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Tonearms: Ripoff?

If you search for tonearm recommendations you'll find an overwhelming amount of praise for $1k and less products. Audiomods and Jelco are the two most mentioned.

The Audiomods is just some guy making Rega-based tonearms in a workshop. Just some guy is putting out tonearms that compete with tonearms that cost many times the price -- from the likes of SME, Clearaudio, VPI, Graham, etc.

So the question is -- are tonearms just a scam? How is it that everyone loves Audiomods and Jelco to death and never talks about / dismisses high end tonearms? Is it because there's no real difference between one of these low-cost tonearms and the high end ones? Is an Audiomods Series V ** really ** the equivalent of a SME V? Some guy in a workshop equals the famed precision of SME? Is that once you have the math and materials worked out all tonearms are essentially the same? Or is it that most owners of record players online are dumpster-diving for vintage gear and simply can't afford to listen to better?

So, what's going on?
madavid0
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,346 posts
 
Yup, I traded my tonearm (SME) for a signed first edition of "The Celestine Prophecy" and never looked back.

DeKay
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
Nothing wrong with using vintage tone arms! Denon, Fidelity Research, Grace, Mayware, SME all made excellent ones! I own examples from each of them! I particularly like the Ikeda-san FR29 and FR54 for use with mc cartridges. High-mass arms that lack anti-skate, yet sound fine!
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
And in my collection I have four Empire belt-drive TT's with Empire arms (high mass) that mate well with mc cartridges.
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
There is not enough material in any tone arm to justify such high prices. Though I could say the same about pricey cartridges!
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