Hi Ed,
When you get into high-mass unsuspended turntables, the arm compatibility is reduced to a non-issue - at least from a mass perspective, because there is no resonant tuning to deal with a turntable's suspension.
This reduces the challenge such as it were to the non-trivial task of component matching - canceling colorations and such. The good news is that we're at the top tier of components and so the task becomes both easier and more difficult:
It's easier, because all of the tonearms under consideration control cartridge resonances quite well - to a greater or lesser extent. The interesting thing about this is that you'll discover different cartridges sounding paradoxically both more resolving and yet more alike. The reason for this is that as you mitigate a major source of coloration (resonance), resolution rises, and one major contributor to their sonic signatures is reduced.
Of course, it becomes more difficult as you hear more deeply into the rest of your system ... but that's why we play this crazy game.
The best news to come out of all of this is that as you tame resonances, you'll be listening to more of your record collection and not less.
This is the single most significant reason I see for going to extreme with your analog - to be able to listen to your dumpster RCA Dynagrooves. I regularly pull them out during a demo to show how a good analog rig expands your record collection.
A system that shunts you into playing only your best recordings is a system that is ultimately flawed.
Enjoy!
Thom @ Galibier
