TT, 12" Tonearm. Who tried and ended up preferring 12" arm?

That's a fair price for a UA-7045 arm and yes likely to show some sag on the rubber.
From my experience unless the arm has never been used then they are ALL going to have some small degree of sag in that area.
The 7045 on my 71 has slightly more sag than the 7082 on the 81 but I have not worried about it one single jot.
And unless you are an absolute perfectionist for every detail I would just dial it in when you get it and see what you think rather than worry about a slight amount of sag.

I was also considering setting up a second arm for mono but not sure yet if I want to or need to start off down that rabbit hole!

Good luck and again congratulations on your purchase of what I am sure you will come to agree is a fabulous vintage DD table!

Thanks, Like a camera purchase, I'm basking in the glow of decision. 

It's better beat my cheapo Audio Technica AT120 with Shure 97xe which I get very involving results from.

Chakster, I owe you a slight apology: The OP did ask about the Victor tonearm, so far as I can tell.
As to the rubber grommet on the UA tonearms, I will accept your statement that the CW starts out level with the arm wand, because I never owned an NOS one, but I still maintain that a few degrees of "sag" is not catastrophic, and there are reasons to believe it is even advisable, as the sag (a few degrees but perceptible) puts the center of mass of the CW in the same plane as the surface of the LP. Many modern tonearm designs (like your and my beloved Reed tonearms and like my Triplanar) do this deliberately, as it minimizes the change in VTF that occurs as the cartridge tracks a warped LP. Further, the grommet decouples the CW from the arm wand with the pivot in between, which is beneficial also. The later versions of the Triplanar also deliberately decouple the CW using a flexible joint, albeit a stiffer one than the one on the UA tonearms. We’ve had this discussion at least half a dozen times.


If Victor designers really thought it was imperative to have the CW sit in a straight line with the arm wand, do you think they would have incorporated that flexible grommet, which inevitably permits sag, in the first place? I don’t. So, the photo you showed of the tonearm that is to be purchased by the OP looks perfectly OK to me. The sag is minimal, and I wouldn’t touch it. Elliot, my advice is leave it alone. Enjoy.

Just a final comment on the droop seen on many 7082 and 7045 arms.
The only way I believe you will ever see one of these with zero droop is from a nos example that has lived in its sealed box all of its life.
Many reasons for the droop to exist on used examples.

Reaction of the rubber to chemicals present in the environment and natural degrading of the rubber over time, these arms are 30 to 40 years old.
Once a counter weight is mounted then the laws of nature and gravity will take over and again if have been in use for 30 to 40 years.…..
One possible reason for some arms showing more droop than others could be the weight of the cartridge used, a heavier cart will mean the counterweight was mounted further back to balance the arm and vice versa.

All of these factors explain just why most of these arms show some droop to one degree or another and why the amount of droop may differ.

My 7045 has more droop than my 7082, could be any of the above including maybe it was a nos example not used for many years. Who knows unless you personally owned them from new.

Certainly we should NOT be describing these used examples as "defective" as some have done as they clearly are not so.

Now common sense rules and if you see a droop of 45 degrees or more then yes I would be concerned but a couple degrees from level?

Just my take on the arm situation.

Elliot, the poly table Super 12 with a 12" Jelco arm is a great choice as long as you are using a fairly low compliance cartridge certainly less than 15 um/mN. Something like an Ortofon 2M Black will suffer greatly in that arm. The are a lot of MC cartridges below 15 and Sound Smith makes cartridges with very low compliance just for arms like this.