Tonearm suggestions for my Nottingham Analogue Spacedeck

I’ve never been enamoured with Nottingham’s tonearms, but I can recommend Jelco’s 750 and 850 series arms, Micro Seiki MA-505 (I know you stated no vintage, but a well-kept MA-505 is hard to beat in terms of price/performance) and most of all, my current Thomas Schick 9 (actually a 9.6" arm).

I don’t know how 1500 Euro sounds, but to me it feels almost like a bargain. The bearings feel better than any I’ve operated before, the arm works equally well with a wide range of cartridge weights and compliances (depending on choice of headshell of course) and for the first time I feel that no compromises have to made in regards to any of my cartridges whilst using just a single arm.

The Schick is mounted on an Ace Spacedeck, which I frankly can’t see myself ever swapping out. I’ve listened to the Hyperspace, Space294 and Dais extensively without hearing any improvements worth shelling out for, not to mention at least a metric ton of other turntables through the years.

All fairly subjective of course and YMMV.

I have no experience with the 12", but my 9.6" Schick certainly works exceedingly well with my medium compliance cartridges.  My AT150Sa weighing in at 5.3g and having a compliance of 18 or so ( (@ 10Hz) tracks and performs a treat.  The ART9, with a compliance which should work out at 32 (18 @ 100Hz x 1.8 = 32.4 @ 10Hz, as stated by A-T when I wrote and asked), also sounds and tracks wonderfully.  To be honest 32 seems rather high for the ART9, but A-T made it, not I, and ought to know best.

Again, whether the same would be true of the 12" I have no idea about.

The GrooveMaster II Ti looks like a good choice and I briefly considered it before buying the Schick.  However, after VAT it would have ended up more expensive, as well as appearing to be significantly less flexible in terms of suitable cartridge weight and compliance.

Still, solypsa's offered loaner tonearm seems like a no-brainer...