Comparison of sonic qualities of some tonearms

@pindac Your comments not only accord with my experience of the SME V and IV, but they also fit the official story: the Series V came out first, and had selected parts. The Series IV came out later, and had off the line parts that might not quite match the quality of the V's selected parts. If you are lucky, you might buy a IV that sounds better than a V, but even for average arms of each type the sonic differences will be small. The big advantage of the V is ease of adjustment: a screw adjustment for VTA, and a thumbwheel for VTF. Some would say the damping trough is not an advantage for the V. I own a couple of Rega arms along with a collection of SME arms. I don't think the Regas sound worse, but they are more of a nuisance to set up for VTA and overhang. Having easy adjustments encourages me to get it right, rather than saying 'oh, that's good enough'!

Rega was founded in 1973. The AR tonearm and some SME tonearms, and several other “good” British and Japanese designs were on sale before 1973 and have changed very little since. So I wonder what exactly it is that you think was stolen from Rega. Unless it’s the lack of adjustments. And your favorite tonearm remains a mystery. For me, the Triplanar was a seminal design, a milestone in tonearm development whose many then novel features (VTA tower, offset of the CW, azimuth adjustment, bearing quality) were copied through the years by several companies. But I would not want to get into an argument about who did what or about design in general, when the topic is SQ.

Mijo, you are very consistent in maintaining that a tonearm should have no sound of its own, but what does that mean? Since we can’t know how a TA sounds without a cartridge. And different TAs with different cartridges can sound very different.

So my guess would be that no tonearm has no sound of its own, OR the question is impossible to determine. This is based on my experiences with 5 different tonearms all in use for several years and heard with a myriad combination of cartridges. Limiting the generalization to tonearms that are generally recognized to be of good quality to begin with.

Mijo, you are very consistent in maintaining that a tonearm should have no sound of its own, but what does that mean? Since we can’t know how a TA sounds without a cartridge. And different TAs with different cartridges can sound very different.

Agreed. Or, to put it differently, saying that "a tonearm should have no sound of its own" is in logic terms a tautological contradiction. A tonearm can not be evaluated without a cartridge mounted and playing a record. You now have vibrations going from the record into and onto the cantilever and then into and onto the tonearm. Sympathetic resonances are impossible to eliminate entirely no matter the design, material, and damping.

Vinyl replay is the inverse of loudspeaker transducers. And like loudspeakers, you can go to heroic lengths to eliminate enclosure vibration but the drivers installed in that inert enclosure still vibrate and distort when driven and in the process of doing so the floor and room react to the vibrations as well. This is analogous to what is at play with cartridges and tonearms. You have to face reality and "play the room" by which I mean an ideal tonearm for a given cartridge compliments the cartridge in a euphonic manner.

To put it even more simply, we listen in homes, not laboratories.