Wood armwand vs Metal armwand

Wouldn't predictability, consistency and repeatability across a manufacturing process and across the wide gamut of environments it is to be used in make metal a better material?

I suppose one could infuse the wood structure with epoxy to attain this, but then we aren't really talking about wood anymore, rather some plastic composite material.

I'm not arguing that wood is not better, I just don't see how one can predict it's performance given its inherent variability. If you do choose to infuse it with epoxy, why not skip the wood and go with carbon fiber instead?

^^ this.

Geoffkait, Sapphire would be interesting but extremely expensive. Not to mention heavy and very fragile. If you could make a tapered tube from sapphire that was not too heavy, It would probably cost $100k retail. That would be a very expensive experiment if it did not work out.

It all about the sound. I have not found the sound to vary noticeably between different samples of wood armed tonearms of the same model, material, and manufacture. At least of the three I have heard enough to make that statement. Which are the Reed, Durand, and Schroder.

I also do not find the sound to vary from day to day, with my Reed tonearms. When rechecking my settings they are not different either. So at least IME stability is a non issue.

I think too many people pass up wood tonearms because they fear these issues. I can't say all wood tonearms are free of these issues, but the ones I have experience with are.