70’s rock pressings. Witch equipment deserve?

I found that about 20% of rock albums in the 70s can be considered quality recordings. I play those on my VPI classic with Lyra Kleos mc cart or zephyr mi cart on moon audio phono preamp. The rest of them I will play on pro-ject TT with ortofon cart and puffin phono preamp. Awesome little gadget to bring up whatever tonality is lacking in poor recordings. The puffin allows me to listen to albums I had given up on.

If I get a cart. w/ shibata, micro ridge, line contact etc and can't adjust for VTA is there still a difference between them and an eliptical/ conical?. Grace 707 arm.

...feed the output to a pair of Crown amps to JBLs'....

Listen to it with what made it sound great 'then'. :)

Absolutely, it’s worth it. Gobs of amazing sounding masterpieces from that era. The MOFI / Nautilus / Half Speed / Direct to Disc / etc pressings aren’t necessary. Heck, I have lot of heavy metal 80’s - 2010’s on vinyl that sounds great! If a system only sounds great on Krall, Barber, Lyn Stanley etc (and I’d be suicidal after an hour of listening to that fare) - then it’s an unbalanced hot mess of a system, regardless of what the price tag and seller says.

There are many great things for you to discover, like how Dire Straits is FAR from the only rock band that sounds excellent on vinyl. 

but I’ve only heard one (a limited edition something or other) with an SME V arm and that will suck the life out of any deck.

Very interesting - that was my exact feeling about this much revered arm. I kept my opinions to myself lest I be outed as a cloth eared cretin. Peerless in some departments, but very boring, as it cannot convey rhythmic information with any conviction.