I could very well be corrected here, but my understanding of 'end of side distortion' is to do with the arc that the cartridge follows when on a pivoted arm, whereby the stylus can at some point be at a less than ideal angle to the groove. Apparently this effect is lessened when using a 12" arm, but I recently read somewhere that other undesirable things can happen with those arms. I imagine linear trackers overcome the issues.
Another concern is the cost of cartridges/styli. My current cartridge set me back about £300 or so, and that's as much as I'm prepared to spend. The thought that using a £1000 cart might mean that playing records could cost about 50p per side is a worry I don't want to take on.
Is vinyl worth all the faff? Probably not. But it's what I grew up with, and I won't be abandoning the format completely. Even though most of my music purchases these days is CD.
I really can't argue with Macca's logic - he might have spent big on his CD transport, but it's not much more than a couple of decent MC carts.
I just dropped in, to see what condition my condition was in
T/T: Inspire Monarch, X200 tonearm, Ortofon Quintet Blue. Phono: Project Tube Box CD: Marantz CD6006 (UK Edition); Amp: Musical Fidelity A5 Integrated.
Speakers: Zu Omen Def, REL T9i subwoofer. Cables: Atlas Equator interconnects, Atlas Hyper 3.0 speaker cables
T'other system:
Echo Dot, Amptastic Mini One,Arcam A75 integrated, Celestion 5's, BK XLS-200 DF
A/V:
LG 55" OLED, Panasonic Blu Ray, Sony a/v amp, MA Radius speakers, REL Storm sub
Forget the past, it's gone. And don't worry about the future, it doesn't exist. There is only NOW.
KICKSTARTER: ENABLING SCAMMERS SINCE 2009