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SME Model 6

It was
If you say so.

What happens if you have both?

It is only my opinion and it was hypothetical.

If I had a £15k tonearm and a nice £150,000 car, it would be because I thought they were worth the expense and not because I wanted to be ostentatious. Others might think I was being ostentatious, but that is only their opinion.
 
Great write up Mik.

I imported a few Reed tonearms about 10 years ago when they started out and found them to be really disappointing sound wise. They looked good from a distance but when you inspected them closely you could see they were not up to the standard that you would get with an SME, a Graham Phantom or a TW tonearm, plus they had a number of design faults. I had several Skype calls with them to address these issues but nothing came of it. I ended up selling them off at a reduced price as I really "hand on heart" couldn't get behind them as they were nowhere near as good as my established references at the time, a Graham Phantom Supreme or a TW 10.5 tonearm. The TW 10.5 totally annihilated both Reeds and the Phantom and I still use one today. I even spoke to Frank Schroder about Reed as he really pioneered the use of wood again in modern tonearm design and he just smiled and mentioned a few technical things as to why the Reeds sounded the way they did. I also had a couple of 12" Ikedas and although nicely made, apart from the sticky bearings, the geometry was never great and these were always a big compromise getting the cartridge correctly aligned. Plus these are only really suited to heavy weight cartridges 20-30 grams in weight. I have only experienced 2 tonearms that I would want to own, or use myself in my own personal system. One is made in Germany and the other in Switzerland. I think you can guess what these are?

Although people often say to me there has never been a better time to buy a top flight turntable and tonearm due to the vinyl resurgence. I am not so sure, as the vinyl resurgence ended for me back in 2010. If you look around today there are a lot of "companies" advertising high end turntables. But do they sound any good and the people designing and building them would they know what was good or bad? I know as I have been designing analogue products and phono stages since most manufacturers decreed the turntable dead and buried back in the late 1980s, so it makes me wonder how some companies can basically bypass 30 years of work and development. I guess with the right marketing you can say anything. Proving it is a little more difficult...

Hi Graham hope you well

I too had problems with early Reeds I just never liked them and said I would never go back, the 5T changed the game as far as reed goes for me I think its a fantastic bit of Kit. I too had problems with IKEDA bearings and geometry it was as if the arm never had enough bend and I had to send arms back. Last year I purchased a arm, I was told they had addressed the problems. The ikeda now aligns perfectly and also does not have sticky bearings. I have now had several with no issues what so ever. The brand new Stainless steel Ikeda tonearm is superb.

I know the tonearms you are talking about I own several if the German one inc the LT and the statement version of the Swiss and certainly have some nice qualities.
 
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That is bizarre! It is pretty clearly missing in the pictures later in the thread. I can only assume it has a far smaller range of travel, just a mm or two, which is all it needs if mounted in exactly the right place. The normal SME mount does have a heck of a lot of movement when really I’ve never seen more than 3mm or so difference in mount to stylus tip.

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Just for clarity here’s a stock M2, this one is actually a 10 rather than a 9, but it clearly shows the classic sliding bedplate. A great arm IMO.
IT's not that odd...as i said upthread, if you're mounting an SME arm on 'any' deck then obvs you need a huge range of adjustment to get a cartridge tracking correctly. It's the deck geometry that will be 'varied'. Modern carts only vary in their mounting hole to stylus tip dimensions by less that 5 mm at a guess, so once SME mount the arm in the 'average' spot on their deck, then they just need a little play to get things spot on. This is not a deck designed for arm tweakers I'd gues, so once the dealer has installed and set up your cart, jobs done.
 
It's just about ok unless you also have a blingy Rolex, in which case I'm afraid you're beyond redemption.
I don’t mind expensive watches, I can see where the money is & they are often very good investments. I don’t wear one myself; nearly bought an Omega for my 40th but couldn’t believe how heavy it was.
 


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