Turntable upgrade recommendations: SME vs AMG vs Technics vs other

@drbond - I've been using a van den Hul One Special for 9+ years and I have been very happy with it. It is medium to high output for an MC - .75 uV but has an excellent, unique stylus that is very long lasting. I use a Sutherland Insight phono stage with a linear power supply that has more than enough gain and several load options. It is extremely quiet. Tubes would be warmer, but I like dynamics, detail and a clean, quiet sound.

This is not as "high end" as some analogue rigs mentioned here but is the best part of my system. I'm of the school that everything is important, but the source is the most important. arm/cart/phono stage at the center of it. At one point I had the RB880 arm on a P5 upgraded from an RB700. That was a huge improvement, probably more than any other change in the analogue part of my system. Phono stage was big also replacing the input that comes with my Plinius integrated amp. The move from the table itself from the P8 to the P8 was not as big as improvement, but I really like the design, dust cover and wiring update,

I am set for now until the stylus wears out and I'll probably get it replaced by van den Hul or they may just swap the cartridge for a brand new identical replacement with a price close to the maintenance cost - that's what I did last time.

Typo - should say move from the P5 to the P8 was not as big an improvement.

Perhaps I miscalculated tonearm effective weight, as I did not take into account the weight of the cartridge. . . is that a simple additive process?  Add the weight of the cartridge to the effective weight of the tonearm to get total effective tonearm weight, in order to determine the best compliance in a cartridge?

If you go the AMG route, I will also strongly recommend isolation with HRS platform or similar.  

Dear @drbond : " Add the weight of the cartridge to the effective weight of the tonearm to get total effective tonearm weight, in order to determine the best compliance in a cartridge? "

You have a misunderstood.because what we want through the know parameters: cartridge compliance and the tonearm effective mass+cartridge weigth+cartridge screws weigth is to know the resonance frequency in between: cartridge/tonearm that should be inside the " ideal " resonance frequency range of 8hz to 12hz.

In the other side the Ortofon Anna Diamond is an " exhausted " design that comes from around 10 years now.

The Verissimo model is the Ortofon " ultimate " design incorporating new cartridge characteristics by the very first time in any Ortofon cartridge and obviously the best of the Ortofon knowledge level and skills.

The cartridge is a departure from the very well regarded Anna where instead of those heavy 16grs. goes to only 9grs and with a healthy compliance of 13cu that will track every LP recorded groove. A very hard to beat cartridge quality performance by any today LOMC cartridge.

As the 223 you don’t need to listen it before buy it, as FM Acoustics is FM Acoustics Ortofon is Ortofon: you can’t go wrong with or with SME TT/tonearm.

Here a resonance frequency calculator:

https://www.vinylengine.com/cartridge_resonance_evaluator.php

You can " see " that the Verissimo/SME is just at the middle of the ideal resonance frequency range: 10hz ! !

R.