There is no universe in which that tonearm has 35g effective mass - that would make it the same as known heavyweight Fidelity Research FR64S with its monstrous 20g stock headshell. I think you can safely consider that listing a misprint, and assume this arm will work with most cartridges on the high side of medium compliance (most MM, and higher compliance MC carts).
Is the MoFI UltraDeck wit the MasterTracker cart the best TT solution @ $2,499?
or what are the other TTs that give it a run for that kind of money?
Rega Planar 6 with an Anya MC?
I haven't heard the Ultradeck, but a lot of reviewers speak highly of it.
(Even though there was a thread on Steve Hoffman about an effective mass of the tonearm listed at 35G, and how this would essentially limit the choice of compatible cartridges in the future... a little over my head).
Waiting to make a leap of quality from my heavily modded RP1 with too many miles...
I haven't heard the Ultradeck, but a lot of reviewers speak highly of it.
(Even though there was a thread on Steve Hoffman about an effective mass of the tonearm listed at 35G, and how this would essentially limit the choice of compatible cartridges in the future... a little over my head).
Waiting to make a leap of quality from my heavily modded RP1 with too many miles...
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@mulveling modern arm with 35g effective mass is something very strange, but if you will look at the MoFi MM cartridges specs you will see that compliance is from 8cu to 10cu for all of them, depends on the model. So these guys made some very strange low compliance MM cartridges in 2019 ? And they are not a Japanese brand to list compliance figure at 100Hz, right ? They are American brand, so it must be 10Hz compliance then. Very strange! If their cartridges are low compliance (8cu or 10cu) then a high mass arm is what they are made for, and this is correct. I’m pretty sure their cart and arm must be perfectly matched, so if the compliance of MoFi cartridge is 8cu then the effective mass of their tonearm must be very high! If the MoFi arm is heavy then vintage low compliance MC will be much better on such asm than modern low compliance MM from MoFi. If the mass of their arm is high then this arm is not optimal for most of the MM and MC on the market today. I can’t recall any other low compliance MM cartridge, except for the Denon DL-107 MM from the late 60’s. |
Add me in with the SOTA guys, from the Sapphire model on up they are a phenomenal value - superb build quality and stunning sound quality for the money. Plus you can literally plop it anywhere and not worry about isolation or feedback issues. The new Jelcos look nice, too. You'll have to expand your 2500 budget, however (although used options can get your really close). I started with a SOTA Star in 2007 (it was a Series III from the 1980s, these things run forever) and that’s more than 50% of the reason why I’m a vinyl-first guy for life. Buy into quality up front, and continually thank yourself forever. |
@chakster I agree those compliance numbers are very strange! Something seems fishy about it all; not sure I would trust any of those numbers. There is no reason for an MM to be that low in compliance. I’m sure it’s a nice sounding deck, but definitely I’m in the SOTA camp for value-for-money. And you advocate Technics decks which look very very nice, or other Japanese DD, I’d definitely choose that before an UltraDeck too. |
I emailed MoFi regarding the tonearm. Here was the response:
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