What is the order of importance of the parts of an analogue rig?

Dear friends: In an analogue rig and " everything the same " scenario/premise what can makes differences for the better or worst are each one commited to overall choosed analog rigs and  set up details.

Everything matters down there, @mikelavigne  already posted,  additional for me the first importance belongs to the cartridge self tracking abilities along its well matched tonearm because what we want is that the cartridge can pick-up as many recorded information as it can and to achieve that its tracking abilities can make a paramount differences if your room/system has a good overall resolution.
Now for that cartridge abilities can be showed the cartridge/Tonearm/TT must be douing in an accurated way: this is a must to have.

Down the cartridge/tonearm is very important the tonearm internal wiring quality and if the tonearm is a removable headshell design then the headshell connection wires and that the headshell will be matched to that cartridge.

The evil/enemies of the analog rig are the developed distortions /(everykind: noises, vibrations, resonances, EMI/RF, etc, etc. ) generated by the analog rig and the room. Important link in the analog rig where the TT is " seated " to avoid the develops of distotions.

So with have to find out ( in our system ) first those distortions, second from where are developed and third how to put all at minimum and for all these we need first hand experiences coming from every where and to have a evaluation bullet proof whole process.

Mats, clamps, cables makes a difference and if we have not the knowledge level and skills we can't really be aware if changing the TT mat for other one really makes a difference for the better or only a different sound but not better sound.

Fine tunning the analog rig is the name of the game down there and this means time and patience to achieve it: years not weeks.

After all those the choice of Phonolinepreamp is of critical importance because the cartridge information that always will be losted in that device we never have the chance to recovery, so the Phonolinepreamp is of vital importance because inside it are developed perhaps the higher distortions ( every kind of. ) in the analog rig.

Regards and enjot the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

What about SUTs (set up transformers). Should that be a separate category for those with MC cartridges?

Everything is important and contributes to the overall sound.

What about SUTs (set up transformers). Should that be a separate category for those with MC cartridges?

with 2 of my 3 turntables i have recently added EMIA Silver wound 1:10 SUT's that were trans-formative to the performance.

http://www.myemia.com/SUT.html

What about SUTs (set up transformers). Should that be a separate category for those with MC cartridges?

Not really. Some phono sections have enough gain on their own.

I think you will find that the ability of the tone arm to properly track the cartridge is far more important than the cartridge itself. So the way the two work together is important and no all cartridges work in all arms.


The job of the platter pad is to absorb vibration from the LP as the cartridge is playing it. It has to be able to do this while not imparting any noise (talking back) of its own. At the same time it should be able to apply additional damping to the platter itself. In turntables minimizing resonance and vibration is what its all about!


The phono section can contribute ticks and pops that sound for all the world as if they are on the surface of the LP! This is due to poor high frequency overload margin and stability issues; and IMO/IME is an epidemic in phono section design.