How to change effective mass of a SME V.

Dear Clarkie: My advise is that you mount that cartridge and hear it, in this first " step " don't worry about tonearm effective mass, this factor is important but not the only that define the tonearm/cartridge quality level performance.

Btw,I see at your system ( sorry is out of the thread ) and IMHO you can improve in an important way your analog rig performance if you take your AS TT out of those " terrible " own footers. You can see at my system in that same TT, something similar that you can do will help you.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.

Won't that cause tracking problems on the slightest warped
records? What I'm talking about is the stylus shank bending
more having to move the extra mass even though it's balanced
perfectly.Just a thought.

No, the low compliance cartridges REQUIRED more mass to work effectively. Low compliance means that it takes more mass to bend the stylus a given amount. When you have insufficient mass the stylus will not properly follow the groove. Imagine a very stiff shock absorber that is intended for a heavy auto. Put it on a light auto and it will hop from bump to bump. The tracking weight will be the same but if the arm has insufficient mass it will be easily deflected, the more massive arm will absorb a warp [ for example] more easily as it will allow the cantilever to flex to accommodate it. So the more massive arm works better precisely because it allows the cantilever to move more, the lighter arm will allow the arm to move rather than the cantilever.

I always learn something new here.No dealer ever brought this
to my attention either.I remember how popular the B&O linear
tracking turntables were.I didn't like their cartridge stylus
combination.They had aftermarket mods to use your own cartridge. I figured the arm was to light and would resonate too much.I guess I had some sense,but not the proper knowledge about it. Thanks for setting me straight.

It's complicated enough, during the "Compliance races" of the 70s some cartridges had such a high compliance that they would have worked best with an arm of NEGATIVE mass. If you had ever seen a Transcripters Vestigial arm you would not have believed it, held together with thread. High rigidity was out of the question. The Technics linear tracking tables worked quite well, linear arms cam be very good but expensive to implement well at the highest level.