New 55,000 Euro tonearm

This might just be out of reach.

So $58,000 for the arm. $75,000-$100,000 for a turntable. $10,000-$15,000 for a cartridge. A few thousand for cables. $10,000-$20,000 for a pre-preamp. A few thousand more for cables.

And I’m still not ready to play a $30 record.

Hmmm.

If you balance a stable balance arm so that it floats horizontally, lift it an inch or two, let go and it will swing up and down until it finds its stable balance point. It will find the same balance point every time. If you do this to a neutral balance arm it will stay exactly where you let go where ever you let go. 

So if a neutral balance arm gets raised by a record warp it never comes down.

Oh, wait, it has a 10 gram cartridge on the end.

And 1-2gm tracking force.

There's no such thing as neutral balance, they all come down.

Which arm do you think tracks warps better? 

How often do you play warped records ?

I thought you had a vacuum Sota - does it not work on warped records ?

I have no problem tracking warped records on any of my arms, including the Naim Aro with its low slung counterweight.

Deciding whether or not to buy the 55,000 Euro SAT CF1-09 tonearm when you buy the 150,000 Euro SAT XD1 turntable....the epitome of First World Problems.

You might be better off finding a forum for Technics 1200 turntables, the epitome of third world problems.

@optimize 

It is good to know that we have a humble expert here that we can lean on without owning and living with a houdini or SAT cf1-09 I presume. 

We have many posters here on audiogon who are experts on products they have never heard.

They usually resort to scientific arguments - but of course they forget that scientific research and discovery should include both theory and practise (testing). I call it the new science, in the old days they would have called it speculation or in Kiwi parlance - a brain fart.

Having researched further the Houdini cartridge decoupler and the principles behind their arm, I learn that their idea is to decouple the cartridge from the arm by securing it to the arm with a non-rigid fixing.

This is just about the most stupid idea ever conceived in the history of recorded sound.  The principle of sound reproduction via LPs is that the stylus is fixed rigidly in the arm which is only allowed movement in lateral and vertical planes, i.e. no twisting or turning.

The reason for this is plain.  If the stylus is allowed to move whilst it is tracing the signal recorded in the groove (other than movement induced by the groove's modulations), distortion will be introduced, i.e. signals other than those recorded in the groove.  Movement of as little as one micron will introduce distortion.

Most reputable designers of tonearms have gone to great lengths to ensure a rigid cartridge fixing and bearings with minimum slack, only for Houdini to magic it all away.

@optimize     non-rigid cartridge fixings also introduce unwanted resonance into the signal.