Mordante said :
I'm always a bit underwhelmed by SME arms. Never heard their turntables. But IMHO SME arms seem to suck out the live of the music. Over-dampened or something.
Mordante,
That's quite a common perception.
Indeed the SME arm is well damped, something that SME have been renowned for. In fact public opinion tends to be split between those who prefer maximum damping and those who feel SMEs are “over-damped”. One can only please some of the people some of the time. ;^)
The SME V is an outstanding product both sonically and in terms of manufacturing accuracy and ease of setup. It is a true “Super-Arm” but at only half the price of the competition which makes it a “steal”. Best I’ve heard the SME V perform is in the Avid Acutus despite, somewhat perversely, my being an "undamped" enthusiast.
There seems to be a great synergy between these 2 and although, like you, I wouldn’t normally prefer the SME V, I would cheerfully partner it with this table.
One of the great things about SME is that they are a traditional engineering company who make the parts themselves using in-house machine shops. Many others shared this mindset (B&O, Linn etc) and they’d routinely machine parts to an accuracy of half a “thou” (0.0005”). This is a tight tolerance generally reserved for main bearings etc. The Electronics company I worked for had many in-house machine shops around the country who routinely manufactured even the most basic parts to that level of accuracy (that is until someone protested that half the stuff we fabricated didn’t have to be this good and would settle for +/-2 thou!!!)
I'm always a bit underwhelmed by SME arms. Never heard their turntables. But IMHO SME arms seem to suck out the live of the music. Over-dampened or something.
Mordante,
That's quite a common perception.
Indeed the SME arm is well damped, something that SME have been renowned for. In fact public opinion tends to be split between those who prefer maximum damping and those who feel SMEs are “over-damped”. One can only please some of the people some of the time. ;^)
The SME V is an outstanding product both sonically and in terms of manufacturing accuracy and ease of setup. It is a true “Super-Arm” but at only half the price of the competition which makes it a “steal”. Best I’ve heard the SME V perform is in the Avid Acutus despite, somewhat perversely, my being an "undamped" enthusiast.
There seems to be a great synergy between these 2 and although, like you, I wouldn’t normally prefer the SME V, I would cheerfully partner it with this table.
One of the great things about SME is that they are a traditional engineering company who make the parts themselves using in-house machine shops. Many others shared this mindset (B&O, Linn etc) and they’d routinely machine parts to an accuracy of half a “thou” (0.0005”). This is a tight tolerance generally reserved for main bearings etc. The Electronics company I worked for had many in-house machine shops around the country who routinely manufactured even the most basic parts to that level of accuracy (that is until someone protested that half the stuff we fabricated didn’t have to be this good and would settle for +/-2 thou!!!)