Seeking arm suggestions for a Grace F9R

FWIW, for several years I used an F9 with the Soundsmith "Ruby Cantilever/Nude Contact Line Diamond" stylus assembly (which apparently is similar to the OCL aside from the stylus profile) on my Magnepan Unitrac I arm. I was very pleased with the combo, and so I would second Mr. Rodman’s endorsement of that arm as being an excellent candidate if you can find one.

Regards,
-- Al

I've been using my F-14 LC-OFC with original L12B stylus on Victor UA-7045 with Stax HS-7 headshell. Another great arm for high compliance cartridges is stand alone Luxman TA-1 with arm stabilizer and removable armwand.  

But original Grace is high a compliance cartridge, SoundSmith refurbished is not a high compliance.

There are some nice original Grace styli with nude Shibata tip and nude LineContact tip, this models are the best in F-9 series, it was desidned for F-9F and F-9U (blue color). Upgraded version of FR-9U stylus was made for LEVEL II series (different plastic housing desing, but also blue color), i have two sealed NOS is anyone interested. 

 

Mr chakster- The original Grace F9R’s compliance, was 12 x 10-6cm/Dyne(kinda medium compliance), as were the majority of the F9 series. Many of Mr Ledermann’s Soundsmiths, are in the 22 to 28 x 10-6cm/Dyne range. Don’t know if he can, does or will retip a Grace, with that kind of spec. Many retippers replace only the cantilever and stylus, reusing the compliance material. I doubt that he(Peter) reduces/lowers the compliance, though I can’t swear to anything.

@rodman99999

No, the majority of the Grace F-9 series are very high compliance cartridges, please look at the manuals first. The F-9F,F-9E, F-9U ... compliance is 25@100Hz and this is typical figure for Grace MM cartridges. Keep in mind that you have to multiply this figure on 1,5 at least to find out what is the compliance @10Hz

SoundSmith (as the US manufacturer) measuring compliance at 10Hz from the start, so this is correct. But all japanese manufacturers measure compliance at 100Hz and this is whay different from the reality, so it must be converted. However, 25@100Hz is already high, it reality it’s about 40@10Hz (very high compliance).

I don’t think the original F-9 Ruby is lower in compliance compared to all the Grace F-9. The only low compliance grace F-9 is F-9P (Professional), this figure is 10@100Hz (about 17@10Hz)