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How important is the tonearm?

I am presently shopping for a new tonearm for my new turntable. I looked at basic arm like the Jelco (500$) but also at arms like Reed, Graham, Tri-Planar all costing over 4000$.

The turntable is a TTWeights Gem Ultra and the cartridge I have on hand is a brand new Benz Ruby 3.

Here is a couple of questions for the analogue experts.

1. Is the quality of the tonearm important?

2. Is it easy to hear the difference between expensive tonearm (Ex: Graham Phantom) vs a cheaper Jelco (Approx. 500$)?

3. What makes a good arm?

Any comments from analogues expert?
acadie

Showing 1 response by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,088 posts
 
One nice thing about the Triplanar is you can set up the effective mass of the arm/cartridge system to match a range of cartridge compliances. Beyond the abilities to set the usual adjustments, this feature reduces the need to be picky about the cartridge. I have found that surprisingly inexpensive cartridges, if set up right in this arm, will track with the best of LOMC and sound nearly the same too, **once properly loaded**.

So my take is the arm **can** be a lot more important than the cartridge- so long as the effective mass issues can be satisfied by the combination.
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