I have the Graham Phantom. It is the best arm I've ever had. Very adjustable. The SME 5 is a good one. It will be hard to beat, though a Phantom II or the Kuzma would be ones to try. A friend has recently gotten a Kuzma, but I haven't heard it yet. He likes his Kuzma better than the Graham, though I imagine that they would be close.
What Does It Take To Surpass A SME V?
Thinking about the possibility of searching for a new tonearm. The table is a SOTA Cosmos Eclipse. Cartridge currently in use is a Transfiguration Audio Proteus, and it also looks like I will also have an Ortofon Verismo if a diamond replacement occurs without incident.
The V is an early generation one but in good condition with no issues. Some folks never thought highly of the arm, others thought it quite capable. So it's a bit decisive.
The replacement has to be 9 to 10.5 inches. I have wondered if Origin Live is worth exploring? Perhaps a generation old Triplanar from the pre owned market?
Any thoughts on what are viable choices?
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Dear @peterayer : You don’t specified under wich analog rig scenario you made your tonearm comparisons. Ideally comparisons must be doing using same TT/cartridge/phono stage, well same audio system.
It’s normal that 3 different tonearms with the same cartridge performs in the reproduced sounds in a different way with different kind of developed distortions/COLOR and is up to each one of us priorities in MUSIC at home but here maybe there are other cartridge surrounded room/systems differences in between. Stand alone the 3012R is the one with more differences between the other two: it’s not a VTF balance design, it use steel build material instead magnesium, bearing is different two using knife/ball and not well damped as the other two. For me the 3012 is the one that develops the higher distortions and nothing wrong with that if it’s what you like but with out any kind of preference bias the 3012 R is the worst one and today not true competitive if what we want is stay truer to the recordings.
R.
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Raúl, I compared the SMEV – 12 to the SME 3012R both on the SME model 30/12 turntable over a period of about a month. I built a standalone arm pod so I could have both Tonearms on the same turntable. I could not use the vintage tonearm on the modern turntable so I switched the modern tonearm onto the arm pod and I compared both arms on the same arm pod with the same cartridge on the same turn table under the same conditions in the same system. to me the SME V tonearm is over damped and colored sounding. The vintage 3012R sounds much more natural in my system. |
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