What does a tonearm contribute to the sound of a turntable?

I agree with Simio and FsonicSmith above - I had a VPI Traveller turntable for a while and it was the 2nd Worse TT I've owned out of dozens. The worst was Nottingham Horizon which had a motor that caused vibrations on the tonearm so bad you could feel it.
After just a few days with the VPI Traveller, I lost a channel. I first suspected a cartridge lead - those were all okay. Then I checked the phono preamp tubes - all good there. I finally figured out that the phono box in the back of the Traveller had a loose connection.
I removed the two wood screws holding in the panel and I was so disappointed to see such a poor and flimsy soldering job. And this turntable is called the Traveller? The phono leads on my Rega RP10 are integrated and it sounds great to me. I don't get the point of removable cables on budget decks anyway. Besides, who's going to get a better deal on high quality cable, say from Cardas, a factory who buys in bulk or Vinyl Joe?

If the Jelco dropped the noise floor, you should most likely have to turn the volume down, not up.

@slaw I was wondering the same thing

@noromance ,

Thanks for your reply.

An interesting update:

I just got in and installed a set of Morrow Ph-4 phono cables, DIN-to-RCA. They replaced the ancient Sumiko PIB-1 junction box fro which I was running Acoustic Zen Silver Reference 2 IC's to the phono pre.


Morrow's literature advised a millenia-long break-in time, like 500 hours for the cables, so I swapped out my relatively new Hana SL cartridge for my old Benz Micro Ace S cartridge so the latter could take the brunt of the break in time and wear and tear. I Baerwald aligned it, adjusted the tracking force, and sat back for a few listens.
Holy crap! Just a bigger, more full sound than the Hana ever produced. Maybe it's the Benz's 8.8 gram weight versus the Hana's 5 gram that made the former play better with the new Jelco 750 in terms of compliance. Idk; but there was a palpable presence that hadn't been there before.


I know - lots of changes in variables here: new phono cables; new DIN connection; new cartridge.

Thoughts?