Has There Been Changes To The SME V Over The Years?

@roxy54 The monies some of the TA are being priced at, It would be very satisfying for the Customer to be knowing the critical parts at movement interfaces, will have the Balls that are in use Highly Polished, and selected as most accurate Spherical is shape, with hopefully a tolerance selected of 0.01mm separating Ball sizes.

A Perfect Circular Race, with perfect dimension between ID to OD, as well as a tightest of tolerance fit to house the Balls.

How about once assembled to be one that has the lowest Co-efficient of friction that can be achieved for all parts assembled 😎 .

Note: A TA as a result of the Method it is used, will at some time in its life be detrimentally affected from Brinelling having occurred. Is Brinelling a condition that is to become perceived as having an influence on the end sound?, or even one that is Audible?

But what do I know, I wont be spending the monies asked by the Big Names for their products in today' market.  

As my got to TA has a brand new bearing design and assembly, Brinelling is something I will not be concerned about for the rest of my years left to enjoy it.

TA's from a Vintage Period, especially ones without too much Quality Controls in place for parts selected for use at the critical movement interfaces at the time of Manufacture, are ones potentially being detrimentally effected through Brinelling having already developed.

Again not the wisest of choice to be putting the most expensive of Cart's onto such a TA, that has not been serviced and had any bearing wear issues addressed.

Add the Vintage TA to the Vintage TT with wear in the Spindles Bearing Housing and having developed a Eccentric Rotation, then Mount the TA from a Vintage Period with Brinelling having developed, along with your $5K Cart', is not looking like the most attractive place for such a Cart' to reside.

It is very very easy to remediate the issues that can manifest through excessive Wear of Critical Moving Part Interfaces, if they are concerning enough to motivate change to be made.  

What’s “brinelling”?

Here is the review by John Borwick when it first came out, from a 1986 Gramophone. and the Hi-Fi News review. What is not often remembered now, is that the Series V came out before the Series IV. They are essentially the same arm (with the V having a damping trough and VTA screw as standard, plus a thumbwheel to adjust VTF instead of the hex-screw used on the IV) but the V is assembled from selected parts with finer tolerances, whereas the IV uses the parts just as they come off the production line.

My question about brunelling was rhetorical, although I did have to look up the definition. My point is that I doubt any tonearm ever is used so often or so roughly as to cause brinelling. If it’s present, it’s probably due to a manufacturing defect. Which doesn’t necessarily conflict with Pindac’s point.