How important is the tonearm?

it's all gimmick. For below $500 each, you can find a table, a tonearm and a cart and enjoy music, spending more than that is just for your ego

And many will tell you the same about buying anything analog. Your value judgment is your own.

I started this tread and I finally bought a new Tri-Planar VII. I considered some more exotic arms like Telea or Reed but decided to go with Tri-Planar, a well respected product made in the USA.

Maybe with more experience in analogue,I will give a try/experience one of those exotic arms in the future.

By the way, I like the sound with this combo: TTWeights Gem Ultra V2/Tri-Planar/Benz Ruby 3. I am sure there is better but for me, this is a bit better than the VPI Scoutmaster I had previously.

Very nice! You'll have a very hard time taking many of those well known 'table makers seriously from here on out.

One nice thing about the Triplanar is you can set up the effective mass of the arm/cartridge system to match a range of cartridge compliances. Beyond the abilities to set the usual adjustments, this feature reduces the need to be picky about the cartridge. I have found that surprisingly inexpensive cartridges, if set up right in this arm, will track with the best of LOMC and sound nearly the same too, **once properly loaded**.

So my take is the arm **can** be a lot more important than the cartridge- so long as the effective mass issues can be satisfied by the combination.