Why is the price of new tonearms so high

Dampening material coverts the mechanical vibrations into heat. Very effective on just about everything. You wouldn't be able to stand riding in your car without it.
But don't expect to improve your system by putting dampening material everywhere. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Just like too much dampening of your listening room can make your stereo sound lifeless and dull.

Hallo D. , T_bone

>>> Other way of damping a tonearm is heat skrink pipe - large area and good damping. This is an old trick on the SME V (Axel !!) to eliminate its vibration peak towards the bearing (blue-tech works fine too). <<<

Eish, funny, YOU 'FR man' should mention THAT :-)
Let's a take a cart/arm, switch of the phono-pre and then listen running the record.
I don't know the FR from listening (only pics) but any R300, or 9c will happily chirp along to the music that you can easily hear it from the listening place, in fact with the R300 much further.
That is some dead give away about arm resonance (damping?).
Now take a current SME V and ---- you hear NOTHING, until you put your ear VERY close to the arm tube. So, I guess we need no 'socks' with a V then.

Next, still with 'socks', I actually did a test to see what would happen if you 'sock' an arm - the V.
Guess what? The material plastic, rubber, you can now 'hear' as an unusual signature being added to the sound. Amplifiecation at 10 000x has just that effect. (Mess with the arm, and you will hear it)

So, it's that 'effect' that is either to once liking or not, like the ringing of a bell.
Cast iron sound crappy in deed, bronze rather beautiful by comparison.

Last point, where does it go (the resonance?) it dissipates in heat eventually (even without a sock), but arm designers talk of 'sinking' it, and of 'closing of a resonance loop' via arm/mounting/back to main bearing/platter/record/pick-up.
Some maintain, that if this loop is 'disrupted' it will cause 'bad vibrations' i.e. affect the sound negatively.

Could well be the old Romans would object to all this --- thankfully I'm not an arm designer :-)
A.

Hello Axel, adding 2 and 2 does not necessarily adds up to 5.
You should give your own findings and the above description a - long and deep - 2nd thought........
Awaiting your revison.
You'll find out.
Cheers,
D.

Dear Axel: This is the wrap that in other thread I posted that used in the past and think that is the one that JC reffer too: http://www.atma-sphere.com/products/wrap.html

Now if your tonearm or other tonearm needs a wrap IMHO something is wrong with that tonearm or with the tonearm/cartridge combination or even in other link in the audio system chain.

Regards and ejoy the music,
Raul.

Hi,
>>> Now if your tonearm or other tonearm needs a wrap IMHO something is wrong with that tonearm or with the tonearm/cartridge combination or even in other link in the audio system chain. <<<

I agree with Raul. Now Raul thought the FR can do with a wrap as I recall, and D. thinks all other's can do with it, since it is a known fact that the SME V is rather too much damped than to little.

Is that your way to fix the FR issue then?

Got low tire pressure, make the other's tires flat -- problem solved :-)