What Does It Take To Surpass A SME V?

@whart my experience using the Rockport arm is exactly the same as yours, a bit more complicated to setup, but no problem with lower compliance cartridge once setup ! I also have a set of Airline sitting in the box, which I will setup in the coming months. :)

Have a Happy New Year !

Thank you, @thekong. I had a client who had a Rockport table and we spent the evening listening to his system. I liked that table a lot. I can't remember the cartridge, it was quite a long time ago. Happy to you too!

@neonknight, don’t be too quick to deem your thread “useless”. Putting aside the responses that you feel have strayed too far from your original question, you have received at least half a dozen opinions on arms that others feel “surpass the SME5”. Others have opined that not only is the SME5 a fine arm (I agree), that it is not easily surpassed. So, not sure why you feel there is no value to you in the responses to your thread. Having said all that, and putting aside my own recommendation, a sure fire way to surpass your SME5 and not take a chance on taking a sonic step backwards, is to heed Raul’s recommendation to have your existing arm rewired with AudioNote silver wire (or similar) in a continuous run to your preamp. The elimination of all those solder joints and dissimilar wire in your phono interconnect will most likely be a revelation. It was for me. Good luck.

Perhaps this is a good moment to share a bit of history of how I got here. Back in the late 1990s I decided to do vinyl again, and had good results with an unsuspended high mass table, an early Teres Audio with Eminent Technology II arm. I drifted away from vinyl a number of years and when I came back Teres was no longer available, so I obtained a Galibier Audio Serac and put a 12" Riggle arm on it.

After awhile I had the ability to explore different tables, and I kept the Galibier. I obtained and refreshed a Thorens TD 124 and put another ET II on it, very nice table. I also bought a restored Garrard 401 and put a 12" Project Evolution arm on it.

I sold the idlers to pay for some higher quality speakers, and bought my JBL 4365 with the proceeds. I explored direct drives a bit but was disappointed until I obtained a Technics SP10 MK II. Excellent table. I then bought a Denon D(75 in a VPI plinth with Acos arm. Finally I had a Brinkman Bardo that I put an Audiomods 6 arm on. I also obtained a Well Tempered Reference.

Eventually these tables got sold off. I wanted a reference level table, and when I was a young man the big 4 were Oracle, Linn, VPI, and SOTA. I started to research the SOTA and came to the conclusion that a Cosmos Eclipse was for me. I then sourced a SME V as that was considered one of the finest arms of that time, and I always had a hankering to own one.

I scratched a few other vintage itches there, such as the Koetsu Urushi, the Ortofon MC2000, and MC 3000 II & MC5000, Dynavector, Ikeda 9 Kawami, Shinon Red, and so on.

So this is how I came to owning a SOTA and SME V. I have affirmed that I love the Cosmos, and the MC2000, but the V I am unsure of. I eventually bought a second table. A Scheu Analog Das Laufwerk No 2, which is the company that the original Teres project was inspired by. I enjoy the table and use a pair of Dynavector DV505 arms on it.

So that is the story, and where the SOTA and SME pairing continues or is dissolved remains to be seen. Seems like the 9" Kuzma is a consideration. The Vivid arm is so unusual I am not sure it can be used on this table. Perhaps the V should remain, but I wonder about rewiring it as it is supposed to have a silver sourced wire already. But with the Transfiguration it does sound a bit constrained. Perhaps the Ortofon Verizmo would be different. I even gave consideration to putting the MC2000 on it, but original reviews done by JH reported that this pairing was tried with very unfavorable results. I wonder what makes Origin Live arms a viable consideration, exactly what have they done to raise themselves above the competition, as some of their arms are quite spendy.

Just a combination of my thoughts.

Oh for reference the system is JBL 4365 speakers, a pair of Velodyne HGS 12 subwoofers, Classe Omega monoblock amps, Trinov Amethyst pre-amp, Esoteric E-03 and Grahamm Slee Accession phono stages.

Hi @neonknight , so you are very experienced in vinyl playback!

Some background, I am a relatively early adopter of the SME V, got mine at around 1986 / 87, and paired it with the then current version of the Sota Sapphire with vacuum, a popular combo at the time. 

I am not sure about the vintage of your SME V, but I remember sending mine back to SME at around 2003 / 04 to upgrade the bearing, to ABEC 7 I believe. Not sure if they have done further upgrade to the bearing since then! So if your arm hasn’t got the upgrade, you may want to consider the option.
 

Personally, the SME V doesn’t fit with my preference, and if I have to choose a 9” arm, the Kuzma 4Point9, as mentioned by others, would be my top choice at the moment. However, if it is possible to fit the 4Point11 onto the Sota, I would pick that over the 9” !

Hope this help. Have a Happy New Year