One turntable with two arms, or two turntables with one each - which would you prefer?


Which would you prefer, if budget allowed: one turntable with two tonearms or two turntables with one each? What would your decision criteria be?

And the corollary: one phono preamp with multiple inputs or two phono preamps?

Assume a fixed budget, but for the purposes of this question, the budget is up to the responder. Admittedly for this type of setup, there will be a sizeable investment once all components of the chain are factored in.

I'm curious to hear how people would decide for themselves the answer to this question. Or maybe you've already made this decision - what do you like about your decision or what would you differently next time?

Cheers.

dullgrin

One turntable, one phono stage, a Manley Steelhead and up to three tone arms. How cool would that be! 

Interesting topic! I have a related question for anyone who has mounted more than one arm on a TT. 

 

One of my friends is using a Transrotor TT which is capable of accepting 2 arms. He claims that just mounting a second arm would degrade the sound quality of the first arm. Another friend with a Micro 3000 also claims the weight of the second and third arm would affect the sound quality of the first arm. I am curious of how could that happen, maybe due to the change of weight distribution or the resonance point?

 

Any member has similar experience? 

How about one TT, one tonearm, one cartridge but with two styluses, huh? 
bet you never heard of one cartridge with two stylus, one MM and one MC

LOL!

For a question like this I must defer to Harry S. Truman.

He always said he preferred the one arm approach.

Particularly when speaking with economists.

It avoided the dreaded words "but on the other hand".

I use a VPI with a uni-pivot and two arm wands. Once set up I switch the wand and oly have to adjust the vta.