Sota/Shelter 501mkII - Tonearm Suggestions?


I have a Sota Star/Sapphire table with a Shelter 501mkII cartridge. The tonearm is a Sumiko FT-3. I have about $1500 that I can spend on a new tonearm, and I don't mind buying used.

Of course, I would like the tonearm to sound great, but I would also like something that has a reasonably easy VTA setup.

Can you recommend a tonearm that will match up well with the Sota table and the Shelter 501mkII, that is in my price range?

My other associated equipment is:
XLO Reference Phono Cable
Musical Fidelity XPS-3 Phono Stage
B&W 802D Speakers
Classe CA-M400 MonoblocK amps
dmccombs
The 309 is a great fit with the sota and works nicely with the shelter also.
the arm,it has taken my sapphire,to a new level,better than the zeta i had on there,cheers
Without a doubt,a used Graham 2.2!!...A fabulous arm,and a steal on the used market.

good luck
Thanks for the suggestions. Before the last two suggestions, the comments had leaned towards the Origin or SME. A friend cut me a sweet deal on a Sota Cosmos armboard already cut for an SME, so that swung things to the SME for me.

Last week, I picked up a used SME IV-Vi that was in good shape. I have the arm installed now, and it seems to be a good match with the Sota and Shelter 501.

It takes a couple days to really get the feel of how the arm adjustments work. I think I have it down now and have begun fine tuning.

I can already tell the arm is quiet, and pretty accurate. I like the sound already, but know I need to tweak a little more to get the best sound possible.

This arm/cartridge combo appears to have a resonance frequency of 12 hz. Ideally, this should be between 9-11hz. I used the arm dampening a slight amount to help with this.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

Darrell