Turntable versus tonearm versus cartridge: which is MOST important?

@mijostyn,
A rare moment of almost total agreement indeed. Especially considering the various vested interests at play. A few cartridge vendors may be heard mumbling at the back, but mostly everyone else is in accord.

I'd also add that the turntable is more important than the arm because it provides a resonance free platform for the arm/cartridge combination to do their work.

The turntable also needs accuracy of playback speed and hence pitch.
That's why rumble and wow and flutter measurements are held to be so important.
Anyway here's an opinion from someone who should know.



"Turntable differences are greater than any other item of Hi Fi equipment.

CD players sound different to one another, but not a lot in comparison to turntables.

-----

A better turntable will improve the clarity, dynamics and ability to follow every strand of the music plus other aspects too numerous to mention. Gone is blurred, woolly bass and general confusion in the sound."

"No matter how good your cartridge is, it’s been proved that it can never perform at anything like it’s true capability without a good tonearm.

In the same way, a relatively inexpensive cartridge worth £50 can outperform one that costs £1250 simply by being installed on a better arm."

These are the words of respected tonearm makers Origin Live - even if the price /performance ratio isn't always a linear one.

Something which Origin Live themselves demonstrated some while back.

https://www.originlive.com/

guns or butter, now where did I put that pesky 3rd variable……

EVERYTHING!!

Dear friends : The thread is interesting but the op question.

Analog rigs comes or are scaled/levels and I think that to have a better view on the analog rig links importance could be better to analize inside each one level/scaled scenario:

- entry level analog rig as Rega, Project or Technics where  the Rega/Project  TTs already comes with mounted cartridges.

The Rega/project units makes its job at its entry level status. We can't ask here for tigth speed stability ( well the Technics 1200 G is very good about. ) and non-resonat/vibrational plattforms and certainly not the SAT tonearm but even with those analog rigs with its own mounted tonearm every time the owner change the cartridge he can listen the improvement due to a better cartridge.

So in this level seems to me that cartridge makes the difference.

- what happens if we go up in the analog rig scale? where we have better TTs and better tonearms. Well seems to me that it's the cartridge the link that makes the difference every time we change it.

and I can follow up in the analog rig scale with almost similar results: cartridge really makes the difference, is the one with the higher posibilities to do it.

Higher differences with the cartridge changes that when we change similar price tonearm or TT.

Normally an audiophile or newcomers not own 4-5 TTs and 10 tonearms but you can be sure that own more than one cartridge.



For me try to analize any audio subject with out context  has no really meaning and could be useless.

I posted several times: other than the LP the source is the cartridge it's the transducer and the TT/tonearm are , like it or not, its slaves because both items ( TT/tonearm. ) where choosed for the cartridge can shows at its best and this happens too with the phono stage choice.

Is it important the TT and the tonearm? of course both are but with a way different roles down there.

From some time now we can't find out really bad TTs or bad tonearms. So changing a cartridge with better tracking abilities ( even inside same price levels. ) , everything the same, will shows better quality level in what we are listening.

No two transducers sound alike/the same but some TTs and in less way tonearms does it.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

A 100$ cart on a  10K  table is better than vice-versa !

Been there many times .