There might be a couple more guys rohit. Will get clarified by evening. In which case afternoon ok?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Some superb records an intriguing sme arm that neither of us could place.
Hi,
The arm on the 401 in the pictures posted by Santosh is the SME 3009 Improved tonearm i.e. it is the fixed headshell version.
Was there another SME arm?
Regards
Rajiv
Hi,
The arm on the 401 in the pictures posted by Santosh is the SME 3009 Improved tonearm i.e. it is the fixed headshell version.
Was there another SME arm?
Regards
Rajiv
There is a huge amount of bollocks talked about arms IMO. Quite spectacular amounts of guff. Especially when it comes to rigidity. The simple fact is that there is no such thing as a rigid arm, i.e. a Zeta, SME V, Ekos etc are not rigid. If they were they wouldnt move as ball-race bearings need some slack as a fact of life. Similarly all materials resonate, all a designer can really influence is the q, the frequency and the amplitude of the resonance. It is all a compromise, and the early SMEs simply choose a different one to the later ones. There is no fixed task for an arm as all cartridges are different, therefore there is no correct approach for arm design. All have their uses from spindly unipiviots through S shaped SMEs, straight Zetas and Mission Mechanics through to huge heavy viscous damped things like Grays or things hanging on a thread like the Well Tempered or Schroeder.
There are two theoretical extremes in arm design, transmitting energy through to the deck to make the (mythical) closed loop and at the other extreme there is decoupling where the opposite is the intention. Neither can ever be a 100% solution as nothing can do either perfectly, i.e. things that aim to decouple still transmit some energy and things that attempt to direct couple always lose some. Its all a compromise. Compromises simply bring choices.
Now onto SME. For a start not all 3009s were created equal, and not all have the same purpose in life. Therefore it is impossible to generalise. A better question is which SME and what do you want to do with it?
The original 3009, Series II and Series II R are good usable arms today and will give very respectable results with many carts today. The 3012 and 3012R are even better. The Series II Improved is a little out of place in the modern world as it is lighter and was designed for high-compliance MM carts and there ain't many (any?) of them around these days, but it can still sound good. The Series III was even lower mass and unsuited to all but a handful of extremely high compliance 70s MM carts, it is of little interest these days other than as an ornament. There just isnt anything new that would suit it it wants something like a Ortofon VMS20 or a Shure V15III.
The real advantage of the early SME 3009, i.e, the MkI and Series II (not Improved) and Series IIR arms is that they can take an Ortofon SPUGT and there are not a lot of arms that can. The beauty of the SMEs in this context is that they have SMEs sliding baseplate so can achieve correct alignment of the SPU whereas arms having a fixed mount can not. I suspect this point alone drives the price as those who know in Japan really like their SPUs.
Some superb records an intriguing sme arm that neither of us could place.
Hi,
Sorry if this is slightly off topic,but I think this is a pretty informative post about SME 3009/12 tonearms.
There is a huge amount of bollocks talked about arms IMO. Quite spectacular amounts of guff. Especially when it comes to rigidity. The simple fact is that there is no such thing as a rigid arm, i.e. a Zeta, SME V, Ekos etc are not rigid. If they were they wouldnt move as ball-race bearings need some slack as a fact of life. Similarly all materials resonate, all a designer can really influence is the q, the frequency and the amplitude of the resonance. It is all a compromise, and the early SMEs simply choose a different one to the later ones. There is no fixed task for an arm as all cartridges are different, therefore there is no correct approach for arm design. All have their uses from spindly unipiviots through S shaped SMEs, straight Zetas and Mission Mechanics through to huge heavy viscous damped things like Grays or things hanging on a thread like the Well Tempered or Schroeder.
There are two theoretical extremes in arm design, transmitting energy through to the deck to make the (mythical) closed loop and at the other extreme there is decoupling where the opposite is the intention. Neither can ever be a 100% solution as nothing can do either perfectly, i.e. things that aim to decouple still transmit some energy and things that attempt to direct couple always lose some. Its all a compromise. Compromises simply bring choices.
Now onto SME. For a start not all 3009s were created equal, and not all have the same purpose in life. Therefore it is impossible to generalise. A better question is which SME and what do you want to do with it?
The original 3009, Series II and Series II R are good usable arms today and will give very respectable results with many carts today. The 3012 and 3012R are even better. The Series II Improved is a little out of place in the modern world as it is lighter and was designed for high-compliance MM carts and there ain't many (any?) of them around these days, but it can still sound good. The Series III was even lower mass and unsuited to all but a handful of extremely high compliance 70s MM carts, it is of little interest these days other than as an ornament. There just isnt anything new that would suit it it wants something like a Ortofon VMS20 or a Shure V15III.
The real advantage of the early SME 3009, i.e, the MkI and Series II (not Improved) and Series IIR arms is that they can take an Ortofon SPUGT and there are not a lot of arms that can. The beauty of the SMEs in this context is that they have SMEs sliding baseplate so can achieve correct alignment of the SPU whereas arms having a fixed mount can not. I suspect this point alone drives the price as those who know in Japan really like their SPUs.
Regards
Rajiv
Honestly, the technicalities go over my head, but I like what I hear, so I'll live with that. Then, Steve, thanks for that tip on the pillar being too high. Have since adjusted it and cursed you every moment I spent doing it till I played back a couple of recs. Then you were blessed and thanked. The tone is much warmer now. The only disconcerting factor (and I'm sure I'll get used to it) is that the stylus takes a shorter time to descend on the LP. But yeah, it's all good.
The LP I popped on was the new Deep Purple-Come Taste The Band (the 2010 remasters) and it sounds really clean. The great part is that there is no feedback that the stylus is picking up, so there is "fidelity".
Psst. When do we hear your rig?