KAB 1200 vs. everything else.

Again, theory vs. reality. In your case, your choice was, as I already implied, perhaps a good one, but you could have spent the $800 on a better arm and used the cart you had with possibly better results.

Perhaps a different phono preamp on par with your lamm line stage with current cart and a used gerrard tt should smoke your cd player on most recordings

My cd player playback design is great and better than previous emmlabs I owned but still my lenco with shelter 501mk2 and rega rb700 easily matches it or even surpassed it on many recordings

Sorry. sloppy me. The arm would be the weaker link IMHO. ...and IMHO the Heed
phono stage ain't that bad (but I'm a dealer for them), obviously not up to your
Lamm but neither is the table/arm. I thought I made it clear that for that money
you did arguably well in your choices however theory might conflict with
practice. Since I haven't compared the KAB version I have little to say to conflict
with your choices if you don't want to retro fit another arm. My comments have
been to lend perspective to the conversation rather than to criticize your
choices.