Tonearm ...... Acos Lustre GST-801 ..... Yea/Nay

I have owned that arm, the 801 is a nice arm if functioning properly. The price is about market, but its not complete. There should be a auxiliary ring counterweight that goes around the regular one, needed if you run heavier cartridges. Also the head shell is not stock. 

But its a fine arm with removable head shell. Its far more affordable than a Fidelity Research or SAEC, and of similar quality. However its a medium/high mass depending on what head shell you run. So its compatible with a lot of cartridges, but not high compliance ones. 

But that price is approaching the cost of a new Audiomods too. 

I owned its cheaper brother - the GST-1. It served me faithfully for 20+ years with various mc cartridges. Excellent build quality and ease of set-up/use! I regret selling it!

3 must have moderate priced tonearm for any of us in my opinion.

It took a while to find a NOS, properly working sample of Lustre GST-801 for my collection (with two counterweights and additional ringweight included), previous used sample was ok, but magnetic drive, anti-skating and armlift were all defective, so make sure you’re buyin’ a working sample and pay attention to that! Normally a perfect samples goes for over $1k. If the price is lower there could be some problems, i paid just about $500 for my ex used sample, but i was happy to pay twice for a NOS later on. I’ve been using a very nice Audio Craft headshells with my Lustre. The rigweight is on, look. There must be a huge and superheavy arm stabilizer from beneath. This tonearm originally silver wired. The VTA on the fly is great, the armpipe is stainless steel. It can be used with various cartridges ONLY if you have Lustre unique counterweights (two of them, different weight) and a ring. Finding any parts separately is almost impossible.