Honest question about cartridge vs. turntable performance.

cakyol
Wow, thanks for verify that that I always suspected. And is my view of it too.
 
That if we ONLY look att the whole TT (=100%) and disregard all other following components downstream.

It is hard to put numbers on things but for illustration and easier understanding.

That cartridge make up for ≈70-80% of the sound quality and ≈20-30% of the sound quality that is left is shared between platter (drive type, plinth, bearing and so on) and tone arm (length, cable, bearing type and so on).

Then we can discuss this and that and adjust 10% up or down. But it is important to make this rather simple to understand.

When all this discussion back and forth and details on drive system or tone arms will just confuse many when we do not know and understand that those types of "rabbit holes discussions" is only, lively discussions on a few % of the sound quality.

Good to have that perspective back of your head when reading this type of threads.

If I were selling like PS audio:
Instead for:

Our Opinion on Component SignificanceComponentPerformance Significance:
23%Turntable
17%Tonearm
5%Cartridge
25%Phono Stage
15%Amplifiers
15%Speakers

As a another example PS Audio should maybe say something like this:

Our Opinion on Component Significance Component Performance Significance:
5%Turntable
5%Tonearm
5%Cartridge
25%Phono Stage (PS Audio sells stellar phono)
25%Amplifiers (PS Audio core business)
35%Speakers (to boost the chance when ps Audio release their long awaited speaker line)

That seems reasonable if looking from the point of what the specific company are offering and selling..

And not from the best sound for the money from a consumer perspective..

As long as your turntable has the following figures:

rumble < 75 - 78 db,
wow & flutter as low as possible,
speed stability better than about 1%

and as long as your tonearm effective mass is a good match for your cartridge,
here are the approximate importance of the components:

turntable: 10%
tonearm: 10%
cartridge: 40%
phono amp: 40%

This ∆∆∆

It is easier to choose and to know what you have if you have numbers on the performance.
Otherwise it is just bla bla bla Words that confuse..

One thing that you can look at is if all types of adjustments parameters are available on the tonearm incorporated on the TT.

When cartridge is ~40% and you can't adjust for example SRA then you leave some performance on the table.. .. especially when you have advanced stylus shapes. (even better is if the TT has SRA on the fly adjustment). Now you can easily argument that a TT should sound better than one that cannot adjust it all.