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SME 3009 Series III Haters

Not much has been written about this old classic lately but I just acquired one and put it on an Oracle Alexandria. 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. I’ve been at this for 40 or so years and had my share of gear. I have a Grado Reference Series 2 that weighs 10 gms with a compliance of 20.
The arm only has a moving mass of 5 gms, that is low these days but this combination works fantastic.
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. 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. There are other classic SME arms from the 80’s that sell in the thousands but these can be had in the $500 range. Worth ever penny and only going to go up in price.
Get your hands on one and see for your self what a quality arm feels like and sounds like.
This has the feel of an arm that just came out, can’t believe it’s 40 years ago. My 2 bits worth 😎





128x128muddywaters61
chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
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. You have to try Grace F14 or LEVEL II with BR/MR stylus on this arm to forget about Shure forever.

Why SME tonearms is definitely not my kind of arms, i remember some users posted about this model many times on audiogon. However, the arm is too ugly for my taste, just like those Grado tonearms.

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). Mounted my Joe Grado Signature XTZ MI cartridge on it. It’s been a while since i used this cartridge, first time on this arm, love it!

Not a hater, but SME of any king never was in my wantlist. On vintage side there are many top class Japanese tonearms that just much more attractive (imo). On the modern side there are also so many other tonearms available. I think i will never buy any SME. I just don't understand the hype about SME (and knife-edge bearings). 
muddywaters61's avatar
muddywaters61 OP
41 posts
 
There are several better looking arms out there but for the average audiophile
spending thousands on an arm or even a
turntable is out of the question.  
I don’t think there is anything as good as
this under $500. Simple as that. 
I know a lot of people like the big godly 
chrome weights hanging off the back a
monster arm but I was never a fan. 
I think low weights close to the pivot just
makes sense and I love the look personality. To each his own I guess. 😎
totem395
390 posts
 
I've come across on more than 1 occasion where an owner 
of a series III arm did not care for its sound using the OEM SME cables supplied.
 It turned out they were running a cartridge that did not 
like the factory pre load of 275 uF supplied internally with these
cables.

Another consideration is the 2 different arm geometries 
between the version 1 and 2 arm tubes, if you happened to 
own one of each and switched between the 2 without 
making changes you'd be disappointed with the results.





muddywaters61's avatar
muddywaters61 OP
41 posts
 
Very good point Totem, I had forgotten 
about the stock interconnect that has a
resistor in line for the Sure Cart.
That would really give someone a bad 
impression of this gem. 
My purchase as much as it was New
Old Stock didn’t come with any cables. 
Using the stock Oracle cables. They are
30 years old and the team over at Oracle advised me while doing the arm install that
I could see a big improvement if I changed 
them as well. Jacques said cables have come a long way in 30 years. Don’t need
to spend big $ either. That’s next 😎
br3098
997 posts
 
The only reason to assume that the III should be used with high compliance cartridges is its very low mass
@lewm7  au contraire - compliance matching is dictated by resonance.  Mass is just one factor of a resonance equation.  "Flexi" is another factor (actually several factors, but let's lump them together).  Think of it this way:  if you have a wooden pole 12 feet long that bends and flexes slightly (not necessarily the same in each axis), will adding more weight (not mass) at one or both ends make the pole flex less or more?

The correct answer is more.  Weight added at then fulcrum increases stability while weight added outside of the fulcrum decreases stability; increasingly so the further away from the fulcrum you add the weight.  If you add weight while adding stiffness, or increasing the mass (in this case, weight added proportionally to all the lever) then "flexi" or compliance will reduce.

Who says that science and audio don't have anything to do with each other?

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