Tonearm microphonics

....when I read the title of this thread, my first impression was that the tonearm was acting like a microphone, picking up mutterings during cue up....

The only thing to be concerned about would be if it taps back...in code...;)

Infection wants an arm that won't "tap". It's his sole criterion — he could list twenty different strength and weaknesses of his tonearm, but he doesn't — it "taps", that's it, so needs a new one. His new one will tap too but we'll save that for the sequel.

I'm not losing sleep over this & won't be buying another arm any time soon...more curiosity than concern.
Talking of curiosity, are you a 'masta' at being bi...?

Dear @infection : " if an arm which is tapped is quite dead, is this an indicator of a superior arm thus allowing to hear more of a cartridges characteristic...? "

A tonearm designer takes in count the cartridge needs and he defines the main targets he wants to fulfill in its design where good damping/isolation could be only one of his targets ( or not. ).
A tonearm is a whole characteristics item and each one characteristic enrich the tonearm overall quality performance.

Now, which are your targets?. If one of those targets is to have a dead silence event when tapping a tonearm then is your choice but you have to take in count several parameters as: cartridge characteristics/design, kind of plattform/base where the tonearm is mounted, tonearm internal wire quality, where in the arm wand you are tapping, intensity of that " tapping ", resolution system levels, etc, etc.

Taking in count all those and many other parameters and everything the same YES my choice will be the one with lower tapping sound.
In real playback conditions the tonearm/cartridge combination will not lives with tapping events but a good damped/isolated tonearm always is welcomed and helps to fulfill in better way those cartridge needs that means to mantain distortion levels at minimum through the tonearm design along each link in the system chain.

Btw, @geoffkait maybe that tapping sound could means almost nothing for some of us but I think is something to think about. In the other side, that ideal tonearm/cartridge resonance frequency works during playback when the compliance cartridge is working and interacting with the tonearm effective mass but when in rest status things are different.

Anyway, in that regards the cartridge function as a very sensitive microphone, it is a transducer.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Tapping the tone arm while it as rest will say almost nothing about how it will sound when doing its job. It really is right next door to the address marked 'Red Herring' on Red Herring street.

Dear @atmasphere : I think you have a misunderstood about because that's not the issue and not what the op asks.

Btw, nothing can tell us how any tonearm " will sound doing its job " till we listen it mounted and playing in our audio systems.

regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.