Good cartridge match for SME R3012 tone arm?

Any SPU, Miyajima Shilabe, Koetsu, Supex, any heavier bodied, lower compliance cartridge will be a good match. That is a great tonearm -- look into the Analog Tube Audio mods available from Robert in Germany. They are well worth the upgrade.

Riz:

Be interested in hearing how the ATA mods sounded on your SME arm(s).

Researched the Bronze Mod years ago, but passed due to what I read on the WWW.

Riz1, are you saying that this tonearm cannot perform well with other cartridges like the Dynavector XX2 ? Pardon my ignorance, I am a beginner in analogue and incidentally looking at the very same arm.

Dekay, can you please elaborate on what you read about the ATA mods ? I am considering a 3012 with ATA mods actually, hence the question.

Pani:

I read that the Bronze piece added a dry nature to the sound.

At the time I was considering adding it to a 3012R, but ended up selling the arm and staying with my older 3009 non-improved.

This said, I could never hear a difference between the older metal knife edge and the later plastic knife edge models.

Dekay, are you talking about the Bronze bearing or Bronze base plate ?

Pani:

The knife bearing.

Don't recall a base plate being mentioned, though just looked @ the site and checked it out.

I've never listened to any of the parts upgrades, just mentioning what seemed to be a believable review @ the time (which was years ago) and hoping to get more feedback from users.