Detachable Head shell or Not?

if the quality of the wire used to rewire in a continuous run is not at least equal to that of what the arm is presently wired with, as well as that of the cable connecting the arm to the preamp, then the net improvement after rewiring will be lessened; possibly rendered irrelevant.

Similar thought when I asked a tonearm vendor if they can put a DIN at the arm's output as I was not all that excited with their cable choice all the way to the preamp.  A vote here for the Stealth Hyperphono.

Imagine if one were to decide that our preamp needed to be moved to a different location and instead of the 1 meter tonearm interconnect cable with DIN plug currently used, we would now need 1.5 meter of tonearm interconnect cable.

If I imagine the 1.5m need in the future, I will purchase a tonearm cable of 1.5m at time of purchase.  The last few tonearms I owned with attached cables all came in 1.5m length.  A 1.5m length over 1m is indeed preferred to provide more spacing between components.  Years ago I got a great deal on a 1m Stealth and I have always managed to work things out with this detachable tonearm cable.  The performance benefit here easily outweighs the fewer options I had in TT placement. 

When I set up a system, placement of the TT comes first, then preamp or phono to accommodate the tonearm cable length.  The rest of the system layout is easy because of the availability of IC's and PC's with varying lengths.

To my way of thinking, that is essentially what happens when not using a continuous run to preamp tonearm wire.

Makes no sense per my above statements as tonearm cables are not only available at 1m lengths.

I do prefer headshell for ease of service instead of just bending underneath tonearm or hassle removing it in certain cases to properly mount cartridge.

Besides, I have a super-luxury swapping headshells with different cartridges at any time I want. I'm Thorens lover and enthusiast so I have 4 Thorens headshells with different cartridges and 2 Thorens decks TD-125 and TD-160 as a back-up or secondary analogue turntable. 

Planning to sell little TD160 and get TD-124 for further Thorensation!

Dear @jafox : " one to bring out that addictive lush bloomy performance and another that shows off that clarity and detail “to die for”. Being able to easily swap between the two, with hopefully only a quick VTF/VTA change, would be mighty nice. "

Well, with all those tubes in your system certainly you are an " addict " to that lush/bloomy performance ( nothing wrong with that because is what fulfill your needs(priorities. ). Cartridges are designed to pick up the signal in the LP groove modulations with minimum added every kind of distortions and obviously inside its market price. A cartridge must be truer to the recording but unfortunatelly the cartridge quality level final performance levels depends of other links in the audio system and the tonearm is mainly the cartridge mate that at the end function as a " tone control ".

Each cartridge performs/sounds different mounted in different tonearm and here is where the removable headshell tonearm designs have a true advantage because when you change/test a cartridge with different headshells you can be sure that you will listen a different " signature " in the reproduced sound even that you are using the same tonearm.

Now, if you find out a fixed tonearm design that mates really good with a cartridge that fulfill your targets then go for it. Yes, additional connectors and solder points certainly degrades the cartridge signal but the question could be: how much degradation and if that degradation levels really matters and impedes that we can achieve our targets? Same for IC cables that open a wider choices ofthis critical link because each IC cables has its each sounds " color ".

In audio there is no perfect solutions, every alternative we can have as a choice has its specific trade-offs and it’s up to each one of us to make the better choice for our MUSIC/sound priorities/targets.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.

@lewm @mijostyn 

Was planning on using one of my yamamotos and a miyajima cart. TT has 2 arms so the other arm I can keep the DINs and swap headshells whenever. Richard is Analog Magik, only person I’ve found (so far) that offers this service (unless I DIY).

Dear @au_lait  : There are several reasons why your 66 is totally wrong to listen MUSIC and two of those reasons are that's a 12" EL design with a extremely high inertia moment and both of these reasons goes against quality room/system performance levels.

I don't care what you want to make with your 66 at the end is what you like even that you as other 66 owners are wrong with.

R.