Your hearing does not matter because your ears are not microphones feeding data to a chip. You are listening to music, presumably for emotional satisfaction, so whatever your listening tells you is better for that, is better for that. So pay attention to what pushes those buttons and go that way, and never waste a moment worrying about what others think. Put on Sinatra- I gotta be me!
I generally feel it is better with turntables to think of them as a whole micro-system of four components- turntable, arm, cartridge, and phono stage. At the budget end or for a first table it is fine to get the whole thing as a package with the phono stage a card in a integrated amp. Once you have something like say a $5k VPI with arm and cart, then from there definitely look for a $5k arm to put on it and not a whole new rig.
But you are in kind of a gray area where it could make good sense either way. You might be better off looking at a whole new table/arm/cart instead of trying to put a really good arm on a very tired old table.
Then again if you clean and lube the bearing and put the whole thing on Townshend Pods or Nobsound springs that tired old table might sound pretty damn fine. You just never know. Which is why my advice is to consider your options, chew on it a while, and see what bubbles up.
I generally feel it is better with turntables to think of them as a whole micro-system of four components- turntable, arm, cartridge, and phono stage. At the budget end or for a first table it is fine to get the whole thing as a package with the phono stage a card in a integrated amp. Once you have something like say a $5k VPI with arm and cart, then from there definitely look for a $5k arm to put on it and not a whole new rig.
But you are in kind of a gray area where it could make good sense either way. You might be better off looking at a whole new table/arm/cart instead of trying to put a really good arm on a very tired old table.
Then again if you clean and lube the bearing and put the whole thing on Townshend Pods or Nobsound springs that tired old table might sound pretty damn fine. You just never know. Which is why my advice is to consider your options, chew on it a while, and see what bubbles up.