What tonearms are compatible with a Scoutmaster?

Told you Harry wants you in a 10! As he notes on his site and in person, the other mfgrs are getting on the bus with longer arms. SME thinks so much of the 312 they built a new deck around it. Again, your "platform" will serve as budget and ears allow, far into the future. Please disregard the old fashioned/uninformed advice regarding losing your investment.

The 312, of course, is basically one of SME's entry level products (the entire 3 series) and should not be mentioned in the same breath as the tonearms alluded to in my earlier post.

Unless of course one has very little experience which seems to be the case here.

As such it is a bad example and not relevant to this discussion.

Experienced vinylphiles know this; others as you read here simply have no clue.

Madfloyd,
Slow down,

If you have the coin to consider purchasing a suitable arm for a Dynavector XV-1,
I would strongly suggest NOT to put that kind of money into your ScoutMaster.

If you want to stay with VPI, move up the line.

Or give serious consideration to a completely different brand , new or slightly used.

It is not that much of a problem to adjust the VTA on a VPI 9. You can adjust it while the record is being played if you're careful. You do know about that large knurled thumbscrew that the arm is sitting on....Sure the 10.5 is easier and has a gage which permits repeatability, however, if you use your ears, you can do a good job.

The more exotic the stylus, the less forgiving it will be from errors in geometry. The 10.5" arm is a balance between the lowest tracing error of a 12" transcription arm, and the lower mass and tosionaly stiicer, but higher tracing error 9" arms. 50 years ago when the Shibata stylus was first introduced to decode CD-4 quad(!) records it was immediately noticed that alignment was critical and longer length tone arms were more successful at quad and sounded better on stereo. This wasn't considered heretical, it was just high-schools geometry and physics. Nothing since has changed either the math or the laws of physics. Those who argue you must go 'up' in the VPI line clearly do not understand VPI's design philosophy of near infinite upgradeability. VPIs are a system that enables owners to enter affordably and upgrade as your requirements change. Exactly the point at which you are today. There are those that rail against unipivot arms supposed azimuth issues. In cueing, I would agree, but while playing an album, simply not so. I would further counter it is far more beneficial to enjoy the inherent lack of rotational issues and zero chatter of a unipivot arm's ultimate single bearing simplicity than the complexity of four sets of ball bearings in most gimballed arms. As for resonance, few would argue that in structural integrity - stiffness and low resonance - that the VPI 3d printed arm tube is less than state of the art. There are many successful vinyl playback solutions. Few, if any offer better results and better value than VPI. Go for the 10.5 arm. And get back to enjoying the music.