What Does It Take To Surpass A SME V?

I haven’t really made any choices. I had an unexpected opportunity come my way at the end of December. A person bought a new Ortofon Verismo and at the twenty hour mark decided to dust the table and ended up removing the diamond from the cantilever. The cartridge is fine otherwise and is at VAS getting ready to receive a new diamond. Once it gets back it will go on the SOTA for an evaluation, and then we will proceed from there.

I find it interesting that arms get suggested that have dimensions that make it impossible to fit on the SOTA. To be honest, a good portion of the thread is not very applicable.

I have not decided on an arm, I am seriously considering doing it this year. But really do not have a short list of candidates. For the time being the V will stay in place. I spent a lot of money the second half of the year by buying a pair of Classe Omega monoblocks, Trinov Amethyst preamp, and found a nice Ortofon T2000 SUT.

As a curiosity though. Who is refreshing V’s?

I totally agree with Mijostyn about the advice that the tonearm should be tightly coupled to the turntable bearing assembly.  The two should move in unison and never in relation to one another.  However, many persons have built these very heavy, very sturdy outboard arm pods, which when mounted on the same platform/shelf/support structure as the TT itself, apparently can work quite well.  I suspect this works in proportion to the degree to which both turntable and pod are subject to the exact same environmental disturbances and react similarly to such disturbances.  This is not a question of plotting or skullduggery on anyone's part.  It's just good engineering.  Take a look at any well built turntable designed with its own plinth and tonearm; you will find that the designers arranged for the sort of tight coupling to which I refer.  The Rega P10 is light as a feather, figuratively, yet it incorporates a heavy metal girder that links the platter bearing support to the tonearm pivot.

The idea of Rigid Coupling is a Philosophy for the Mechanical Structure.

I refer to this design as a Hard Coupling, if the Material used to create the coupling has a Stable Property. 

There are other philosophies used as Well, that run parallel with he above.

Looking at how TT designs are produced today, there is certainly a deviation from certain philosophies and these are evolving into a Hybrid of the Science used to produce the coupling. A Hard and Soft Coupling are being introduced.

In relation to a Standalone Tonearm Pod, is this not just a Step further from have a Tonearm Mounted on a Sub Chassis and a Bearing Mounted on a Upper Chassis, as seen in TT Designs. 

In relation to a Standalone Tonearm Pod, it is not too much different from a Cantilever Armboard used on many modern TT designs.

It does look like there is a major shift to how modern design interprets some of these Philosophies of yesteryear, even though remaining a useful guide for adopting for use today. I follow the Rigid Coupling it suits me, to suggest it is the only method pretty much questions many TT's seen in use, that are proving to be exceptional for their impression that can be made.

Very soon my own Investigation will have been carried out, it is a interest only, not a witch hunt to prove/disprove which is better. 'If' something is discovered that is standout and attractive, then this is most likely the structure to be aspired to. 

Dear @neonknight  : " A person bought a new Ortofon Verismo and at the twenty hour mark decided to dust the table and ended up removing the diamond from the cantilever. "

My experiences about and from other audiophiles tells me that's almost imposibel to the stylus tip " been removed " from the cantilever with out any damage to the cantilever.

When  the MC2000 started t been in the market some owners claimed to Ortofon because after " 20 hours " the stylus tip just disappeared " and Ortofon took care about and obviously made the change for a new cartridge with no charge to the owners, this happened with the MC5000 but when the Anna came in the market same situation happened and as always Ortooooofon took care about. There are other similar experiences with the Bronze and I experienced other than Ortofon with VDH and one cartridge that came for a re-tipper ( A.Kim. ).

Rigth now to late but the original owner could has the Verissimo changed by Ortofon with the original Replicat 100. Yes some re-tippers say they have it but I know that are Replicant 100 and Ortofon REPLICANT 100.

Good that for a while you will follow with the V tonearm.

R.

@pindac ​​@rsf507 , Just like mass loaded turntables, mass loaded arm pods do not work. Low frequency sound is misleadingly powerful. A cement mixing truck traveling down the street will shake your foundation. Earthquakes are low frequency waves traveling through the earth. As long as everything is shaking in unison you are OK but, if there is any differential the cartridge will pick it up. As the turntable and tonearm pods have different masses and centers of gravity  environmental rumble is going to create that differential. Mass loaded anything is layperson intuition. The best defense against any environmental sound pollution is a tonearm rigidly mounted to the platter's chassis that is suspended with a resonance frequency of 1-3 Hz.  

A tonearm that has a "sound" is defective. The best equipment always sounds "damped" at first as people are use to listening to the euphonic distortions created by all but the very best equipment. Tonality or amplitude response is a moving target and people will prefer frequency response curves based on what they are use to listening to and the vast majority of audiophiles have no idea what they are listening to because they have never measured it. I can tell you exactly what my own preferences are because I have measured it and have the ability to adjust it in 1 Hz increments. But tonality is only one aspect of reproduction. The ability of a system to image is a much more fragile characteristic and is not so easily adjusted. It requires all aspects of reproduction to be correct. The pile up of euphonic distortions and phase aberrations destroy a system's ability to cast a convincing image. When is comes to vinyl playback there are so many ways the illusion can be ruined, extraneous vibration getting to the stylus, pitch aberration coming from speed deviation mostly from warped records, unchecked resonance traveling back and forth in the tonearm (old SMEs are a great example of this). The Kuzma 4 point is not over damped. The SME is underdamped! 

@rauliruegas , I'm not sure what you have against the TriPlanar. On paper it is a fine design if a bit overly complicated. I have played with one and it is well constructed. I have never listed to one in a reference system. There are too many very experienced people that really like it for it to be a bad arm. 

@atmasphere , You and Raul both love music and I hate to see the contentiousness between you. Raul can be very difficult to translate at times and he has a knack for saying things in what seems to us an adversarial way which he truly does not mean. We all have our opinions and can be in this "hobby" if you will for a variety of reasons which can frequently clash. It is why Howard Johnson's made 28 flavors.