Why is the price of new tonearms so high

Hi D.
your 20 set LP reference is an interesting suggestion --- though it seems grounded in trying to get some form of 'perfection' where it can not be gotten.

When my audio-friend has often a hard time to find consensus listening to the same record / same system as I, gives me the idea it can only get more difficult, not less.

Next, a good product will not be 'sunk' just by some divergent listening impression. (They still make and sell SME arms and others, despite some hefty criticisms, that I do not have to repeat, yes?)

If 'perfection' was the goal we could close down every forum and junk every specification, as we know that the ear has it's own ways.

I think your quest for perfection, where there is only so much of an approximation possible, gets into your way more than it helps, in fact you know this too well!
But like a Sheepdog you can't help your nature, and keep chasing the 'bus' :-)

Now, if I want to verify some listening impressions in the forum and find mine either completely contradicted or affirmed, I have learned something!
This in turn can be synthesised into either a new or different understanding, and so on.

If you say: "I have no questions..." then you are done, finished. Yet, we are never to old not to learn something new.

In some other thread I ask for listening impressions of two carts, based on how they sound in my system.
If someone else hears them differently I have two option:
1) tell him that he is wrong! Well I have my prove or?
2) thank him, and go back maybe with his good suggestion and see what I now will find, and I have learned something.

It's all about information acquisition and synthesis, and NOT about refutations, at least in a forum.

Looking for spreading your one and only truth?
Get a soap box, stand on it, preach, make disciples :-)

Axel
PS: The FR is truly a beautifully machined/manufactured tonearm, no idea what it sounds like.
Probably very nice in my system, since my system sux, as I can not hear any difference between dynamic an static VTF either :-)

Micro Seiki MA-505 ~ between $400 and $700 sound very reasonable, and looks VERY well engineered judged by the pic.

On the other end of the scale -I AM SURE-, what can one say about that 'Reed'?
The question came up before, it is NOT dynamically balanced, yes?
see: http://www.goldenageaudio.com.au/For%20sale/reed%20arm/reed%20tonearm.html

Lastly, and currently (new) available also, the Ortofon RS-309D (12") vs. RS-212D (9")?
That VTA again/still rather primitive, spring in pivot-post and one cap-screw. The dynamic weight adjustment seems rather a pain (no scaling) and very fiddly.
Some noted that the static arm is just as good, in particular the RS-309 (12") and the RS-212 static well I won't say, it might be not too fair.

Now, I'm not planning to one tomorrow but like to get some directions - (synthesised :-)
A.

Hi Axel, the proposal with the "common ground" - establishing by a package of records agreed upon - is just a suggestion to a better understanding and maybe a kind of test ground for all.
It is neither to further support my already big enough by all standards ego nor my in the very end futile attempt and quest for perfection.
It is just a plain idea for a common ground - giving each and everyone a firm point to set the lever.
Nothing else.

As for the questions I no longer have ...
I do not ask here and I do not ask Audiophiles.
When questions arose which I can't answer myself in decent time and with my - not universal - knowledge, I turn to a few good engineers and scientist at 3 local scientific institutes - none of them is related with audio in any respect - and get facts and results which are backed by graduated and studied men who are all in research and development.
No opinions, no listening experiences - just scientific results from empirical tests.
I am certainly not too old to learn.
Still learning every day - but not in audio.
Question do come up from time to time, but they are getting fewer and fewer the past years.
Once you are no longer occupied by all too many questions you can use the knowledge and form systems which really reflect the gained knowledge.

One strange thing to watch is, that given this universal source of information - the net - I have noticed that a lot of fairly common analog knowledge from the 1980ies and early 1990ies is no longer common knowledge today.
Lost and forgotten for/and by the majority of todays audiophile community.

You too may have noticed that I have never given any comment about the sound of your system - but you accused me to do so?

All I did say that if you (not personally but universally spoken - thus including myself) do not hear a difference doesn't mean it isn't there.
It implies that the component under review may either be ahead of the rest of the system or that the overall resolution isn't good enough to show its virtues.
Nothing else.
I would never turn to a purple language about others, - something I was confronted with by some posters here the past days.

I neither do need a speakers corner like Hyde Park nor do I have any "truth" (which according to some oldskool philosophers is nothing else but a yet undiscovered lie....) to give - at least not to Audiophiles.

The fact that I did kind of defend an old design of a truely great mind constantly against others and (- in my highly subjective and blinded eyes and deaf ears -) unfair downrate doesn't imply that I am preaching a truth.
You may not like my way nor the fact that I am not always polite and forgiving in my comments.
Thats no problem - just ignore me.
There is enough free space left and right my shoulders.
Virtual and in real life.
I get so much attention in my everyday real life that I can certainly handle that.

Cheers,
D.

Dear perrew, yes, both- the big Jensen as well as the better Lundahls - do outperform the XF-1 in terms of resolution, openess, transients, low level detail and soundstage dimensions to name but a few.
The Cotter is the peer of teh XF-1.
Most important if you do test any old transformer is to make sure the contact are all cleaned and I would always suggest replacing the standard brass RCA plugs with WBT Ag or Eichmann Ag.

Now, let's maybe try do a little 1-set LP check and see what will come of it?

Alison Krauss & Union Station 'so long so wrong'
Who does NOT experience sibilants on side two, last (3rd) cut. And then share your 'hardware', not just your tonearm, or?

This LP is being used on another thread with one contributor trying his truly VERY best, pictures of set-up, audio files, the works, to get it right.
See: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1245595534
It could be anything hardware, including resonances / bad arm/cart match?

So before we go to 20 LPs, how about just 1 LP to get an idea?
The album is newly available and very well recorded otherwise.

Axel