Now I get it...

I re-read what I wrote above, and I realize it's possibly confusing, so kudos to Uber for more or less getting my idea.  Here's a better way to say it:  Over the decades, I have developed some biases regarding record labels.  For example, I don't expect much in the way of top notch SQ from Atlantic jazz LPs.  The sound tends toward the muddy and dull.  Roulette LPs are usually unlistenable, shrill and tinny sounding.  Tragic that much of Sarah Vaughn's ouvre is recorded on Roulette.  I've always also felt that Blue Note is over-rated, sort of like the Atlantic sound with muddy bass, at least sometimes.  In my current set-up, I have 3 cartridges on 3 different tonearms feeding two different systems, on which all those labels are not only tolerable, in some cases I sit there thinking why is this sounding so great?  A fourth tonearm/cartridge combination does not give me such a thrill, although on well recorded LPs it sounds fine enough. In the preceding several months I was running the very same set of 4 cartridges but mated differently to the same 4 tonearms, with much less "magic". My personal oddysey with all this equipment seems to be telling me that one should think of the tonearm and cartridge as a closed system.  If you can find a pairing that interact synergistically there can be a sort of magic that does not necessarily happen if you just mate an "expensive" tonearm with an expensive cartridge, which if done blindly can be very underwhelming.

I have found that beyond the situation in which you now find yourself, there is a promised land where your system can find the "good" parts of a badly recorded LP. (Can't do much about bad musicianship.)  Nowadays there are very few LPs that spur me to call a halt, get out of my chair and change to some other LP, just based on sonic nasties.  But before now, I did go through that period where my system made the bad over-rule the good, but the good sounded great. I can't put my finger on what makes the difference, but it is not that I added a bit of euphonia to the mix.  The right combination of cartridge and tonearm makes a big difference, but it is very difficult to predict what exactly goes with what, except by trial and error, unfortunately.