In my system, cartridge anomalies, arm resonances, tube warmth, and similar often appear in my system as "bloom" at various frequencies that distorts instrumental timbre. Some listeners like that distortion and call it "musical" or other descriptions that are used to rationalize distortion.+1
I prefer tubes, but have the same concerns.
I find that if the tone arm is able to track the cartridge correctly, then the actual choice of cartridge is far less important. IOW the tone arm/cartridge combination properly set up far overshadows the choice of cartridge. On this account, I've seen some pretty inexpensive cartridges keep up with some really expensive ones effortlessly, all on account of the fact that the tone arm really did its job right.