Tonearm recommendations under $1500


Hi everyone,

Hope that you are all doing well.  I was hoping to get some input from vinyl veterans on a tonearm upgrade.  I have an Acoustic Signature Wow XL table, and I bought it with the TA-700 tonearm.  I used that for a couple of years, and then I switched to the Rega RB330 with the upgraded Incognito wiring about a year ago.  I have to say that I've been disappointed overall with the Rega arm.  Admittedly, it's more user-friendly than the Acoustic Signature arm, and my mounting hardware on the table has enough adjustability that I raise/lower the VTA as needed.  However, the Rega arm has a sort of glassy, hard treble that I've never been able to warm up to.  Everything else in the system has been swapped out at least once, and I've tried multiple cartridges all with the same result.  

So, I am in the market for a new tonearm.  I don't want to do any modifications to the arm board, so I am looking for something that is a drop-in replacement for the Rega (9") three-point mount.  Ideally, the arm would have a DIN connection so that I can use the phono cable of my choice.   Acoustic Signature has just come out with their new ("Neo") line of arms.  Unfortunately, they don't make  TA-700 Neo model, and the new TA-1000 NEO is $2300, which is a bit more than I'd like to spend.  

So, I'm reaching out to all of you for some advice.  I could always go up the Rega line, but since I haven't been happy with the RB330, I'm hesitant to make that jump.  The Audiomods arm has gotten great reviews, but the single-run silver cabling worries me as I've never liked silver cabling.  I may just wait a bit longer and go with the AS-1000 Neo, but if anyone has suggestions for an arm in the $1500 range that would meet my needs I would welcome your input.

Thanks for any suggestions you have!

Cheers, Scott
smrex13

Showing 1 response by artemus_5

I believe Origin Live is also a direct replacement. great bang per buck. Zephyr is about $1400 new I bought an illustrious 3 which was supposed to be a temporary arm. That was several yrs ago.