Does a record player make that much of a difference??

I wish Nandric was around to give everyone struggling with the question a lesson in semantics.  There is no common vocabulary or an agreement on concepts that ties the disparate claims together.  Thus this thread can go on forever or ad nauseam, whichever comes first.

Tweak1, I’ll bite. What are you going to do with the Variac?

acmaier, Unless you are listening to LPs from the early to mid 50s, most of which will be mono recordings, the importance of having all those equalization curves built into the phono stage has been regarded as overrated by most.  Testimony from recording engineers who were active in that early LP era suggests that most companies adopted the RIAA standard early on. Thus, you could say it is nice to have that flexibility, but it adds a costly feature to the phono stage that may be superfluous, unless, again, your collection is heavily biased to the early days of LPs. Also, you can put the phono stage first if you want; my only point was and is that the tonearm and cartridge form a unit that together determine the ultimate sound quality that we usually perceive as due to the cartridge alone.

I found photos of the current headshell at Triplanar. The finger lift is set directly into the side of the cartridge mount, not on a separate piece that also receives the cartridge mount screws. I personally wouldn’t worry about that resonating except as part of the whole, but diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks. Seems the OEM construction is already damped with some sort of black sleeve, heat shrink or other.

Cartridge and tonearm should be viewed as a single unit. Tonearm makes a major contribution (or subtraction) in relation to the SQ perceived to be due to the cartridge alone. I’ve proved this over and over again in my home systems. So I would not insert “phono amp” between cartridge and tonearm in order of importance.

"Lew my TP 7 mk2 has a single screw that attach it to the cartridge block."

I will go to the TP webpage and hope for a photo of a modern TP, because I don't get a visual image from your sentence.  I bought mine from Herb himself back in the late 80s or early 90s. I happened to be in Herb's house one afternoon, during the period when Tri was visiting him to learn how to build the tonearm. I was there to have Herb re-wire my TP.  In any case, the nonremoveable headshell on my older TP is slotted as per usual.  Then one used either of the two fingerlifts such that it sits atop the headshell with the cartridge bolts extending from below up through the slots and then through the threaded or non-threaded holes in the headshell, depending upon whether the cartridge itself already sports threaded holes.  You almost have to use one of the two fingerlifts to get a nice sturdy mount.

Mijo, you have a CS Port and Safir?

Tomic, I’ve used my TP without and with the fingerlift(s). I use the plural because Herb Papier ( the original inventor here in Wheaton, MD) used to supply two, one with and one without threaded holes. I find the former one to be indispensable for mounting cartridges that don’t have threaded holes. I’m using that one with a Nagaoka MP500 right now. I’ve never heard a difference with vs without the fingerlift, and adding heat shrink would only add mass at the headshell; I think the metal parts would still resonate if in fact I cared to worry. One reason I don’t worry is that the fingerlift is tightly coupled to both the headshell and the cartridge. Thus I think it resonates as part of the net effective mass of the ensemble and only alters the resonant frequency by virtue of the tiny added mass to the whole. But that’s just my way of thinking.

Just for any neophyte to know, there is a school of thought against spring suspensions and especially against the use of a dust cover during play. But you should experiment and decide for yourself. I definitely agree that TT isolation is important but not with springs.

Almost nothing I own and use (other than cartridges and tonearms) is in its OEM form. Therefore, most components have extra holes drilled in them, parts hanging out in various orientations, etc. If they were beautiful to begin with, they are no longer beautiful. Functional only. I could not care less. (Fear not, Raul, I have not messed around with the 3160.)

"Could be wrong, but my point is, I think the reason record-loving audiophiles put so much more attention and money on record players vs carts and phonostages is because there is more to look at."

What? How about because turntables cost much more, for commensurate quality, than either tonearms or cartridges?  That answers the "money" part of your hypothesis.  Whether audiophiles pay more "attention" to turntables than to other components of the vinyl chain is a matter of your opinion. Got some data to back that up?