Sme arm "Bridge Removal"

Sme10 - I did not hear any of the changes you and others have reported. Frankly, if I did, I would would be more alarmed than pleased. But I'm still very anxious to understand what this "loading" terminology refers to, and hope someone will explain it.

Thanks.

Neil
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The bridge removal was recommended by Roy Gregory in one of the early issues of HiFi+, for all of the reasons mentioned above. I do not believe there was any mention of bearing tensioning, although he did mention that you need to be careful not to overtighten when putting it back on in order to avoid deforming the cradle, thereby affecting the free movement of the bearing. I tried it on my SME IV, but I didn't feel comfortable leaving it that way. Although I "thought" I could hear a difference, my recollection is that it was not great enough to warrant marring the beauty of the arm. On the other hand, that was a long time ago, and some of my components, including my TT, have changed since then. I haven't thought about this in several years -- maybe I'll try it again and report back.

Enjoy!

Neil (no relation to the other Neil)

I have an SME V that I bought used here on a-gon with a wiring "upgrade?" sans head shell clips and the anti skate defeated. I went all the way and took off the bridge and listened this way for seversl years with a variety of carts and pres. Recently I sent it back to SME for a complete rebuild . It was returned to me as a brand new current spec V (bridge in place). The arm has never sounded better and I have no intention of modifying it in any way again. It seems to me if these tweaks were genuine improvements SME would have incorporated them over time into their current spec.

I have to agree with Rccc on this one. I tried it again and, to me, removing the bridge didn't change anything, except the looks of the arm. SME is not the kind of company that would continue to market a product for all of these years without remedying what would have to be characterized as an obvious design flaw (if, in fact, the bridge degraded the sound). That being said, SME have stuck with that van den Hul phono cable for all of these years and, although I think that it is the quietest cable around (perhaps because of its triple point grounding scheme), I have been able to better it in almost every other way with a variety of aftermarket cables, most recently the Harmonic Technology Crystal Silver Phono. I wonder why they have never adressed this cable issue. Is it just a cost thing, or do they really want the arm to sound the way it sounds with the van den Hul MC D501?

I think it really depends on your table. If you need the sound to be more airy then the bridge removal does help. But if that is not what you are looking for, then leave it on. It certainly does look better with the bridge. But there is a difference in sound. I like what I heard but in my system I did not really need the change.