SAEC WE 506/30 incoming. Anybody here with any experience with this arm?

@ps68 
I would imagine the small offset in the headshell is irrelevant in that the arm does not have offset bearings like modern arms anyway. The arm is already compromised in that you have an offset cartridge with non offset vertical bearings, which leads to rotational forces on the bearings.

Being a 12" arm the rotational forces exerted by the cartridge that tend to load unequally the knife edge bearings due to the non offset bearings are also probably less of an issue.

A short update on the SAEC 506:

A really good arm, IMO, and built like a tank. It gives every cartridge I have tried on it a very "matter of fact" sound, but with a really formidable bass foundation. Right now I have mounted a Lyra Parnassus dct, and it really sings. Next cartridge up will be an old Kondo Audio Note Io ii.

As I wrote earlier, Stevenson geometry comes naturally to this arm, and all it takes is an infinitesimal twisting of the cartridge to achieve the right geometry.

My biggest problem is an almost total lack of any meaningful information about the arm. I have done extensive searches without finding any information about the effective mass of the 506. Does anybody out there know?

Dear @tkr : The 506-30 was one of the oldest SAEC designs and was designed expressily for radio stations and not for home audio systems and that's why comes with out arm lift. Over the years and due that the market ask for SAEC designed a truly " lovely " stand alone arm lift. When I bougth my tonearm sample I bougth too that arm lift. Time to time appears in ebay and Yahoo Japan.

All the spec numbers in SAEC tonearms but the 8000 ( that I owned too. ) say that the cartridge/tonearm alignment is near Stevenson alignment as many other Japanese tonearms.

The worst of any of the standard alignments but you don't have to follow using it you can align it for Löfgren A or B with the protractor you own. I used with Löfgreen A. It performs good with no problems.

I can't remember the effective mass that I have somewhere.


Regards and enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS,
R.

Dear @rauliruegas :
Thank you very much for your input. The 506/30 sounds quite good right now with a Kondo Audio Note Io ii and Stevenson alignment. It`s eleven PM here in Norway right now. I will try the Löfgren alignment tomorrow.

Regards tkr

tkr,

Good to hear you have and are enjoying the WE506, it certainly is quite a statement on any TT, both visually and of course sonically. It is worth some experimentation of the set up, you may actually prefer the Stevenson alignment after all, my view on tonearm geometry has been 'radicalised' by using a straight arm recently, so no offset, no sideways forces on the stylus tip, and of course no counteracting force (anti skate). Actually, in the arm I am using now there is also no bearing, so by all accounts, it should sound a mess! BUT, no, it is phenomenal, all across the LP side, absolutely no discernible difference in any passage from start to finish, no tracing distortion can be heard.. The arm is the ViV Labs FR9, with Aidas Mammoth Gold Mkii cartridge. So my thoughts would be to not get too hung up on reducing tracing error to the minimum, but to reduce the sideways forces on the cantilever as much as possible, this may bring the best result, and one which I will aim to do with my 506 over the coming month..

Rgds,
Paul