Thoughts on moving from a 1200G to Sota Saphire or above

The audio establishment sold us the idea that headshells were inherently unstable mounted at the end of an arm wand, so now we’ve got a lot of expensive tonearms with fixed headshells. Around the same time they sold us the idea that bass and treble controls and loudness controls were mucking up the sound quality of our music, so they’ve been deleted. Rightly or wrongly these “innovations” that were near to universally adopted have certainly reduced the cost of manufacture, while prices have gone skyward.

Perhaps, @lewm , but while we don't want to go down the headshell stability rabbithole here, I'd argue IF integrated headshells are generally equal or better than removable, it comes down to whether or not someone's personal best investment is in multiple carts or just one better one. If you have many mono LPs, and want to swap regularly a mono cart and a stereo cart...that makes sense.  But many of us would benefit more getting the best cart we can and using it all the time.
Personally, I've had some fun doing quick swap shootouts with friends for sh*ts & giggles, but that's generally all it amounted to for me. Different horses...Cheers,
Spencer

I have a sapphire w some upgrades, modified Sumiko FT-3 ( CF arm tube, ridged lock VTA tower / wiring ) Hana ML and your same Herron phono. I also have in a different system Brinkmann Bardo / Triplaner / Lyra.

I think you should spend $ on Fire Level or better IC out of table and phono, different cartridge and isolation for table. Maybe not in that order….

sbank, Crazily, I admit, I have multiple turntables up and running and just as many tonearms.  I use two with fixed headshells, Reed and Triplanar, and three with removable headshells.  When I want to experiment with different cartridges, I am drawn to the simplicity of removable headshells.  This feature offers the additional not insignificant advantage of experimenting with different headshells, if for no other reason than to establish a good effective mass vs compliance ratio to suit a particular cartridge.  For 10-20 years, I had swallowed the notion that fixed headshells were the purist and purest way to go, but my experiences over the last 10-12 years tell me I hear no problems related to flexing at the joint between headshell and tonearm.  The other consideration is that adding a headshell:arm wand interface adds another physical connector between cartridge and phono stage. To me, that would be more of an issue with removable headshells than structural instability. Hence, I tend to mount my lowest output LOMC cartridges in either the Triplanar or the Reed.  But I have broken even that rule of thumb with no discernible problems, I must admit, although I do continue to believe in direct-est connection to the phono stage; the fewer the interfaces, the better.  One caveat: all headshells do not securely fit all tonearm wands. You have to check the quality of the fit in each case.

the truly hardcore solder everything, no disconnects….