importance of phono cartridge

Raul,

I'm curious about your thoughts on the original question. Which do you think would sound better:

a) a $5K cartridge on a $1,600 rig (TT + arm) or,
b) a $5K rig with a $1,600 cartridge?

If these were your only choices, which would you choose and why?

P.S. Thanks for the phono stage ideas. You'll recall I said we've demoed several that outperform ours. They just don't outperform by as much as a TT, arm or cartridge upgrade.

I have a very good idea how much more phono stage performance is available, and it isn't as much as we got from upgrading those other components. That's why we did them first of course. Our new custom power amp was also a bigger sonic improvement than a new phono or line stage. Once step at a time, and one might as well get the most for one's money at each step.

Thanks also for the offer to build us one. I'd enjoy hearing it of course, but I assume it doesn't use tubes, right? To date, no solid state device of any kind that we've heard has been satisfying to our ears and tastes. You are especially bothered by frequency response variations. We are especially bothered by the damage transistors do to smooth waveforms. YMMV as they say.

Raul says cartridge and phonopreamp

DING!!
The bells sounds the begining of round 2...................

Well another factor to consider is the quality of turntable setup.I noticed that when everything is set up just exactly correct with my Wally Tracker alignment mirror the sound just improves so so much on the front end.But with that said the largest and biggest sound improvement in my system is when I upgraded my cartridge from a Grado Silver phono Cartridge $150.00 list to a Grado Ref. Cartridge $1,200.00 list.I also upgraded from my standard tonearm cable that came with my Morch Arm too the Kimber Kable Silver AG Tonearm Cable and did notice improvement but not to the degree of the cartridge upgrade.
My table is a VPI MK3 with Morch UP-4 Arm with internal silver wire installed.I'm very happy within this price range of the results I obtained,But I did hear a Goldmund Reference Table many years ago and this table was something to die for .The sound quality was so realistic in sonic presentattion that it was simply breathtaking.So maybe a Table is where the buck stops,But I'm happy with the results I've obtained in my setup,and if my ears like what I
hear then that is what matters the most to me IMO.

reading this thread makes me believe that the STAND is the most important part of analog playback! Surely if everything said here regarding the turntable as being the platform that supports the arm/cart to do their job, then the stand must be even MORE crucial...

yeah, judy is an anti jmw-9 person