10 Inch Tonearms

Even Micheal Fremer says there is very little differrence between a 12'" and a 9" arm in how well they can sound, as long as they are a high quality arm to begin with. Just enjoy what you have, unless it makes you unhappy.

If so, upgrade to whatever strikes your fancy. I consider it more important how well your tonearm/cartridge is set up.

Enjoy, Dan

Why I like10 inch tonearms:
- 10 inch has more eff mass than 9 but still not so much as 12. I can always use heavier headshell if needed.
- bigger distance from spindle compared with 9 inch less vibration etc. Also 10 inch is very easy to transfer as it fits most of turntables.
-  12 makes a problem with closing of lid sometimes. Fiddling/setting if wall is close to turntable can be less convenient with 12 inch.
 

My questioning stems from choosing to use or not to use anti-skate. It seems that setting up a cartridge is as much an art as it is a science. An inch seems like a small adjustment where it pertains to making a mounting plate and installing a tonearm but a lot where it pertains to the cartridge alignment and getting good tracking along with a fluid sonic signature. Looking at an alignment tool, there's little margin of error when aligning the stylus so adding or subtracting an inch to the tonearm may make a difference or maybe not?
I've been modifying this Thorens TD160 Mk1 for some time and have upgraded the overall sound by a noticeable margin. The original TP16 arm is all-right with a mono cartridge but I was wanting to upgrade the cartridge at some point and doing that only makes sense with a better tonearm. I've seen Jelco arms on the used market, some of them 12 inch, some of them 10 inch and some of them 9 inch. It just seems like a good idea to understand what I'm in for if a nice 10 inch arm comes along and opt to take on that project.

bukanona, a salient point, thanks! Lookin around, many 12 inch arms state their strengths when using an Ortofon SPU. More choices just seems like more possibilities. And while I use a silk cloth rather than an acrylic dust cover, a 12 inch arm would just present too much work.

Was talking with Mark Baker about my Sovereign/Enterprise purchase when the subject of arm length came up. Mark said the longer arms offer just a little bit more natural ease and sophistication. Between the table and the arm itself they also add a fair bit of cost. Not so bad when ordering new as if you were to add later, which is why he brought it up.

I said well it seems that if I were to want more performance it would make more sense to step up to the next better arm and get a great big improvement instead. To which he said, "Yes that's right."

The next arm up in my case was a lot more than I was prepared to spend, yet I wasn't about to spend more just to get "a little bit more" ease and sophistication. I know lots of ways to get that without spending that kind of money.