Why is the price of new tonearms so high

Hi Axel, we certainly do not need another tonearm.
Same with amplifiers, TTs, cartridges, Flat screen TVs, cars, airplanes, ships etc.
Its a matter of passion and to see if the current frontiers are the last.
Its about the entire search for (sonic...) beauty in mankind's world.

As for the different toenarm bearing-concepts and different concepts regarding balance.
Yes, - many ways may lead to Rome - but there is only one Via Appia and only one straight road leading direct to the Forum Romanum.......

The other roads lead to the center of Rome too - but the city-center is/was pretty large...... I want to go straight up to the first step of the capitol stairs and park my 4-horse-chariot there (I do not want to walk - its a fairly long road...) ..... SPQR.

And it will be most entertaining for me to boldly go where no man has gone before...... (...I really miss Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his discussions with Q.....).

Back from outer space to ancient Rome.
The old latin term "optimus" does not name a heterogenous group.
There is only one.

Sorry about that - its not my fault nor did I invent it.
Although I might very well again get some critics to bringing this up again.

Don't take it all too serious...
In humble remote.....
D.

All,
does the world need yet another tonearm, I ask?
Me, - I'm not so sure actually.

Hi you,
all is said since Side 1 in this Thread but let's repeat.
You can try it very easily:
you have SME, go out and buy a Phantom Arm with SME mount and do a comparison.
When you hear no difference: great, you save a lot of money in future
When you hear a difference: great, but for what?
In my experience from the last 10 years when I listened to many Systems and spoke with owners I can say, even in very expensive systems it is possible you can't hear a difference between Arm A and Arm B, Cartridge A or Cartridge B, when the System itself is limited all components are stopped at this limit. You can hear a little change but not the whole.
Most of these owners do a kind of description they read somewhere in a magazine, they stored it in their brain and after some time they reproduce it as a quality fact.
Based on that they sit in front of their Altar and want to spend money. They want to move on. But they don't want to sell their overpriced crap because it has got so many "super reviews" and all others "know" this brand and they are a serious audiophile in public.
When owning everything and knowing that it is more or less the same (stop, they don't know it, when they would know they would make a decision to go a real step ahead) they look for the wonder component, the one which makes the whole Systems 3x better than every Live-Performance.
This wonder unit can't be cheap. It has to be expensive. Wrong. More than expensive.
Limited.
And super expensive. Only that gives the guarantee that all others look up to my lips and this makes the audiophile world running.
We want it to, but we can't afford it. but some day, or in the next life, I will buy a Lyra "Olympos" (or Allaerts or a 50K Koetsu) too and I feel good.
Only this can give the real turn around in reproduction.
Ahem, can I do a pre-order (heheh, I am joking...)?

D. :-)
didn't know you could get THAT romantic.
Very nice, very German too, either shoot them or love them.
Schiller 'Die Raeuber'...

Syntax,
:-) very very well put, not that any audio mag would want to print it though...
But as you mentioned, it would make the audio-word stop turning ---- end of beautiful delicious fantasies, not nice.

There is this funny thing (methinks) that women listen to music, and men like to listen to equipment (sound).

Re.: Phantom, and SME mount --- would almost suggest some synergy, does it?

That optimum "D. arm", more-betta has only 1 set of connections, at the cart - else it will start competing with that Phantom's SEVEN! And so much for signal integrity, or?
No one seems to mention such 'basics' anymore, is that already all part of the common fantasy?

Hi Axel, every time I was in Britain people said to me: you are not german - you are french.
Every time I was in the US people said: you are not german - you're a typical englishman.
Most propably this doesn't make me a typical german - or especially that ??

I am of Cheruskan and Ubian blood and roots and maybe that tells the story about my romantic westphalian mind and the quests for absolute which I can not resist.

But - Syntax said it better and I believe if we close this thread with his last post we can call it round and fullfilled.
Excellent.

Cheers,
D.