Looking for tonearm inspiration

The 4700 is the same SAEC 407-23 model and any of those tonearm manufacturers you named could envy the SAEC quality building levels.

Btw, the SME 3012 tonearm uses that same " archaic " anti-skate mechanism and I have to say works really fine but I name the 3012 because in the last 2 years is considered byt top system audiophiles as one if not the best tonearm out there.

Tango is a Thailand based audiophile whom own not one but 3 American Sound TTs where has mounted around 8 tonearms 3 are the 50K+ SAT and 3 the " archaic " SME 3012. He owns several cartridges as: Goldfinger Statement, Opus 1, top VDH, Etsuro and the like and you know what: he prefers the 3012 over the SAT ! ! ( I think his sytem is over 500K+ easily. )

R.

@mijostyn : "  did answer your question ...."  Really?

Again read it all because I asked not one question over what he posted. He posted:

""  "  SME deals with the reliability issue by having physically larger bearings. So their arms tend to have more friction..""

I asked for facts that can support it and his answer was and is: dead silence as in other of my questions.

Never mind, I don't care any more because as almost always he has nothing on hand on this regards. 

R.

I asked for facts that can support it and his answer was and is: dead silence as in other of my questions.

I stopped answering simply because it was patently obvious you were not interested in the answer, although there is one and its actually rather simple. You need to take it down a notch and be less confrontational. Otherwise its not worth the time- as Samuel Clemens once wrote.

Dear @mijostyn : "  There are tonearms at 1/2 the price that are superior in al...""

For you statement seems to me that you have deep first hand experiences with the SAEC tonearm ( all have the same design . ) and probably with different cartridges.

Is it that way? because if you don't have first hand experiences with then your statement means almost nothing and through that post you are " degrading " the SAEC tonearms.

R.

Something definitely wrong with one of our member:

When I said "stay away from SAECs " I'm not saying is a bad arm but against the 250 seems to me looks as an inferior performer.

Knife-edge tonearm bearing is the exeption and ask you why the 99% of tonearm designers choosed a different bearing design than knife-edge.

As I said the 407/506/8000 are extremely well made with a very high quality excecution, no doubt about and are second to none in this regards but this build quality does not means the tonearm is a " stellar " one because it's not.

I don't think SAEC made any changes because they already had evrything to build it as the original but exist the posibility that they did it. As you said we have to wait. Now, the SAEC problem is not about its choosed alignment parameters, its problem is deeper than that. As you know you can make any kind alignment you choose with any tonearm.

R. (05-03-2018)

and now this:

Dear @rpeluso : Your SAEC 308 has a quality build level second to none. ... ... ...   

R. (08-07-2020)  

I have nothing against SAEC, when i was looking for my first serious tonearm many years ago I had to choose between SAEC 308 and Technics EPA-100. Guest what what my choice @rpeluso  ? :) 

Definitely Technics EPA-100