Eminent Technology ET-2 Tonearm Owners

^^^
Well imo, there is nothing funny about a bad ground; whether it is caused by an incorrect connection, and/or a bad connection. The later bad connection (gradually deteriorating) is one of the main reasons boat trailer lights stop working. In and out of the water, many forget to unplug the connection to the vehicle when launching a boat. Everyone with a boat trailer has done it at one time or another.  

This vinyl hobby for those that use different cartridges entails a lot of unplugging, replacing cartridge, and reconnecting. The four leads going to the cartridge is just asking for trouble. Making sure each lead is "tight-on" is important. I make the connections first, then I bolt on the cart. 

I only see one solution (or is it a soulution?): A Lyra Delos in P-mount T4P-norm.
Jonathan, are you listening?
Actually it's not a total joke. I admit that the concept of setting tracking force by standardized brutto P-mount cartridge weight-actual cartridge weight is too restrictive to design high quality cartridges.
But a standardized electrical/mechanical connection eliminates in many cases a few crimp and / or solder contacts. Besides eliminating the hassle of fiddling with cartridge clips and their solder connections, and eliminating the possibility of swapped ground or signal connections. 

Glad you figured it out, VPI.  However, I am perplexed by a couple of things; and not meaning to add to any disappointment 🙃

**** Bruce's color coding doesn't match my VDH. ****

Huh!?  Red/Green, White/Blue; no?   I do know that the Blue on my VDH’s has been unusually dark.  

Seems to me that a tiny bit of hum would be the least of the issues caused by reversing the two ground wires.  Did you hear any other distortions or phase issues?

@frogman My aluminum wand is Red/Black, White/Blue (no green) and the Blue pin on my VDH is very dark blue.  That combined with not paying close enough attention caused reversal.  And, absolutely, the sound quality was substantially degraded.  Not audible distortion except for hum and loss of a black background.  But probably substantial phase issues.  Other than the hum the effect was more subtractive than additive. I think because I couldn't hear the hum over the music I underestimated its intensity and the hash that mis-wiring caused.  But when I corrected the problem it was obvious that a lot of bad stuff had gone away.  Kind of the opposite of a well setup sub where you don't know it's there until you turn it off and hear what is missing.  Now, correctly wired, the VDH has never sounded better.  Gobs of liquidity, black background and nice bloom.

@pegasus Yes, plug in cartridges would be nice for klutzes lime me.

@frogman  Thinking more about your comment regarding phase issues.  I know what reversed plus to minus on one channel does to the sound but I was not sure what I should have noticed when the two grounds are reversed with respect to one another.  I know, in addition to the hum, everything was flat and lacked any meat.  As soon as I switched the ground leads to proper pins the sound became more full, rich and liquid coming from a blacker background.  Not too sweet or bloated just rich.   For example, on a well setup analog front end, playing a well recorded live performance, when I drop the needle I can hear the room before the music starts.  I just hear the air.  With the ground leads reversed that was missing.  Now it's back.