As an OL Silver owner myself, I may be accused of being biased, but there are several British and American reviews out there that claim the OL Silver is equal or better than the SME V flagship model. I would say that it is safe to conclude from those comments that the OL Silver would be significantly better than one of the lower SME models. The magazine "What HiFi" goes as far as to say "it could be the best tonearm in the world right now". Another reviewer states that it is his "tool" that he uses to evaluate the quality of other top tonearms, to see how close they can come to it. Some accolades given the OL Silver were statements such as "no colorations whatsoever", and "the tonearm design of the decade".
Seems like a pretty good bet to me. I would agree with the above statements, as an owner of one. The funny thing is, that the Silver is the bottom of the OL tonearm lineup, and they get even better as you go up. The reviews were written before OL introduced their higher line arms. At the price they are asking, it is pretty hard to come close to it. The main down-side of the Silver is that it is fairly plain and pedestrian looking, and doesn't have that "eye candy" effect that other arms may have. But you forget all about that when the stylus is in the groove.
