairly well aligned, other matters tend to take over - like the quality of the mastering and pressing. The guitar went from good to great, on the best recording.
Happy listening!