UPGRADE FROM VPI SCOUTMASTER

And of course there’s no reason one cannot mount any arm one prefers on any VPI table if he or she so chooses. I don’t know, I still like my HW-19 Mk.3, and now an Aries 1. Great values used (the only way you can buy them, of course). I anxiously await the next iteration of the Townshend Rock, an Elite Mk.2 version of which remains the center of my LP playing system.

nd of course there’s no reason one cannot mount any arm one prefers on any VPI table if he or she so chooses.

This is why up around this level it pays to start looking at each component and not lump it all into "turntable". I just think in many cases it makes a lot more sense to focus on improving one part at a time. Arm or table, could do either one first, hardly matters which. For most of us that means being able to afford an arm of a level that would be too expensive if included with a turntable. Don't even have to sell the one you replace, keep it and put it back on when its time to sell. At which time between what you saved and what you'll get selling you can afford a really good table. Its more work, takes a little longer, but a whole lot better in the end.

I agree with you millercarbon. At first, it seems daunting, but adding the arm of one's choice to a motor unit is not that difficult when the deck is designed with arm options in mind. 
And Stingreen, once again we disagree. The mis-named second pivot (actually an outrigger on a crude skid plate) does little to push the unipivot to the sound quality level of a top gimbaled arm. I know from first-hand experience. 

My first serious table was a Thorens TD-125 Mk.2, and back then (in the early-mid 70's) no one bought one with the arm Thorens offered for it. I had an SME 3009 Mk.2 Improved mounted on mine, as did many others.

@fsonicsmith You know when a person starts a personal attack on the other it is usually to cover up statements that have no substance.

I have owned an SME tonearm on an ariston and my opinion is that the VPI unipivot betters it or the Ittok or about half a dozen other gimbal arms I have owned.  Again this is my OPINION just as your argument is no more than YOUR opinion.  Give us something besides an opinion.