Great post, Dougdeacon! Very little that I can add; but to further strengthen the point, let's look at the issue of wow or speed stability. One of the biggest strengths of superior turntables is their very good, in some cases almost (and I stress almost) perfect, speed stability; conversely, one of the main problems with lesser quality turtables is their less than adequate speed stability. We tend to think of wow as obvious fluctuations in pitch, but as with most things in audio, by the time the problem becomes obvious, you can rest assured that it's been there to a lesser, but probably no less important degree. Very, very subtle speed instability affects soundstaging, image stability, bass tightness and depth, and pacing. In fact, while I am no engineer, and others might have a more technically rooted explanation, to my ears, the reason that CD playback is often sited a having superior bass performance than vinyl, is that it has absolutely perfect speed stability; the one musicality related area where CD has it all over vinyl. Anyway, the point is that no matter how good or expensive the cartridge is, it can not negate the ill effects of speed instability.
