what are some of best tonearms you own or experience with.

Does either of you have a clear idea of what the resonances do that is detrimental to the overall sound?
Regarding the problem of VTA setting, I too have found it difficult to regulate arm height in repeatable fashion

When I got rid of the arm tube resonance in the SME, it was immediately less bright and more detailed; images in space were more palpable. My 'tweak' for the VTA was to make a little mark on the height adjuster know with tiny bit of Whiteout. That was I was able to track how many turns or fractions of a turn I had done to get it right.


By contrast the Triplanar VTA is adjustable on-the-fly, and it has two scales to show you where you are.

Ralph, when I say killed the sound, in my experience the use of fluid damping on the SME V reduced speed and coherency. Similar with the analog survival damping. In my experience soft materials tend to store energy, but dont disspate it cleanly like for example carbon fibre or M2052. You tend to get backward reflections back into the cartridge at the junction of each change in material.

@dover 

The nature of the material in the Sumiko kit allows it to damp the arm tube so there is less energy in it (the vibration is converted to a very slight amount of heat); 'talk back' to the cartridge has been reduced, IOW less resonance. Warren Gehl of ARC originally developed the Analog Survival Kit for Sumiko while he was employed in vibration control for a firm in California about 25 years ago or so. I've known Warren since the late 1970s (we've had plenty of conversation about this topic; I was using prototypes prior to his release of the product to Sumiko). He also developed a platter pad that is spectacular at controlling resonance in the LP itself. I feel lucky to own one; he can't make them anymore since OSHA would never allow it.

 Adding the Analog Survival Kit increased the mass of the arm. For this reason it limited the cartridges that worked to ones that had lower compliance.

This doesn't make sense, increasing the mass would help it work better with lower compliance cartridges - but for the aforementioned reasons I think its not the best option.

If you read both of these comments, first mine and then yours, you'll see that they are saying exactly the same thing, except for the part that says 'This doesn't make sense'. So I'm thinking you misread my comment. Otherwise we seem to be on the same page here.

When I distributed the SME V, it never spoke back to me.

Nor me :) But it was obvious that the arm tube had resonance. If removing that 'killed the sound' clearly you have bigger fish to fry.


Adding the Analog Survival Kit increased the mass of the arm. For this reason it limited the cartridges that worked to ones that had lower compliance.


But what worked better was to use an arm that had an arm tube that was already damped and so did not need the Sumiko kit. The Tiplanar is an example of that; switching from the SME to the Triplanar was a revelation- better in every way.

I ran the SME5 for some years. It benefited greatly from the Sumiko Analog Survival kit; its arm tube had a way of 'talking back' to the cartridge. The Sumiko kit shut that up.


Using the 14" Kuzma we got Best Sound at Show from Dick Olsher.

The references I use are LPs that I recorded. I have the master tapes and know what they sound like. I've used a number of arms at home and at shows; the one that consistently gets everything right is the Triplanar.

It has the hardest metal bearings available on any tonearm.


One thing nice about the Triplanar is you have some ability to adjust the effective mass of the arm. This allow you to use a wider range of cartridges. It is the ability of the arm to track the cartridge correctly that is the most important! VTA can be adjusted on-the-fly. Azimuth is adjustable. The arm bearing is in the plane of the LP (provides for more consistent tracking pressure with warp or bass modulation). The arm tube is damped so it does not talk back to the cartridge.


I have found the SME12" to be excellent as well as the Kuzma 4-point.