Origin Live Arm in NYC Area

Neither allows for azimuth adjustment. Study the arms, study cartridge design, watch Ledermann explain in detail, you will see. The axis of rotation of these arms, neither one is anywhere close to parallel let alone coincident with the azimuth of a cartridge. Only Soundsmith with the three removable pieces allows for proper azimuth adjustment.

The bearings are one thing, design is another. OL is a hybrid of unipivot type zero tolerance but combined with standard gimbal bearings so you get the best of both. 

But really, when it comes to materials and construction you cannot go by materials and construction. You can only go by the designer. Like me, I know how good my Conqueror is and have absolutely zero doubt the new one is significantly better. Not only that, but better in a way I will like. Because designers just tend to follow and develop along their natural affinities. 

Not that it matters. Raven just knocked themselves out of contention. If you ever lived with arms like this I think you'd agree. You will at the very least need to spend about as much on the cable as the arm, or if not then I can just about guarantee the Raven will be nowhere even close to a Conqueror. And that after fiddling around trying who knows how many trying to get close. Which you won't. Because at the tiny micro voltages a MC puts out no connection is perfect enough to not do real harm to such a subtle signal. They simply must be eliminated. Which OL does. 

@millercarbon I watched the SS videos and read what Peter posted on the website. My takeaway is that azimuth matters and he wishes more tonearm designers included the ability to adjust this in their designs. He also suggests that SS does more to ensure that the generator and the stylus of their designs are aligned with the body so that the end user can eyeball the correct azimuth using a mirror, since SS cartridges have "stratospheric" channel separation which does not allow for the use of electronic measurement of azimuth. (Which doesn't make sense to me). For the record, I went on the SS site and looked at their entire premium range of low, medium and high output cartridges and NONE of them spec at the "stratospheric" levels Peter claims in the video, where he mentions channel separation figures of "high 30s, low 40s and even high 40s"). Not sure what accounts for the discrepancy between his reference to these extremely high specs and what appears on the spec sheet for each cartridge on his website, which are numbers around 30-32db--figures which are routinely hit by many other manufacturers.