Does a cartridge that has been in storage for an extended period need play time…

Atmasphere, Your experience runs counter to mine. One can never know if a cartridge we like in the present might have sounded even better when it was fresh out of manufacture, so I certainly would not claim that suspensions do not degrade over time. But nearly all but one or two of my cartridges is at least 5 years old, typically more like 20-30 years old, and only once have I found that the sound quality seriously degraded over time. This was for a Grado TLZ that I purchased new back in the 80s and used to like quite a bit. It was my only cartridge for a few years back then. These days it no longer sounds even "good"; I don’t use it. Otherwise, I’ve had no issues that I can knowingly ascribe to suspension degradation, given the point I made above, that we can’t know how any "old" cartridge sounded when truly new.

“recommended overhang is determind by your tonearm”

Thanks, I learn something new everyday.  I have overhang dialed in now and it altered/improved the sound.

Thanks again.

Some other advice not related to your question: the input impedance of your phono stage should ideally be 10X or more greater than the cartridge’s internal impedance.

Thanks, lewm.  I appreciate that info.

The more use I’ve given the Sonata 1 over the past two days, the better its sounded but I still felt it was missing top end air.

I swapped my older Allnic H1200 phono preamp (new tubes and fully checked out in October) for the Ray Samuels Nighthawk i have been tinkering with (fully adjustable) and BOOM the Allnic brought the high end air and sparkle back. I’ve been using the Nighthawk since the Allnic started exhibiting tube noise including with the Dynavector lomc cartridge referenced above. Apparently the MM input of the Nighthawk is of much lower quality than the H1200.

My daughter gets the Nighthawk in her stocking tomorrow morning to use with her Spinbase and NOS integra 1057F table.

I’m a happy camper again.