Why will no other turntable beat the EMT 927?

The fact that the considerable mass of the cartridge is way out on the end of the "lever" means that inertial mass is higher with a 12" arm. With modern materials and technology, it is possible to make the mass of the arm itself much less so that the inertial mass (same as "effective mass" is in the proper range for the compliance of most low compliance cartridges. But, that lower mass means some compromise in rigidity and dampening of vibrational energy transmitted down the arm tube. In other words, for the same effective mass, a 9" arm can have more material to make the arm more rigid. This is a matter of a tradeoff, with modern material making the negatives of longer length less than in the past.

By the way the benefit of a longer arm that I like is the smaller change in VTA from different thickness records. I am NOT one to fiddle with VTA changes for different kinds of records.

If it were possible the best tonearm length would probably be no tonearm, or 0 length. Tonearms are necessary evils given the inherently flawed design of vinyl and teh systems needed to play it. Bigger/longer might be OK if done well but is definitely not better.

The thing is almost every aspect of vinyl record playback is a compromise. I suppose that's what makes it so interesting say compared to digital, there are lots of ways to do it yet no approach is perfect, much less any record being played.

So it is what it is. Long tonearm, shorter tonearm, whatever....it is what it is. WHatever you do there will always be a compromise somewhere. Its part of the vinyl mystique I suppose.

Mapman, don't assume that digital is better. Remember it is just math that converts 44.1 kHz to 96 kHz. There is rounding error. Every transformation other than in even jumps, is subject to errors just in the math. Converting from USB to SP Dif is subject to errors as are all other conversions. Even magnetic master tapes loose high frequencies with time.

Perhaps when everything is captured in double dsd or 5644.8 kHz, we will get digital right and of course have 10 terabyte drives in raid systems.

This fall I am going to do my 45 rpm reissues to a harddrive in double dsd with RIAA done in digitial. I'm hoping that I can have the wonder of these reissues in a convenient format.

Tbg,

Of course digital is subject to errors are well and nothing is perfect , but there can be no comparison IMHO either in design or practice between the precision, significance, magnitude or commonality in practice of the errors common or possible with the half century old 33 1/3 vinyl system compared to modern digital.

I still like and often might even prefer a good vinyl recording, but I am not going to delude myself about the inherent flaws and compromises that are involded with playing records, both in theory/on paper and even more so in practice. It often sounds much better than it probably has any right to still, but good sound and accuracy/precision are two separate things.