I know a modest amount about hifi, especially the old stuff (nowadays it’s all sample rates and jitter and electronic engineering, of which I know nothing), but I’m not the sort of person who spends hours trying different combinations of tonearm and cartridge, or cabling or other fiddly things. I find something that works that I like, and I use it. Lack of funds puts limits on what I can use.
I have very many lps from the late 1960s onwards. I had a turntable, a Pink Triangle Little Pink Thing, and it sounded great but was so poorly built and was continually breaking down.
I gave up and it went into the trash, it was so unreliable.
So, I had to make a decision. Sell off my lps and replace the ones I could with cds, or get a new turntable. Now, I, like very many people, have an emotional attachment to many of my records. I can tell you when they were bought and why.
So, it was a no brainer. A new turntable was bought…