Cartridge Opinions - Sorry

Although I do agree with others here that the stylus and cartridge maybe more important than the tone arm WHEN mechanically reproducing sound from vinyl.

@tyray Dave Slagle recently sent an article to me by Peter Moncreif, who did some testing on cartridges and how they make distortion. It was an interesting read! I found it interesting that while he was able to show that the cartridges did seem to make distortion, he really didn't go into much about the arm despite testing a good number of cartridges. Yet no mention of the arm, but we all know that getting the cartridge/arm combination to work its mechanical resonance has to be in the 7-12Hz range, and otherwise how tiny little tweaks in the adjustment can have a huge affect on the result!


It obvious to me that if there is an adjustment on an arm that is tricky to set up, the chances of getting it correct are vastly reduced. We've all heard cartridges make distortion; if you can set all the parameters right, then its clear that distortion is reduced. I've seen arms that don't allow for adjusting the VTA, others that allow you to adjust it, but only by loosening a screw and moving the entire arm (the old Grace is an example of this); many have no adjustment for azimuth whatsoever... To put this to an extreme to make my point, you can't expect to put a $5000 cartridge in a Voice of Music tonearm (google images...) and expect it to work properly! So at what point do you draw the line? What I've found is that the arm is more important if you really want to get things right- so that is where I make that distinction.

@atmasphere  I agree with you 100%, the arm is more important than the cartridge. This is fairly easy to hear, place a lesser cartridge on a great arm and you will hear everything that the cartridge can give off, however, place a great cartridge on a poor arm ( and there are a ton of those) and you will not hear what that cartridge can do. 

Dear @daveyf  : You an atmasphere are taking wrong arguments to prove tonearm is more important that obviously it's not. Let me explain.

You can mount a great cartridge in a good tonearm and even that the combination can sounds bad. Things are not so easy as you stated.

poor tonearms? well really poor tonearms almost does not exist, at least the gimball ones. Even Rega is a good tonearm and has not VTA adjustment.

Cartridge per sé develops distortions coming from the tracking extremely hard task and those distortions are added by the ones developed by the TT/tonearm feedback and transmitted through the cartridge body that develops its own distortions. But the grooves tracked signal must pass through the cartridge coils/wire and through the output terminals and over there are developed distortions too. So obviously that cartridge develops distortions because the archaic LP overall medium. Even that it's the cartridge whom makes the tracking to pick up the the information of the recorded groove modulations.

A good tonearm can't help much more to that task because only can hold the cartridge and adds more distortions generated through all the tonearm construction parts and there is no perfect tonearm when almost all are not really well damped to put at minimum the tonearm generated distortions and generated feedback distortions ( vibrations, resonances, etc, etc. )

Now, we can have a great cartridge mounted in a great tonearm and even can't shows at its best if the TT/cartridge/tonearm overall alignment/geometry set up is not made it accurately.

Other than Rega all today tonearms comes with AZ, VTA/SRA, etc, etc, facilities.

Many times a cartridge sounds better in a not so great tonearm than in a great one because it's better matched to that tonearm characteristic of its developed distortions.

Cartridge is like speakers, is a transducer and this facts makes these two system links the more system important links.

Please let me know a today " poor " tonearm of the " ton " you stated.

I can mention today good tonearms: SME, Reed, Durand, SAT, VPI ( gimball. ), Triplanar, Jelco, Rega ( you can add an inexpensive after market dedicated VTA mechanism. ), Ortofon, DaVinci, Pluto, Cobra, Dynavector, Audio Note, Brinkmann, Thales, Schroeder, Linn, Townshend, Kuzma  etc. Which is a bad tonearm?

You can be sure that any cartridge performs different mounted in any of those tonearms due that each tonearm develops different distortion ( every kind. ) levels but that cartridge develops the sound that we listen trhough the speakers.

After the LP cartridge is the " source " and yes can't works with out a tonearm but can't works with out a TT too or with out a phono stage.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

@rauliruegas  Your post is one that seems to take what I posted totally out of context. ( I know you are translating into English, so I understand the ability to misinterpret my posts). 
There are clearly going to be issues with the tonearm to cartridge synergy if either one of those components has an issue with the other. To that, if a set-up is incorrect or there are problems upstream, then neither component is going to sound its best. This is not something that I was addressing in my post, and frankly should be fairly obvious to anyone that knows anything about analog set-up. 
There are a number of what i consider to be poor arms on the market, and while this may be relative in a total sense, I have experienced arms that simply leave a lot of information from the groove behind. As an example, you mention Linn arms...some of which are ok, but none that I am aware of can adjust for azimuth.The Linn Basik Plus arm was IME an arm that was totally veiled and not worthy of the table. There have been a number of Technics arms that are also not what I would consider as 'high end'. While this is of course again relative to what is available from entry level turntable/arm combos, there are simply a number of 'poor' sounding arms ( in this context ..veiled) on the market. You mention Jelco and Rega, which while they are fine for what they do, I would think that even you would admit that they simply do not compete against something like a Reed or SAT ( and they really shouldn't given the large price discrepancy!) 
Sorry, but what Ralph posted about tonearms being more important in the hierarchy than cartridges is something that I believe to be true.

Azimuth can be adjusted on ANY tonearm with detachable headshell. There are many inexpensive ($20-60) headshells with azimuth and overhang adjustment.

You don’t have to buy $5000 Reed 3p with azimuth on the fly to adjust your cartridge, anyone can do that on any cheap tonearm with detachable headshell.

The VTA is the issue and tonearms without VTA adjustment is nonsense! Manufacturing and selling a tonearm nowadays without simple VTA adjustment is disrespect.

I want to admit that every audiophile already have a good tonearm if a person is serious about this hobby. The key to a perfect sound is a cartridge (well matched to tonearm) !

You can put your Denon 103 on whatever well matched tonearm and it will remain a $300 cartridge, you can’t improve it until you will get a better cantilever and a proper stylus profile and then you will hear why cartridge is more important than a tonearm. Tonearm can’t solve the issue with that.

Compare two different cartridges on the same well matched tonearm and the difference will be huge. Simply compare that DL 103 on heavy tonearm with another low compliance MC from a different league. Then change one well matched tonearm to another well matched tonearm and the difference between the cartridges will be the same. A better cartridge is always better. Because a cartridge (and its stylus, cantilever, generator) is responsible for the signal pickup from the record groove.

This is why tonearm is second, cartridge is first (unless you are trying to use mismatched components).