Internal Wire Upgrade for SME V


keegiam

Showing 3 responses by frogman

Actually, replacing the wiring of my ET2 arm three times (Cardas, Discovery and lastly AudioNote silver) taught me just how much difference tonearm wire can make. It made significant improvements; especially the AN which resulted in a major improvement in refinement, clarity and speed, all without harshness. Highly recommended! I would however heed Dover’s advise and have the work done by SME themselves and would have it done as Raul suggests, straight, uninterrupted shot from cartridge clips to RCA plugs. Good luck.
**** Ah, the power of suggestion ****

Ah, the power or idiocy and pent up anger. Or, is it just payback?

So, you don’t think that cables can offer significant benefits in sound quality? If you don’t, then please ignore the following. If you do, does it not make sense, never mind what one actually hears, that the first several feet that the cartridge’s very low level signal passes through would be very susceptible to the effects of cabling?

Chakster, of course you’re right. Of course it is “good enough“; that arm’s pedigree is well established. Is it as good as AN or Kondo wire? I don’t know, but if my comparisons to Cardas and Discovery are any indication, the differences are not subtle. So, anyone with an open mind can extrapolate from that. Moreover, we are talking about a couple of different things here. Quality of the wire and its potential upgrade and the opportunity to eliminate at least two plugs and two solder joints from the delicate signal path on its way to the preamp by going “shotgun”. Anyone who hasn’t done or experienced this doesn’t have a clue as to the kind and magnitude of improvement in overall refinement and clarity that are possible by doing this.

I totally understand the concern about possible damage caused by less than expert technicians, but if SME were to do the work as has been suggested, why the staunch resistance by you and others to offering, as the OP requested, impressions based on first hand experience? He can then make up his own mind and make his own decision to go ahead or not. More information usually means a more intelligent decision.

Funny, “good enough” has got to be one of the least used phrases in an audiophile forum 😊