Largest Impact - Arm or Cart?

Selling your Origin nets you under $1000. Add your available $1000 and you can't make a significant upgrade.

You're in the same situation with the cartridge.

If it were me, I would save more money and buy a used killer tonearm.

A great tonearm with an average cartridge will outperform an average tonearm with a great cartridge all day long.

IMO of course.

I spent on a killer cartridge. I consider it money well spent. BUT the arm must be of reasonable quality: correct static and inertial mass, very easy motions around pivot(s). It becomes a bit of a black art. Example: I was strongly dissuaded from mounting a Helikon on a Dual. This from a guy who sells Helikons. (Helika?)
cheers apo

Normally I would say, the Cartridge but when I really think about it, the Tonearm is the way to go.
I have MUCH more Satisfaction when I listen with a DaVinci tonearm (for example) and a modified Denon 103R (Shibui) than with a -former- Roksan Tabriz and a Lyra Parnassus ....

Yes, I would go for a first class tonearm after all my years ..

A great tonearm with an average cartridge will outperform an average tonearm with a great cartridge all day long.

This is spot-on advice. Listening to a great cartridge on a average arm you may never hear all the cartridge can deliver. And you might be surprised at just how good a mid-price cartridge will sound on a better arm. And yes, you may need a little more money to get there.

I've not lived with an Origin Encounter arm so I don't know how easily it lets you adjust SRA/VTA, azimuth, VTF, and anti-skate. The higher-up the cartridge chain you go the more critical it becomes to optimize cartridge setup in order to get all you're paying for. One criteria of a good tonearm is that it accomodates fine grained adjustment and you are comfortable using it. Do you feel you're getting the most from your Benz M2? If you are not satisfied that it is set up near perfect, try to get it there.

I'd ask other owners of your same table what arms they are using. You might also ask someone (a dealer?) who has a better arm and/or table to install your cartridge in his system to hear the difference that upgrades in those areas can make with the M2. You might be surprised its a better cartridge than you think.

your 'encounter' is an excellent arm, and a bargain given the money it would take just to hear an ever-so-slight improvement. for 1k however, there are lots of cartridges that will shake up your system in a bigger way.....sometimes blowing the money on new music will make the need to change components go away.