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SME tonearms on a japanese market

Good day! With a plan to add another tonearm to have a backup for my Sumiko tonearm I recently did browse the ebay and realized there is a big selection of SME tonearms mostly 3009 in the range of 400-500$, and even IV and V under 2600$. Is there any polytical connotation in the fact or I just have not been there for a while (which is very true)? I was considering between Jelco and SME but now I am so very positive about the latter. Thanks for the feedback

 

anatoliy
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,820 posts
 

You mentioned Jelco. If you can find a now discontinued Jelco TK-850S (9"),  you  should consider it. Beats the SME in sound quality. 

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anatoliy OP
16 posts
 

@noromance 

Yes, exactly what I was looking at, thank you! The one doubt I have with this model is the knife- edge bearing, may be just because I don't know how this works exactly. Would you say it's an empty concern of mine? :) 

jimmyblues1959
149 posts
 

I bought a Jelco 370 H mid 1980's vintage fluid damped tonearm to install on my 1984 SYSTEMDEK IIX. The 370 H is NOS and ran about $300. They're great tone arms for the money. 

noromance's avatar
noromance
9,820 posts
 

@anatoliy I’ve three TK850 tonearms. 12" and 9". Running them with Decca cartridges with zero issues. The knife edge 850/950 series are a large step up from the others. They replaced three SA 750 Jelcos.

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