Especially noteworthy were the Linn Ittok, SME V and IV, the Eminent Technology and the now unfairly forgotten models from Fidelity Research. The most concentrated and obvious progress was then made in the 1980s. A totally new type of tonearm was needed to optimize the potential performance of these new (heavier) pickups. They were on numerous turntables and even phono cartridges were designed around them.Įverything changed once moving-coil cartridges became reliable, and with unprecedented performance (and eventually became universally popular). In the 1960s and 1970s, the original SME models ( 30) were by far the most famous and copied. MuddyWaters, you surely, or shall I say shurely have a great taste : )Īnd like you, I guess, I have always laughed at SME III haters.Tonearms have evolved in build quality, versatility and performance over the last 40 years. It was 1991 and my Hi-Fi world was never the same. And I never looked back.Īnd shortly after went in greater things, let my Hi-Fi specialist replace stock wires with very delicate silver, uninterrupted path from cart pins to RCA plugs and straight to preamp. Moon, turns the tides gently gently away. The arriving UFO from distant space circling across the room to close my face was loud and BIG. It was maestro Hendrix in Electric Ladyland and a cheap Dutch reissue but it opened a window to another, brighter world. SME III + SHURE Ultra 500 + ORACLE DELPHI MKII is a monstrous combination, the midrange especially is so ludicrously transparent that I still vividly remember that über detailed sound and in high register sweetness yet so powerful sound I experienced exactly thirty years ago. Works just fine with lower compliance carts as well, simply add mass on headshell, 2 g or 4 g spacer provided. Large kinda slightly loose yet very tightly coupled & azimuth adjustable headshell, very rigid & very light titanium-nitride arm wand, teak damped wand, fluid damping, ballast weights around pivot, and all those discontinuity points along the resonance path from headshell/wand to wand/bearing which intentionally is not the highest tolerances, it actually acts as damper. The secret lies in damping, quite literally. SME III, the most elegant and beautiful tonearm in the world, and the finest and best looking design they ever did.Īnd the technically finest pivot arm ever created. I just don't understand the hype about SME (and knife-edge bearings). On the modern side there are also so many other tonearms available. On vintage side there are many top class Japanese tonearms that just much more attractive (imo). Not a hater, but SME of any king never was in my wantlist. It’s been a while since i used this cartridge, first time on this arm, love it! Mounted my Joe Grado Signature XTZ MI cartridge on it. My current favorite tonearm for mid or high compliance cartridges is DENON DA-401, the arm is underrated and i was lucky to buy NOS in the box few years ago (the price was sweet). However, the arm is too ugly for my taste, just like those Grado tonearms. Why SME tonearms is definitely not my kind of arms, i remember some users posted about this model many times on audiogon. You have to try Grace F14 or LEVEL II with BR/MR stylus on this arm to forget about Shure forever. There are many great tonearms designed for high compliance cartridges, many of them are underrated today, because high compliance MM/MI cartridges is definitely not a trend of today. This has the feel of an arm that just came out, can’t believe it’s 40 years ago. Get your hands on one and see for your self what a quality arm feels like and sounds like. Worth ever penny and only going to go up in price. There are other classic SME arms from the 80’s that sell in the thousands but these can be had in the $500 range.
#SME TONEARM SPACER MANUALS#
Anyway all the manuals can be downloaded so there is no reason if you come across one you couldn’t get it to sing on your system. Ya the arm has all sorts of adjustments but most of us enjoy messing around with that sort of thing anyway, and every setting makes perfect sense and makes you think why don’t more arms give you that flexibility. The arm only has a moving mass of 5 gms, that is low these days but this combination works fantastic.
#SME TONEARM SPACER SERIES#
I have a Grado Reference Series 2 that weighs 10 gms with a compliance of 20. I’ve been at this for 40 or so years and had my share of gear. I read all sorts of bad comments like its the Red Head of SME’s arms but there were a few that loved it and I’m here to say I’m in the love camp. Not much has been written about this old classic lately but I just acquired one and put it on an Oracle Alexandria.
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