Sony PUA 7 to re-wire or not

lohanimal@ I found the TB-2000 plinth on yahoo Japan together with a very nice TTS-8000. Allthough quite expensive I thought I had made the deal of my life since the TB-2000 are so rare (rumour says only 150 were ever made). The price of shipping 40 kg. Plinth & Turntable safely to Denmark (together with customs, tax etc) has made me reconsider the whole deal as "Deal of my life" - at least from an economical view ;-)

I have enjoyed another TTS-8000 in the smaller "Resinamic Sound" plinth for a about a year, which has convinced me that TTS-8000 will be my final table (comes from Garrard 401 & The Voyd).

The "new" TTS-8000 is now being restored at "good old hifi" in Berlin. They are Vintage Sony experts (and fans) and I don’t want to worry about old caps etc. when the project is finished.

My Helius Omega is great with a Lyra Delos, but not as good with my other cart (Benz Ruby Z). I keep dreaming about upgrading it to a Benz LP-S, and need to find a second tonearm which matches sound- and quality wise.

Having an audio doppelgänger is good - together with all the wise experts in here.

@chakster 

I appreciate that - I correct one thing though - the Sony Ps-x9 had a PUA 9 arm, not the PUA 7 - it's a longer arm.

Mine is without doubt one lifted from another deck and sold to me on the premise that it was a PUA-7. All said and done I'm not losing too much sleep over it because it is one of two arms that are going to go onto my Sony tts 8000 and apart from anything else I am going to experiment with a Townshend Rock 3 trough (made in plastic so it can be cut so as to fit the lip around the TTs 8000 platter - the trough tends to take the arm very much out of the sonic equation and just allows the cartridge to sing.

I appreciate that - I correct one thing though - the Sony Ps-x9 had a PUA 9 arm, not the PUA 7 - it's a longer arm.

Oops, you're right, the PS-X70, 60, 50 turnables. 

Back to our popular mechanics section (with correction and new images):

This is very rare SONY PUA-7 tonearm with original manual and mounting templates. Cartridge alignment method was developed by SONY, so the original template is necessary to set up your cartridge correctly (if you don’t want to use alternative methods). In terms of usability this is the best toneam i’ve ever owned, it has the most precision and very smooth armlift mechanism (always spot on when you up and down it), VTA on the fly and very easy to use antiskating.

After release of the PS-X70 turntable with similar but simplified arm, SONY developed stand alone high-end version of the arm (PUA-7) and it’s a wonderful souding arm! While the simplified/cheaper version was available ONLY with PS-X70, 60, 50 turntables and designed for use with SONY turntables, the brand new PUA-7 was sold as a separate unit only, it was designed for use with almost any turntable from any manufacturer. The original PUA-7 was expensive tonearm, the best toneam SONY ever made along with PUA-9. Not everyone understand it.

To understand what is PUA-7 look at the image in the genuine manual, this is stand alone PUA-7 as it is.

People normally remove simplified version from SONY PS-X70 turntable to sell it as the PUA-7, but the arm is way different from rare and expensive stand alone PUA-7 you see on my pictures. Look at the armlift mechanism and the way it’s attached to the arm base, look at the DIN connector and mounting nut made of bronze, look at the armbase. I hope now you will recognize the original PUA-7. 

The rigidity of the aluminum arm pipe is 8 times higher than conventional version. The PUA-7 has long span vertical bearings and precision radial bearings, high sensitive and low fulcrum. The stand alone PUA-7 is "resonance free" toneam. Parallel copper litz wiring reduces transmission failure due to inter-line capacitance fluctuation. DIN terminal pins and headshell pins are gold-plated. Sony SH-165 shell is made of carbon clad and aluminum. Headshell plug chucking mechanism reduce resonance. I like everything about this particular model. The negineering of PUA-7 is superb, it was made in Japan in the early 80’s. This toneam can be used with wide range of cartridges from lightweight high compliance MM to heavyweight low compliance MC up to 27g with shell (with optional subweight provided by sony). 

 The price difference between the stand alone (rare) PUA-7 and simplified version removed from Sony turnables is HUGE.

I use my PUA-7 as it is, no need for rewire, it’s a high quality arm.
But i use better headshells with it.