Not many review have measurements, Here is one of a cartridge that I have it's big brother. Best case THD is well under 1%, worst case is 2 or 3%. Average distortion during playback of normal music is probably somewhere in the middle. Whatever, sounds good to me.VM540If you look at the only cartridge reviews I know of that include distortion measurement cartridges only have 1% distortion on a mono signal in the mid band.
Magnetic tape does deteriorate over time, all of it, there are differences between manufacturers but "can deteriorate" is optimistic!
I bought an LP a week from about 1968 until I got married and money was needed for other things, though I still bought them, just at a slower rate.
I have 4 record players, they all sound different to each other but all are nice in their own way. The type of distortion one gets on both tape recorders and record players tends to be euphonic (except noise and speed fluctuations) even to such an extent that a very popular plug in for my digital recorder emulates tape overload.
I quite agree with you on both how enjoyable listening to LPs can be and also not advising a non-LP owner to depart on the expensive journey of becoming one...
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