Phantom B44 vs The SME V Tone Arm

Raul,great point mentioning the "armboard" in the "mix" with the arm/cartridge!It will definitely influence the performance of the arm/cartridge,aside from the obvious table impact!
I'm willing to bet that most table mfgrs still have not experimented with as many board material composites as they could have.As with cartridges,there lies the possibility of a wide variety of potential "perfect matches",for a specific arm and it has to be tough to for a designer to experiment with all possibilities.I'll bet there is more to come on this subject!
Best!

Dear Sirspeedy: Yes, the arm board makes an audible difference.

I think that the TT manufacturers put on all their " attention " in the TT it self with out any or at least very low interest in how crucial is its own interface with the outside world. Parts of that outside world are the tonearm/cartridge and us and our music priorities.
Some of those manufacturers don't take that responsibility and others, like Rockport and Walker, go beyond that responsibility and take decisions that, in my opinion, are and individual decision of each one of us about which tonearm we prefer: they take " our decision " and put their own tonearm!?!?!?!?!!

I think and I'm sure that in the times to come the TT manufacturers will take seriously that arm board responsibility .

Regards and enjoy the music.
Raul.

All the contributors above have made valid points. However, Maccallan25 asked the original question of how these two arms would differ on the SME 30/2, not in an absolute sense, or on a variety of other turntables. The synergy of cartridge, arm, and table strongly influences this evaluation, as Raul has stated. Yes, Raul, there is no best tonearm in the absolute sense, but given the 30/2, and perhaps a particular cartridge, what would be the better choice. Fremer's review is a good starting point in this discussion.
Pcosta, you have a 30/2. Wally Malewicz has one. I have one also. There are other owners out there who could ring in on this subject.
The synergy of the 30/2 with SME V is quite significant. Yes, the V is not as quickly or completely adjustable as the Phantom. IF a particular cartridge can be set up correctly on the V, if it sounds good on that arm, and if quick cartridge change is not a factor, THEN the synergy of V with 30/2 may be the choice.

So if there is consensus, given a particular TT (in this case the sme 30), that the cart/arm match is more important than the qualities of either by itself, which carts with each of these arms seem, to the ears of the experienced, to be the stellar combinations?