Honest question about cartridge vs. turntable performance.

Mijo, I don’t disagree with your general principles, except as regards the prime importance of speed constancy, which I emphasize more than you, apparently.  But then you come down to recommending the Star Sapphire, a spring suspended belt drive. I owned one for 10 years as my only turntable. At the time, I considered it an entry into the high end of Audio. I ran a triplanar tonearm on it, for most of that time. I only later realized that vinyl reproduction does not have to include unstable piano and violin notes and muddy bass, which is all I ever got from the Sapphire. I went from the Sapphire to a Nottingham analog hyperspace turntable, also belt drive. It was far superior in all ways, especially after I added a Walker motor control, using the very same triplanar tonearm. I just think the sapphire is not a good choice for a paradigm. I do not mean by this to demean all of the Sota turntables. As I understand it, they have made some major improvements since the sapphire was their flag ship product.

the other thing not mentioned here is the phono preamp... you can't go cheap on that... plan on spending at least $500. If you are using anintegrated unit with an inexpensive phono pre, start there or you could nothear much of a difference in upgrading a TT.

Lewm, that would go against every review ever done on the Sapphire and my own personal experience. Getting a Triplanar on there must have been a lot of fun. I would have to assume something was wrong with your table. I have never been next to the Nottingham. It reminds me of the Brinkman Balance. At any rate I prefer suspended tables. You can make a decent improvement on your Nottingham's performance if you put it on a MinusK platform.    https://www.minusk.com/products/ct2-ultra-thin-low-height-vibration-isolation-platform.html?hm

To my way of thinking, the turntable is the analog system’s clock: it creates the time in which the source signal comes to life and exists. If the event at the nexus of the stylus and the moving groove does not occur at 33 1/3rpm, no downstream function can make the signal right.

The amplitude portion of the musical waveform comes from the cartridge, but the frequency portion, the time element of that waveform, comes from the turntable.

The primary functions of the turntable are consistently turning the platter at 33-1/3 rpm (stable accuracy) and doing so with little noise. It is the most critical component in the analog chain.

The primary functions of the turntable are consistently turning the platter at 33-1/3 rpm (stable accuracy) and doing so with little noise. It is the most critical component in the analog chain.

Right. All high-end Direct Drive turntables are the most stable in speed accuracy on the planet. This problem does not exist for DD owners. There is no issue with speed at all. Motor on Neumann cutting lathe is also Direct Drive and this is the first step in vinyl manufacturing process.

Turntable that can’t guarantee speed accuracy are junk.

Problems with speed accuracy associated only with Belt Drive turntables, but people loves them, don’t you see?