SOTA NOVA, HR-X VPI, Technics 1200G recommendations?

The phono cartridge and tonearm combine to make a spring mass system.  The phono cartridge and tonearm must compliment each other to yield the ideal system natural frequency.  That ideal system natural is between 8 and 11 Hz.  Once you decide on a tonearm then you must narrow your selection of phono cartridges to compliment the tonearm you have selected.  You can use this equation: Resonant Frequency = 1000 / (2 x π x √ (M x C)) or easier to use the cartridge resonance evaluator available on various websites.  Take my SME 309/Soundsmith Zephyr combo for example.  Tonearm has an effective mass of 9.5g.  The Zephyr has a mass of 12.2g.  I add about 0.5g for the screws for a total mass of 22.2g.  The Zephyr has a compliance of 10 micrometer/millinewton or 0.00001 cm/dyne.  Use the magic calculator or plug these values into the formula and my tonearm/cartridge system has a resonance of 11 Hz.  Right in the ideal zone.  The Zephyr comes with some ceramic rods to add mass if needed.  So, if I wanted to lower the resonance to 10 Hz, for example I could add 2 grams of mass to the headshell.  Why is the resonance range so important?  The 8-11 Hz range keeps the tonearm away from the music lower limit of 20 Hz (the modulating grooves can excite the tonearm) but also above rumble frequencies.  If a tonearm/cartridge system is mismatched poorly you can actually experience your tonearm moving up and down and cartridge skipping.  From the equation you can see that a low mass tonearm/cartridge needs high compliance (spring rate) and a high mass tonearm/cartridge needs low compliance.  

Remember, the first rule of Engineering is to watch your units.  Well, we had a professor in college that said the first rule of Engineering is "You can't push a rope."  But if your units are mixed you can get into trouble very quickly.  Also note that a warped record will have a rotational frequency of 1.8 Hz.  If the tonearm/cartridge natural resonance is down below 5 Hz, exciting things can happen when it tries to track over that warp.

For anyone who has ever tried playing the Telarc record of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Symphony knows that if the tonearm/cartridge combo isn’t right, that tonearm is going to skate across the record when the cannons fire.  Very exciting record. 

And don't forget that you can't use dynamic compliance measured at 100Hz (all Japanese cartridges) for calculations! 

All calculations must be made with 10Hz compliance figure only. So the compliance must be converted first from 100Hz to 10Hz. Japanese manufacturers never publish compliance figure at 10Hz. 

That’s right what chakster said.