I agree Raul, the 10" Prime/Classic length arm is the one I recommend for almost everyone. It is rigid (good bass) it is quiet (3D printing), it is easy to set up correctly, and does not cost an arm and a leg.. The Prime arm just got Product of the Year from Hi-FI Plus in England and the Prime has gotten more amazing reviews internationally than any table we have ever made mostly due to that arm!! That 10" distance is the magic number for 99% of my customers.
The problem is I have 7 tape machines and hundreds of tapes, many of them master copies, and the 12" 3D printed arm sounds more like the tape than the 10" does. We are talking subtle, it is not gob smack in the face!!! It is a painstaking setup though and is probably not worth the energy in the end.
My son has been helping me clean up my basement and found a notebook from my days in college, opens it up and sees a math problem that took two pages to solve, it was about an electron in free space. I get the math, I believe in math, but in the end I have the reference tape they made the record with on the same tape machine they made the record with so what is right is right, the 12" arm sounds very subtly more like the tape in the upper midrange, those violins are so smooth!!!!!
Raul, you correct about those long Japanese arms, I have been quietly selling off my SAEC and my FR-66 and others because they just don't cut it anymore. Too many parts, too much metal, too much mass!! Really nice to look at though.
HW
