High Performance Low Mass Tone Arm Suggestions Needed

@neonknight seems like you have your tonearm sorted, but it might be if interest to know that Bernd @ Primary Control basically builds each arm to customer spec and may have a low mass option...

@neonknight , I own a Sota Cosmos Eclipse Vacuum. Many of the arms mentioned above will either not fit like the Trilanar or be a disaster like the Moerch. The Triplanar is a fabulous arm. The Moerch is....not good. The Arms that are best suited to the Cosmos by fit and operationally are the SME V, which is now available again, the 4 Point 9, the Origin Live arms and finally the Schroder CB. I chose the CB for several reasons. First and most important to you is that there are three different mass cartridge plates and different sized counterweights. You can adjust the EF of the arm to suite the cartridge. It has the best bearings of any arm I have ever used. It has a fabulous magnetic antiskating mechanism that also serves to dampen the arm. I use a WallySkater to adjust it and it's action is delightfully linear and predictable. It is a neutral balance arm like the TriPlanar which means VTF does not change with elevation. It uses one wire without any intervening contacts cartridge clips to RCAs or XLRs. The wire exits the bottom of the arm's mounting post under the turntable so it does not interfere with the dust cover and looks nice and neat. The only downside is that it does not come with a tonearm rest. Frank Schroder believes they resonate and interfere with the sonic clarity of his arm. With the Sota there is a very simple solution. You make one. If you look at my system page you can see the turntable with my locking tonearm rest attached to the top of the plinth. Trying to work on a cartridge with the tonearm floating about is asking for it. Should you decide to do a Schroder I would be happy to crank you out a rest if you are not up for it.

Before I do anything I decided to see if my Dynavector arm could accommodate the second MC2000 I have that has been retipped. The OEM will play on the arm with a Supex SL2 headshell which is 7.2 grams. I just ordered a Denon PCL5 headshell which weighs 5.6 grams. Perhaps the reduction in mass is significant to work with the retipped MC2000. If not I have another candidate to put the OEM one onto. We will see how it works out. 

@neonknight  : I owned this Audio Technica tonearm and is with extremely high quality performsnce and came with 2 arm wands: the straigth by default and the other a S shaped removable headshel.

R.

Alternative Dynavectors that work on your SOTA would include DV501, 507, and 507 mkII. Or any tonearm with effective mass less than 12 or so g, based on my experience with the Triplanar. Going from the theoretical optimum of 5g to 10g would only decrease resonant frequency by 20% or so. That’s one reason it works. Another is that one doesn’t know the actual compliance of a representative sample of any particular cartridge, let alone one that may now be 30 years old.

Moerch DP6 is the obvious arm if you want low effective mass - the 9" green dot arm tube is 4.5g effective mass and the red dot arm tube is 7.5g effective mass.

Other tested arm/cartridge combination was and is the MAX-237 with the J removable headshell wand. Exceptional.

R.

JGH liked the cartridge on the Well Tempered arm, which searches showed it as 10 grams. The SME V he used it on and did not like it was 9.5 grams, so it would appear that more than mass was in play and that other characteristics formed his decision. I have it on a Dynavector DV505 with a Supex SL3 head shell and it does indeed work on that arm. However, that tonearm will not fit on a SOTA so, if I want to use one on that table I need an alternative. Also, I have yet to find a measurement for mass of the vestigial arm wand portion of the DV505, so I have no idea what the true mass of the arm I am using it on is. 

I happen to have a second MC2000 that was retyped with a tapered aluminum cantilever, so this one is not stock, but I do have a OEM one to compare it to against. The retyped one does not track as well in the Dynavector as the OEM one does, and the cantilever is not as robust as the OEM one, so it points to the DV505 being just inside the window of usability. Ideally I would like to be able to use the second MC2000 as it sits, and perhaps in the future I will consider it for a boron cantilever as Raul did with one, or see if Ortofon will rebuilt with an equivalent cantilever they use on the Cadenza Bronze. But I got a couple of thousand of hours here I would like to get to use.

I have owned an Acos GST801 and while a nice arm, it is still massy, more of a mid mass arm. Had a Technics EPA250 for awhile, and I would have to find one of those arms with all the auxiliary counterweights, and even then I am not sure it can balance out an 11 gram cartridge. 

Does anyone think a Black Widow is up to the task? I believe Pioneer and Stax made carbon fiber arms that might work. 

“A substantial counterweight “ might wreck your chances for low effective mass unless you mount it close as possible to the pivot. I’ve had good luck with my Dynavector DV505 and my Triplanar and the MC2000. But if you’re religious about matching compliance to effective mass, J Gordon Holt once pointed out you’d need a 5g tonearm with the MC2000. In practice you’ll probably have no problem with any of the above.

Moerch DP6 or Kuzma 4p9 are also options on a Sota.

Moerch DP6 or Kuzma 4p9 are also options on a Sota.

Other tonearm that works very good with that cartridge is the Lustre GST-801 and I know because I mated with one of my 2000 samples.

Btw, the ebay one looks fine but needs a deep clean,.

You could look at Yahoo Japan.

R.

Here one option:

Another one:

said " expired " but not sold, maybe you can be in touch with the seller.

R.

An EPA100 would work, the trick is finding one from a trusted source with good bearings. Certainly a good option though. 

Dear @neonknight  : That cartridge measured compliance was over 35cu, but is your choice.

When was reviewed and measured all its characteristics was mated with the Technics EPA 250 that's and could be mated too with the EPA 100.

As a fact I posted that review and I reffered to the owners of that cartridge, you in between but you decided not post about.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,

R.