What’s your favourite tonearm?
- Thread starter koi
- Start date
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Was it this which preceded Audio Origami's PU7 ? I know that Johnnie used to work on a popular arm before starting A.O. Maybe it was the Helius? Dunno.
Bob McC
Living the life of Riley
They look identical but there are significant differences.
The syrinx arm tube was cigar shaped, the PU7 isn’t.
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
I have, in 26 years of owning turntables with interchangeable tonearm mounts, only ever owned various flavours of the RB250. Admittedly, the one I have had for the last 10 years or so is pretty pimped up with a silver OA rewire and a tecnoweight. I have had my eyes on a Morch for some time, though.
L&N republican
pfm Member
Ittok LV III
Martyn Miles
pfm Member
Mission 774.
Mignun
pfm Member
Classic tonearms that I have loved and find hard to let go: Mission 774 (John Bicht version), Syrinx PU2, Linn Ittok, Alphason Xenon, original Rega RB300, Naim ARO.
The arm I use most right now, may well be the best of them all though - it's the Rega RB2000.
Oh, and for some slightly irrational reason I have an SME IV that I've never taken out of the box. It's a beautiful piece of engineering, with a thoroughness and finish that puts it right at the top of the heap. One day I will put it on a mint classic, full acrylic lid, Michell Gyrodec and just look at it...
The arm I use most right now, may well be the best of them all though - it's the Rega RB2000.
Oh, and for some slightly irrational reason I have an SME IV that I've never taken out of the box. It's a beautiful piece of engineering, with a thoroughness and finish that puts it right at the top of the heap. One day I will put it on a mint classic, full acrylic lid, Michell Gyrodec and just look at it...
Darren
So gentle when he tries to understand.
Lovely selection Miggy.
Wonder how different the RB 2000 and the SME sound?
daytona600
Registered User
Vertere , SAT , Thales , Schroder & Jelco
My first quality separate arm was the Audio Technica AT1005, around 1970ish. I updated to a SME 3009 Mk2 which I had for quite a long time but was disappointed to see it added quite a lot of not-on-the-record output to the cartridge due to headshell and clamp ring resonances.
Next I had the classic LP12, Ittok, Troika for a while and still own a Xerxes with RB300 which I haven't used in a long time, a EMT 938 and a B&O 8002 but I have been using a Goldmund Reference with their T3f parallel tracker as my main turntable for about 25 years now. As and engineer it appeals to me since it addresses all the requirements and compromises needed for a record player better than anything else I am aware of.
The T3f is one of the few arms where the tracking error is very low but the lateral effective mass isn't excessive, it is my favourite, only not seen often and needs expert setup.
OTOH one of the best sounds at a demo I have heard used an Air Tangent arm.
I am sure one of the pivoting headshell "parallel trackers" nowadays should work well.
Generally I consider pivoting arms to be too big a compromise for distortion and am a bit disappointed how few have their bearings at the technically optimum location (though that probably doesn't matter apart from the suspicion that ignoring something as basic as that may mean something else may be misunderstood too).
Next I had the classic LP12, Ittok, Troika for a while and still own a Xerxes with RB300 which I haven't used in a long time, a EMT 938 and a B&O 8002 but I have been using a Goldmund Reference with their T3f parallel tracker as my main turntable for about 25 years now. As and engineer it appeals to me since it addresses all the requirements and compromises needed for a record player better than anything else I am aware of.
The T3f is one of the few arms where the tracking error is very low but the lateral effective mass isn't excessive, it is my favourite, only not seen often and needs expert setup.
OTOH one of the best sounds at a demo I have heard used an Air Tangent arm.
I am sure one of the pivoting headshell "parallel trackers" nowadays should work well.
Generally I consider pivoting arms to be too big a compromise for distortion and am a bit disappointed how few have their bearings at the technically optimum location (though that probably doesn't matter apart from the suspicion that ignoring something as basic as that may mean something else may be misunderstood too).
