Interface: Cartridge-Preamp or Cart-Tonearm?

It is interesting to read the responses here. Having used various analogue set ups over 30 years or so, from garrard onwards. I have tended to go with the TT manufacture's arm(eg. sme 20+V arm) as it has been very difficult to audition alternative arm/TT combinations. The assumption being the manufacture's gear must be compatible.
Being in the uk I had the usual Linn + naim set up. When I decided to move on from this I had to go to extreme lengths to to REALLY improve on the built-in naim stage.
Turntable and arm improvements have been the most positive means of upgrading for me. No matter how good the phono stage is if the TT and arm are not getting the information to it then it will not give of it's best.
I have found the same with cartrides, the arm is more important. The cartridge will sound better in agood arm, a modest cartride will give better results in an exceptional arm than than the other way round.
Of course it is essential to ensure the cartridge is set up optimally so the arm must accomodate this. In recent years the adjustment of azimuth prooved to be a critical factor for me in addition to the usual VTA and tracking offset.
I now use an oscillascope to help check this.
Experimenting with cartridges I have come to the conclusion there is no one best cartridge, they all have strengths and weaknesses in different areas so I now use two arms to partly cover this. I know looking at the posts above there are plenty of systems with more, I guess for the same reason.

I use a an old phillips dual channel scope - connecting left tape output from pre to one scope channel right to other. I use the tape out as it is a fixed output and bypasses the volume control.
You then need a test record with a constant tone recorded on the left and right channel separately. 1kHz is a common tone to use.
The aim is to get the crosstalk trace to be equal for left and right. This is the trace from the "silent" channel i.e. the output from the channel which has not been recorded, so to speak.
Say you are playing the right track- you will see a nice big sine wave displayed for the right channel and a small "wiggle" for the left and vice versa when playing the left channel track.
On my arm it is possible to rotate the arm tube by very small increments - this clearly becomes visible on the scope screen as the small crosstalk trace increases or decreases accordingly and hence it is possible to equalize the left and right output.
I hope this makes sense it sounds more complicated than it actually is.
Anyway I have found this has improved channel balance, imaging and sound stage. Needless to say the VTA has to be correct as well.
hope this helps

No problem David

Dave