S888Wheel wrote:

OTOH I think many inovations over the years have improved the sound
from the table/arm/cartridge part of LP playback since the early days
of LPs.

I remember listening to LPs about 4 years after they were introduced. To say
that the sound quality of playback equipment improved since then is a gross
understatement. IMO, the rate of improvement was fairly decent until the
early 70s.

There was then a long dry spell in significant improvements of front-end
quality until CDs came out.