What Does It Take To Surpass A SME V?

@dover , I'm sorry but your take on the situation is wrong. Don't believe me, discuss it with a mechanical engineer.

@pindac , the outright performance of a turntable is not a matter of aesthetics, it is one of sound mechanical engineering understanding the intricacies of life as a vibration measuring device and what it takes to get all the information out of the groove with as little distortion as possible. If you want to add an aesthetic element without hurting performance parameters then it is your money. There are many cool looking turntables because they sell, purchased by people who do not understand these intricacies or are more interested in visually impressing themselves or their friends. Yes, we all enjoy our systems or we would not be doing this. On the other hand there is this endless search for improvement. That is what we are here for, to make our systems better. On the other hand you have the audio business world that desperately wants to sell us things frequently using very shady marketing techniques even outright lying to a public, very few of whom have the education to fully understand what is going on. On top of this we have a very tricky audio processing system tied to out emotions such that our audio preferences have more emotional content then sound engineering content. 

Can turntables with their innards scattered around sound good? Sure, but a properly designed one can sound better. For me the emotion lies in the music, the music system is a science project and to my mind should and can be approached as one. You just have to make it look good enough to get it by your wife:-))

Mijostyn, as far as I can tell, you have not missed one single opportunity to bash the ET2 in the various discussions here; and, by extension, suggest that I (and others) can’t possibly be hearing what we hear. Yet, as far as I can tell, there has not been one single indication from you that you have ever owned one, or even heard one. You seem to base your very strong opinions on theoretical considerations. If I am mistaken about this, please correct me.

I know what I hear and am confident in what I hear. For reasons that I don’t need to get into here, I also have a pretty darn good handle on how close (or not) the sound that I hear gets to the sound of the real thing. My system is not SOTA, but it is more than good enough to let me know that the sound that the ET2 produces is superior to that of the SME5 (and the Graham). That is the basis of the OP’s question. So from that standpoint it’s end of story. Moreover, I have heard both the SME5 and the ET2 in enough other good systems to be able to confirm that what I hear in my own is not the result of, as you suggest:

**** Anyone who thinks these arms sound good has work to do on their system and needs more experience listening to reference systems. ****

I would never suggest that the ET2 is the world’s greatest tonearm. However, there is no question that it is a good sounding arm….at least. Otherwise, neither are the SME, Graham and others that I have owned “good sounding arms”. Really?

You clearly use very lofty standards to judge the quality of sound and that’s great, but those standards seem to me to rely much more on technical and theoretical considerations than anything else. Not my idea of fun (and truth). I suppose that is one of the great things about this hobby. Different approaches with different goals.

Good listening and Happy New Year!

@dover Thanks for your comments! Based on your comments i think its very possible that I've not experienced the arm with the right cartridge. It is true that you only need 2 connections for a balanced line; since this would leave the arm tube ungrounded, you would need a high common mode rejection ratio at the input of the phono section to avoid noise (but any SUT would suffice for that).

@mijostyn using multiple weights is a method of adding some adjustability to any arm with respect to effective mass. The Triplanar uses the same idea but any arm could.

Pindac, Interestingly, when you are angry, at me or anyone else, I find your posts much more comprehendable.  Not that I would deliberately piss you off. So, if you agree that the tonearm pivot and the turntable bearing need to be tightly and rigidly coupled, then why did it make you angry when I said so?  I also allowed that an outboard tonearm pod can be done right by a designer who knows what he is doing and why he is doing it.  Ergo, we seem to agree much more than we disagree.

Mijostyn, Why do you continue to ignore my argument that it can be beneficial for a tonearm to exhibit a higher effective mass in the horizontal plane than in the vertical plane?  You've neither derided it nor acknowledged it.  If you hate the idea, I would like to know why. Some noteworthy tonearms are designed to conform to that paradigm, e.g., the Dynavectors, the Moerch (which you hate for being a unipivot), several vintage Japanese types, and all linear trackers, of course.

@mijostyn your statement " the outright performance of a turntable is not a matter of aesthetics, it is one of sound mechanical engineering understanding the intricacies of life as a vibration measuring device and what it takes to get all the information out of the groove with as little distortion as possible " .

That statement is your obsession, it is your Fantastical Place, it is your Never Never Land.

 I am very relaxed about the whole subject, I don't want what is not available, and I don't want to bludgeon anybody with ideas that are unobtanium.

I have a thought process I use, when it comes to how I like to see a TT and Supporting Ancillaries Set Up. There is a design that I like to see in place and Materials used that will compliment the design.

This as the methodology, used in conjunction with all the flaws to be found in using a Vinyl LP as a Source and the Flaws present in the Mechanical Parts and Interfaces, is sufficient for my needs, I achieve a Successful Replay consistently   .

It is no different to any other individual, who has a TT and Supporting Ancillaries. They have a thought process in place, which is the parameter of choice to be used, there are no concerns to be made known, the outcome is a Successful Replay. 

None of this has to do with aesthetics, it is to do with Interfaces between the Parts required to create a Successful Replay .

I have not got a developed and obsessional prejudice towards any methodology used to create a Successful Replay

My interaction is to encourage others to create their own methodologies, not to poo poo their ideas, or put the idea on the table that a choice made for hard earned monies used to make a purchase, especially one that an individual may have desired to aspire to for a Long Period. The very idea of bluntly suggesting this has been incorrect and not of a value is not my remit. 

A Turntable with any method of creating a Interface between Supporting  Ancillaries that considers the Critical Geometries and Dimensions between the interfacing parts, is going to Successfully Replay a LP Album.

In all the time I have discussed this variance in ideas for interfacing the Ancillary Parts to the TT. There has never been the suggestion that the different methodologies are going to be the ruination of the Replay.

@mijostyn The statements being made by yourself are not ones I am willing to hold as the only way, I create measures to have a influence on a replay that satisfy myself. There is more than one road to Rome, when it comes to how a Vinyl LP is able to be thoroughly enjoyed as a Replay of a recorded material, I welcome each to share their experience and certainly won't be poo pooing all over it when shared.