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.