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Honest question about cartridge vs. turntable performance.

I’ve been a vinyl lover for a few years now and I have an ortofon black cartridge setup with an mmf 5.1 turntable with acrylic platter and speed controller. My question to all the vinyl audiophiles out there is this. How much difference does a turntable really make compared to the cartridge? Will I hear a significant difference if I upgraded my turntable and kept the same cartridge? Isn’t the cartridge 90%+ of the sound from a vinyl setup? Thank you guys in advance for an honest discussion on this topic. 
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Showing 2 responses by cakyol

cakyol's avatar
cakyol
940 posts
 
I will make an exaggeration to make the point. 
Which one do you think would sound better:

- a terrible turntable with a terrific cartridge
- a terrific turntable with a terrible cartridge

i think the answer is obvious ....
cakyol's avatar
cakyol
940 posts
 
As long as your turntable has the following figures:

rumble < 75 - 78 db,
wow & flutter as low as possible,
speed stability better than about 1%

and as long as your tonearm effective mass is a good match for your cartridge,
here are the approximate importance of the components:

turntable: 10%
tonearm: 10%
cartridge: 40%
phono amp: 40%

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