As a student looking to buy a gyrodec SE I too am interested in the answer to this question. Having trawled the net for (far too) many nights it seems that the origin live arm receives brilliant reviews (just go to www.tnt-audio.com brilliant site and theres a pretty in depth review there). Relatively few reviews exist online for the SME 309 tonearm. However A UK hi fi magazine (hi fi news or hi fi choice?) recently reviewed the two tonearms in question. The magazine rated the SME arm as being better than the OL arm in all of the categories, especially in (what i consider to be the most important area) sound - around 72% for the OL and 92% for the 309 if my memory serves me correctly. Good luck with the decision and dont forget to check out TNT audio, quite a few interesting arms that you may find more tempting than the OL or the 309 at similar prices. Let me know what you decide on (hopefully that'll help me decide too!)
OL Silver vs SME 309
If you had a choise of these two arms for the same price, which would you opt for to go with a Michell Gyro SE?