How important is the tonearm?

Scipo said

... most designers try to keep The tonearm's mass has low as possible to avoid unnecessary wear on the grooves.

I do not agree with that statement. What does tonearm mass have to do with tracking force, in and of itself? Tonearm mass is a the main determinant of resonance. Is there a difference in groove wear if the same cartridge was mounted on a Grace 707 at 7g and an Origin Live Silver at 14g, assuming that both were adjusted for 2g or tracking force?

The job of the tonearm is to hold the cartridge in the groove with the grip and determination of The Incredible Hulk while maintaining the finesse of Tinkerbell.

That table deserves either the Triplanar or Graham. My personal preference would be for the Triplanar. TTweights also has the Talea, which is expensive, but will leave you speechless, even with a "lowly" 103r. You should try to hear one even if you have no intention of buying it.

(fill in your own TV voice talking really fast for this last part)
disclaimers: I also sell Taleas, but have no association with TTweights, other than we both sell that arm. I've owned a Graham 2.2 in the past. I currently own and use a Triplanar along with a Talea. I don't have any association with Wheaton or Graham.

Well I'm going to be the odd one out here.
To me it's the cartridge that determines the sound which comes from the vinyl groove.
I've got 8 arms and 16 cartridges and most of those cartridges will sound their best in many of the arms (value from $460 to $10,000).
It's really only if you want one arm to go with many cartridges that the arm cost may (and it's a big may), equate to a more universal application...ie high compliance MM/MI and low compliance MC?

But many of the high-end current high-mass arms do NOT sound well with high compliance MM/MI cartridges.
If you believe that only low compliance MC cartridges qualify for the high-end, you are deluding yourself.

Very. SME, in my opinion makes the best arms, but pricey. However setup support is excellent. Overall I am a fan of VPI, in terms of sound delivered, value and support it is hard to beat. The dealers are very knowledgeable and Harry goes the extra length to support his products. Great efforts are made to integrate the arm,table and cartridge at the factory, providing less hassle that you get with other arms when trying to marry them to other tables. It leaves you more time to enjoy the music, and not be fussy with the gear.

A question worth to think about, there are differences in Design (not every Arm is done perfect), the ability to guide a cartridge, to handle the resonances coming from the cartridge, the quality of the internal cable, the quality of the bearing, the material from the Armtube (wood, composite, Aluminum ...).

The better your System is (has nothing to do with price) the more you will hear the differences. The main problem is the table (and the connected electronics). Most are nothing special in vibration control and based on this, most think, the cartridge or the Arm has to be replaced when they don't "like" something in the listening..
Next is the Phonostage, most can only do 100 Ω because that is easy to design and with such a damping the higher frequencies are dead anyway.

When you have absolutely no idea from anything, go for a Graham Phantom Arm, it is clever made, works with very much cartridges on a superior level and you can concentrate the later upgrade bugs to other objects.