George Merrill modified The AR Turntable with Sumiko Premier MMT tonearm, VTA-16 base, and Premier PIB-1 phono interface box.
[Mods: Merrill acrylic subchassis/tonearm board, upgraded high torque AC motor with Foucault shield, inner platter balanced and lead coated, new spindle, bearings and oil well, new springs. From Merrill/Scillia Research an acrylic platter with a Whitacre copolymer ring available.]
The table is supported by Immedia Finite Elemente/Ceraball isolation feet which sit on a 23 3/4' x 15 3/4' slab of polished Brazilian granite in turn resting on a set of MapleShade IsoBlocks, all on a Target VW1 Pro wall mount turntable shelf.
Denon DL-304 (0.19mV @ 1.2g) & Denon DL-103D (0.28mV @ 1.5g) low output moving coil cartridges in Orsonic AV-1 anti-vibration and Sumiko HS12 headshells; Extremephono stylus cleaner; AuralThrills / VanDenHul D501 cable or PIB-1 w/HomeGrownAudio Super Silvers; 592g SC-101 spindle weight; Disc Doctor and Nagaoka CL-152 vinyl cleaners; Audioquest anti-static brush; Herbie's HAL-O Jr tonearm dampers.
I'm using step up transformers for my low output moving coil cartridges, currently running Cinemag CMQEE-3440As. This also gives me some additional gain over the ~60dB or so the Odyssey Tempest MC stage provides. I find the HomeGrownAudio Super Silvers less veiled but somewhat brighter than the Aural Thrills/VanDenHul phono cable. I also found the Whitacre copolymer ring to take a bit too much of the edge off the treble registers for my liking.