To those with multiple tables/arms/cartridges

Dear Manitunc, This may be the easy way to compare two carts but I have no problem at all to compare two carts after each other on the same tonearm. I have no idea how
'long' our musical memory is but 5 -6 minutes needed to change the carts will not 'disturbe' our memory. That is exactly what I deed today. Comparing Miyabi Standard with the Kiseki Goldspot in my FR-64s. I have a pritty good idea what the differences are.

Henry, OT, but it's your thread and you own a TT101: I have had no problem finding oodles of correct NOS ICs to replace the clock IC in the TT101. I am going to buy several from a vendor in China, in case my TT101 is in need. Bill Thalmann says this is the Achilles heel of the TT101, and he has never been able to find the chip for sale, but I think he limits his search to the USA.

Nandric,
Maybe you can change a cartridge and be ready to listen in 5 or 6 minutes, but I can't. Just taking off and putting on a cartridge takes me more time than that, without setting VTF and alignment. I mean, without your settings being perfect, there isnt much point in comparing. And then you have to actually listen for a while. For me, unless there is a great difference in the sound between the two, it takes me a while to hear the differences, especially when you are dealing with cartridges in the over $1000 range. It is the subtleties that I am listening for, not huge disparities between cartridges.

Dear Thuchan,

In the age of modern computing loading images should be a user friendly one step approach directly from the computer, everything else is somehow like working at stone age.

I couldn't agree with you more.
Instead of all the young Turks spending their time developing mobile Apps for the chance of striking it rich?........if some of them could work out a 1 or 2 button way to upload photos from your computer directly to a site like this Forum......we'd all be better off?

As Thuchan, Manitunc and Nandric have mentioned.......
There are several issues and methods possible for the use of arms to compare various cartridges?
Manitunc correctly states that one turntable fitted with two or more identical arms...is the most valid way to compare different cartridges whilst Nandric points out that using an arm with interchangeable headshells....allows for the same result albeit a few minutes delay for the changing of shells, VTA and VTF.
Thuchan points out the difficulty of changing cartridges on arms with 'fixed' headshells.....and I can identify with him in cursing the Copperhead arm as THE most difficult example of these I have ever experienced.
Having said that.......the Copperhead (and Cobra) arm is also the greatest sounding arm with the widest variety of cartridges (especially MMs) I have ever heard.
So the answer for me and Thuchan.....is to decide on which cartridge to 'weld' onto the Copperhead and Cobra arms....and leave them there for a loooong time :-)

On the face of it.....Manitunc's solution of having 2 identical arms on the one turntable appears ideal, yet one of the vagaries of turntable-based playback, is that different cartridges perform better in different arms.
So hearing differences between cartridges in Manitunc's scenario....may be nothing more than a 'matching' issue?

To avoid some of these issues, I have found just over the last 3 years.......that having many tonearms, most with interchangeable headshells....mounted on two dissimilar (but good) turntables.....allows for a really good evaluation of arm and cartridge differences.

But the salient message that both Manitunc and Nandric posit.....is that the aural memory is simply not good enough to retain the really subtle minutiae of these differences over a time delay of even an hour?
Most of us think we do retain this expertise yet those who have multiple arms and cartridges will be the first to admit that we really don't?