My suggestion is avoid connections wherever possible, especially with cartridge output. This means no removable headshells, or armwands, or interconnects. This one thing alone will get you more performance for your audiophile dollar than anything else. Except maybe Nobsound springs. But those you have to buy. This is something you don’t buy. So even better.
I am in the minority in saying this, but forget compliance. Pay attention to cartridge output, as that is important to be able to work with your phono stage. Pay attention to sound quality, as that is what you will actually hear. Compliance however is purely technical and more often than not used as an excuse to blame rather than accept the fact arms and cartridges do not all sound the same. But if you are careful to select arms known for good sound, regardless of the cartridge, and cartridges with good sound regardless of the arm, then you can avoid all that. I have done it like that and never have paid any attention to compliance and that goes back to the 1970’s.
