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No more SME arms!

Rob998 said:
£5k for a Series V, which has been in production for years and they’re not making money on it? Dream on.
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That’s the price once the new owner upped it. For years, the V was sold at a price that other manufacturers wouldn’t have been able to produce at. The build and finish was way ahead. Even arms costing multiples of the SME V price (eg. SAT arms) aren’t up to their production quality standards. Of course, build and finish doesn’t directly correlate with sound quality.

The other factor is that the production methods have changed hugely since the 80s. The design may be old, but it’s not made in the same way anymore.
 
Nagraboy said:
That’s the price once the new owner upped it. For years, the V was sold at a price that other manufacturers wouldn’t have been able to produce at. The build and finish was way ahead. Even arms costing multiples of the SME V price (eg. SAT arms) aren’t up to their production quality standards. Of course, build and finish doesn’t directly correlate with sound quality.
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But that £5k is the baseline price now, not what the Hifi enthusiast previous owner (rip) decided what to charge.

It’s a very mature technology/product with all the manufacturing stuff well sorted and amortised, so there’s no reason a relatively simple, albeit admittedly high quality and close tolerance, item needs to cost that much to sell apart from the dreaded Veblen goods thing.
 
We go on about the quality of SME's, but the finish (paint) is poor. How many are on ebay with lettering rubbed off from poor fitment, my own IV has a rub mark where the arm clip engages. Normal use, not abuse.

My Mission Mechanics (yes, I have 2) are bright and shiny with hard (black chrome?) finish, barely a mark on them.
 
The new owner is a very rich Indian chap IIRC. The hifi brands are just toys. If restricting the arm sales moves a few more turntables the strategy may work. Might then bundle SME with Spendor and Siltech cabling: just need an amp brand....
 
The production process on making sme arms has not changed one jot since the 5 series were introduced. Same castings, same finishing processes, exactly the same parts made in the same way.
 
Rega vs SME : the cheap and cheerful RB300 is incredibly sturdy and its paint has never caused me any trouble.
 
sq225917 said:
The production process on making sme arms has not changed one jot since the 5 series were introduced. Same castings, same finishing processes, exactly the same parts made in the same way.
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There have been some production differences from what I have been told, the arm tubes have changed over the years several times they have updated all the paint booths and the recent finish on the arms look much crisper. Also the way they build the arms have improved if one just peeps through where the arm passes through the bearing one can see a pvc sleeve keeping the cable from moving around. I have several arms myself and hear major improvements over the years.

My main gripe is that it is a rather complex arm with the springs the the VTF adjustment and that bias mechenism is rather complex, while the arm design is much the same there have certainly been improvements.
 
They will only make money on the arms if they actually sell them. The margin may be huge but the overheads of precision tools & skilled labour is probably onerous. I also doubt whether they can actually get the staff in the UK, we still produce engineers but possibly not of the type they need?
 
For me , it’s the sheer ease of adjustment and thought that has gone in to designing that capability on the V. The fact that on other expensive arms like the Ekos, you have to iteratively wiggle the cartridge in the head shell slots, tighten and untighten the bolts and similarly move the arm pillar up and down in the arm collar until you eventually get the right VTA.
 
In fairness the production has been tweaked over the years. I sent my 30 year old series IV to SME for service earlier this year. It received new bearings, lift/lower, revised wiring throughout, new arm tube and bias re-calibrated. The finish on the arm tube is slightly different and doesn't mark in the arm rest as the old one did. Just saying. ;)
 
Wine Man said:
In fairness the production has been tweaked over the years. I sent my 30 year old series IV to SME for service earlier this year. It received new bearings, lift/lower, revised wiring throughout, new arm tube and bias re-calibrated. The finish on the arm tube is slightly different and doesn't mark in the arm rest as the old one did. Just saying. ;)
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Can I ask how much they charged?
 
TheDecameron said:
For me , it’s the sheer ease of adjustment and thought that has gone in to designing that capability on the V. The fact that on other expensive arms like the Ekos, you have to iteratively wiggle the cartridge in the head shell slots, tighten and untighten the bolts and similarly move the arm pillar up and down in the arm collar until you eventually get the right VTA.
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I think the Linn arms are quite archaic in design, not much changed since the 80's the current Ekos SE height adjustment is a bit old school, surely there's a better way to do this,( look at Michell) and those marks the grub screw leaves on the arm pillar on a 4k arm, truly shocking IMO.
 
Decameron.. the service cost just under £700 including postage, I was only without it for 3 days and it came back to me looking like a new arm. I only paid £500 for mine 'lightly used' in the late 80's so in the price context of a new one I thought the service was worth doing.
 
It's a shame, but there are plenty of other good makers out there for now. I guess the new owner's accountants market research team's consultants, simply pointed out that vinyl resurgance is not going to continue, since the huge majority of new music is now sold in digital format. So, Bung the existing stock of arms onto the nexts years line of decks, sell at a profit and let it all die slowly away along with the media it once supported?
Moral, if you have a decent deck, and want it as good as it can be for your children's children, buy the best arm to fit that you can afford now and sit back certain of a lifetime's decent music (oh and I'd buy a couple of cartridges while they remain at 'sensible' prices too). Aurther Gloomy signs off. (Heading for the Graham phantom website via Lyra).
 
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