10 Commandments of a Vinyl Audiophile

Thou must honor thy cartridge, for it bringeth forth the sound from the sacred groove.
thou must keep the sacred groove clean, and not allow filth upon it.
Thy platter rotation must be steady and true.
Thou must honor the law of RIAA, and keep to it.
This is a decent start anyway...
(8^Q...

Thou shalt not run interconnects next to power cords.

Thou shalt not covet thine others "Hot Stampers" nor spend $ on them

Thou shalt clean thy stylus before EVERY LP side

Thou shalt use a Mint Protractor to align thine cartridge

Thou shalt not love any before thine vinyl

Thou shalt not worship any CD or digital source

Thou ear is better than anyone else and thou knowledge is above question :>)

Keep the record clean has got to be one. If it is clean, the rest gets a lot easier.

There is no "best" of anything. Stop scanning this site for the product of the moment and trust your own ears as to what sounds good.

Audition, audition, audition. Your system synergy is critical.

Buying used cartridges is risky. Believe it or not, not every cartridge for sale has less than 100 hours on it.

Spend a little $ up front to make sure you have the proper tools to set up your TT and have a way to clean the records.

Mono records really do sound better with a mono cartridge.

In the end, it should be about the music. You should be spending more time listening and collecting LP's than worrying about your hardware.