What Does It Take To Surpass A SME V?

I haven’t read the whole 3ad but if it hasn’t been indicated yet I would say look at the Audiomods production as well.
Several owners indicate not to use the silicone damper of the SmeV, to proceed with an internal rewiring with pure silver wiring and replace the output cable with others of better quality always in pure silver; the improvements would be evident.

As said in previous Posts, if it weren’t for the Rega Design being so successful and sought after, there would most likely not be a SME IV, V, 309, along with a host of others that poached the Rega Geometry and Design.

Sorry to contradict you but Rega with the RB300 and Sme with the V were both marketed the same year (1985/86)
Unless there was industrial espionage, no one copied from the other.

@pindac Never written that Linn didn’t have an Ariston design, Linn started with Ariston turntables design; do you have a reliable source (magazine or other) to prove that the RB 300 was already produced in 1983?

Given that both arm tubes are cast, requiring moulds to be developed, SME must have had the arm in development before the RB300 was released.

Exactly

The magnesium arms were made raw on behalf of SME to a specialized company in Chicago, magnesium is a dangerous material that ignites easily and companies specialized in treating this metal are needed and then returned to SME which worked, finished and varnished them.
I very much doubt that after seeing the Rega 300 in the space of a few months SME designed an entire tonearm from scratch, looked for components from external companies that they could not produce inside the factory, and finally put the V on the market, so in my opinion it was just a coincidence that Rega was the first to bring a one-piece tonearm to market.
The project certainly started a few years earlier, an arm like the V cannot be improvised in just one year, not even for a bet.
This is to say that it was not copied from the RB300 at all (unless there was industrial espionage)

Likewise, the phono cable stays the same, Kimber KCAG soldered to the DIN plug to the arm (a bit tricky). 

What?!!  How is it possible to use the KCAG which is not shielded and have much hum?
Many claims have been read and heard that this lead is good for high signal connections but is not good for plugging into the output of a turntable and even I who own it have found it a source of severe hum; so how is this possible?