My advice would be to buy what you really want, pay the money and if you are not satisfied with the investment sell it on, at least you’ll put your mind at rest. Or, you may make the mistake of buying something else (cheaper) now only to bite the bullet later and have to pay even more for an SME arm in years to come. In the meantime you can sit back, enjoy the music and have the satisfaction of using something a little bit special.
#VINTAGE SME TONEARM INSTALATION SERIES#
You may think £300 is a lot of money for a second hand SME Series II but if you look after it you’ll get your money back should you wish to sell it. All this stuff has an intrinsic value still to this day. None of this equipment I own has depreciated in value if the prices on eBay are anything to go by, I have a Studer A807, Pioneer TX9500 II, TX9800, Revox B760, Quad FM4, Quad 303, Leak Stereo 20 valve amp driving a pair of Tannoy Cheviots.
I tend to listen to the wireless mostly on my FM tuners, I still use Minidisc (I can hear you all cringe….) CD, and I still listen to vinyl on my 401, custom built plinth with two arms, SME 3009 II Improved – Ortofon VMS20E and a Series III and Shure V15 III. Rarely do we get the opportunity for A and B comparisons because long gone are the huge REW’s and other fully equipped HiFi stores along the Tottenham Court Road where you could listen to A, B, C or D at a flick of a switch.
I have the luxury of not having to worry too much about sound quality these days. Thankfully (every cloud has a silver lining – so they say) due to my age (57) my hearing is no longer as good as it once was, I can still appreciate good sound quality both live and recorded but I don’t kid myself I can discern the subtle differences between this and that unless they are side by side. Me, I'd go for the 3009, but I'd worry about finding a good one. All these things sound fine, though the pundits hated them. I use a Beogram 4000, but cartridges and stylus rebuilds are expensive. Well there are the transcriptors/Mitchell turntables and arms. It may have been different when you could replace your records easily, but I think the days of the strident groove-straighteners have ended. A 3009 with one of the better Shure or Ortofon cartridges fits this role. A gentler player will help them last longer. Records are harder to get and are heritage items, I suppose. But the problematic mass exists right there in the cartridge, the only forces presented to the arm are those of the compliance of the mounting elastomer and the wires. Moving coil cartridges do produce rather a high moving mass value seen at the stylus, and they have a rising HF response which nicely compensates the reduction inHF content of the records played with them. But there has been a resurgence of interest in the 3009 (there were very few 3012 arms around) and they have become sought after, and the price reflects it. Joking aside, the SME fell out of favour with the pundits, and people started chasing Ittoks etc. If you think that the path from the cartridge through the arm, bearings chassis and turntable beating must be as stiff as possible, then you ought to question the use of vinyl for records and look for something stiffer. If you think suspending a cartridge by telepathy, and using its mass for its compliance to work against is a good idea, theSME arms are excellent.
#VINTAGE SME TONEARM INSTALATION FULL#
At this time the trend towards moving coil cartridges was in full swing. Record players started to be built like cutting lathes. Arms had to be stiff, bearings had to have no weakness. The 3009 was the tool of choice, usually armed with a V15. The fixed headshell is inconvenient sometimes but it reduces the effective mass. I think they sound fine, but my ears are perfectly normal ones.
The removable headshell is very convenient but it puts up the effective mass. The real variable is the condition, and there you're in the hands of fate unless you can inspect it first and know what to look for. You probably aren't going to find one for less.
The prices you see on Ebay are what they sell for. The 3009 is a gorgeous piece of engineering.